An introduction to CI Task Management in JIRA

Jira is a tool that is used by both management and developers. It is the place to document day to day efforts, obstacles, and successes. The progress you document here will be submitted to Ocean Leadership every two weeks.

There is one Jira reporting interface for all the OOI organizations. Each subsystem has its own project in this interface.

The key functions Jira provides for CI are:

• capturing the tasks to be performed in each iteration
• tracking task progress at a broad level
• tracking who is working on which task
• enabling the construction of Bi-Weekly and monthly reports

Quick Access

Bi-Weekly Reports

The Bi-Weekly Report is created by the OOI CI team to inform OOI CI management and Ocean Leadership about our progress. The following steps are involved in updating tasks for the Bi-Weekly Reports:

• Adding 'BWR' progress comments
• Show Task as In Progress
• Resolving a Task

Additional Info and Jira Navigation

• Jira Desktop and Filters
• Creating and Assigning Subtasks
• Logging hours

Updating Jira With Iteration Tasks

To be provided...

The Bi-Weekly Report

The Bi-Weekly Report is created by the OOI CI team to inform OOI CI management and Ocean Leadership about our progress. It is not as formal as the monthly reports, and can capture more detail as appropriate to explain the status of any given task. We produce the bi-weekly report by automatically scanning the Jira database for current Progress and Issue comments that are consolidated into the report. (Note: Only Jira Tasks are summarized, not subtasks.)

The report summarizes Jira task Status (including summary statistics) and appropriately tagged Comments. Your comments attached to each task on progress, issues and highlights provide the bulk of the text for the Ocean Leadership report. Comments can be specifically designated for the Bi-Weekly Report under each of these categories by using the tags listed below.

Untagged comments, and comments in subtasks will not be included in the report, but are still visible to all of OOI and Ocean Leadership by accessing Jira. You should feel free to use the Comment action/field for developer-level comments on each task.

Adding Comments

Comments are added using the tab in the Operations Panel. Enter your Bi-Weekly Report text in the comment field, and append at the end one of the following tags, including the square brackets.

Example Bi-Weekly Report comment

Changing Task Status

In the task window there are several setting which control the progress reported on your tasks. You can change the status of the task as described below.

Show Task as In Progress

When you start work on a task, we would like the task status to show as In Progress. (Other possible values are Stopped or Resolved; the latter is described below.) These status tags will be used for bulk statistics in the bi weekly report and may be one of the most visible signs of our progress.

To Do This: To show the task is in progress, click on the "Start Progress" link in the left column, about midway down.

Resolving a Task

All Tasks must be resolved at the end of an iteration. You must choose the method of resolution which can be: Fixed, Incomplete, or Won't Fix. If the task is mostly complete but has significant issues, this is considered Incomplete. If the task is not largely complete, select Won't Fix.

To Do This: To resolve the task, click on the "Resolve" link in the left column, about midway down. Select the appropriate resolution from the drop-down menu. While resolving the task it is helpful to add a comment (with the standard Bi-Weekly Report tags, if the completion is worth reporting) describing the result of the task in more detail.

Jira info and Navigation

This section is for those who want an introduction to navigating Jira and a few more of the useful details of the Jira interface.

Jira Desktop and Filters

The Jira Desktop lists:

• OOI Projectects (CGSN, CI, EPE, etc..) on the left side of the screen
• Your saved filters and Tasks assigned to you on the right side of the screen

The Jira Desktop

The Jira Filter edit page

You can filter the task list by:

• Project
• Component
• Version
• Text (grep)
• Assignee
• Status
• Date

The Operations Panel of the Task Window

This tool bar includes most of the tools for managing your task and your progress. The most important of these are:

• Assign this issue
• Comment on this issue
• Create SubTask
• Watching/Watch this issue
• Log Work Done

Logging Hours

Logging hours work on a task is a great way to keep track of your progress on a task. It allows the user and the team to track the effort required for different components. As we continue through the iterations this feedback will help us more accurately plan the tasks and balance the workload.

To log your hours select this tab from the options menu. In the hours window, enter the amount of new time you are reporting in the correct units. You can optionally backdate the start Date for the work. Jira will report your effort toward the total of the original estimate. You can adjust the estimate if you feel it is no longer realistic. Finally add a brief description of what you have done.

Assignment and SubTask Creation:

To Assign a task that you control to someone else, it is simply a matter of selecting them from a list of Jira Developers. If their name does not appear in the drop down list, contact dstuebe@asascience.com and I will add them to your project as a developer. Assigning work by subtask can be a helpful mechanism to organize a big task. It allows the team to break out smaller, more manageable pieces and track progress with more granularity. To create a subtask, select this option from the Operations panel.