Unify issues and source like never before
Jira 6.2 is here, and we built it with developers in mind. In Jira 6.1 developers could start coding right from Jira by creating a branch. In Jira 6.2 we continued to build on that foundation, and brought all of the components of the developer’s world into Jira. Each issue becomes a dashboard where you can not only start development, but see code all the way through to deployment. Developers can drill down into branches, commits, pull requests, code reviews, builds, and deployments. Working with Git? Awesome! Using Subversion or Perforce? We’ve got you covered, too.
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Organizing your world
Software development is one of the most collaborative tasks ever. Product owners contribute user stories, test and support engineers report product defects with screenshots and system logs, and developers collaborate using branches and ask for feedback using code reviews and pull requests. In Jira 6.2, we’ve made all of these development artifacts a central part of the issue tracking experience.
With Jira’s new integration into development tools, teams have one highly visible source of truth for all relevant information related to an issue, from its creation through to development, testing, and deployment
Maurizio Mancini, director of quality assurance, YellowPages Group
Follow from branch to deployment
Jira 6.2 introduces the development panel to the issue detail screen in Jira, and the detail view in Jira Agile.
We expanded the Create branch feature in Jira 6.1, and now highlight the entire life cycle of code: branches, pull requests, code reviews, builds, and deployments. Jira integrates with many popular Git solutions including Stash (on premises) and Bitbucket (hosted) as well as Mercurial, Subversion, or Perforce.
Interested? Let’s walk through an example of using Jira and Stash to fix a bug in project called the “developer-toolbox”, and deploy the change.
1. Start a branch – With the Create branch link, Jira helps you get started by pre-populating the branch name from the issue. Stash users can link issue types to branch types to track the type of work being done.
2. View branches and commits – Jira’s development panel highlights the status of all branches related to an issue. Anyone unfamiliar with the issue can easily get up to speed on the state of development, and see what’s been merged and what’s still open.
3. Merge with confidence – Code reviews protect quality and distribute knowledge throughout the team. See what the status of all Git pull requests or Crucible code reviews for SVN, P4, and CVS. Jira lets the team know who needs to review, and they can take action right from the issue.
4. Validate and deploy – Ever need to know the status of a change, or find that something wasn’t fixed? Jira integrates with Bamboo to link the results of the team’s automated tests and deployments. Issue reporters can follow the deployment of their change out to staging and production.
Effective issue tracking is about bringing all the elements of work into one central place. The new development panel adds to Jira’s existing issue tracking features like flexible custom fields, configurable workflow, issue history, watchers, and a unified comment stream. The new development panel will empower any team to deliver high-quality software by letting everyone contribute to the development cycle.
Pro tip: Love the command line? Let the power of the development panel work for you. Just include the issue key in commit messages, and branch names saves you the interruption of answering “What is the status…?” questions. Jira 6.2 keep you coding.
See status clearly
Jira 6 was a whole new Jira, in which we delivered a modern experience using the Atlassian Design Guidelines (ADG). The new Jira look and feel is consistent with other Atlassian applications, so users are more productive using Jira alongside Confluence, Bitbucket, Stash, and other Atlassian products. Jira 6.2 takes ADG even further with new status indicators. Status is the heartbeat of an issue, and Jira 6.2 ships with simpler, text-based status indicators that make it easy to see the latest status of any issue. We believe that all issues in Jira go through three major phases: New, In progress, and Complete. Each status defined in Jira will be in one of these phases.
The color of the status lozenge quickly communicates what phase of work this issue is in. We realize that every workflow isn’t three steps, of course – software teams might use a set of statuses to manage their workflow.
Many software teams work across global regions. The new status indicators also work well in non-English-speaking locales, and users will be able to translate custom statuses. Let’s take a look at the status “open” in English, German, and Japanese.
Jira 6.2 tracks more than just issues. The new status indicators traverse the development workflow for branches, pull requests, builds, as well as issues bringing a consistent UI experience to the developer’s workflow.
Pro tip: Jira 6.2 includes a new JQL field called statusCategory to find issues in the three major phases of work. Rather than type “status in (a,b,c…)”, just query “statusCategory = “done”
Optimize workflows for every team
Workflow lets teams scale and get more done together by solidifying their work culture. Teams that consistently work together delivering innovation are powered by a workflow that fits their style. Jira 6.2 helps Jira administrators configure a workflow for each team that fits like a glove, since workflow configuration is now in the context of a project. Jira Administrators can browse and edit Jira workflows for each issue type inside of a project.
Jira 6.2 still allows administrators to share workflows between projects and issue types. It’s now easier than ever to see the impact of any given change. Jira shows which issue types and projects use the current workflow and will inherit any changes. We’ve also brought phase colors to the statuses in the workflow so it’s easy to see how issues flow from new states, to in progress, then to done.
Read on for even more
As a self-professed JQL (Jira Query Language) nerd, there are two enhancements that you can use to trick out your Jira. Jira now supports a new field, Creator, that records the person filing the issue in Jira. How do creator and reporter differ? Often times we hear great feedback about our product that we’d like to capture. If you physically file that issue in Jira, you’re the creator. By setting the reporter to the other person they are included in the lifestyle of that issue. They will be included in notifications as well as any workflow items that route issues back to the reporter. Jira will keep them in the know rather than someone having to manually update them.
Also, Jira 6.2 now supports an attachment field in JQL. Need logs submitted with issue reports? You can now run queries to find issues that do not have logs attached to them. Just add the following JQL to your query:
[cc lang=’sql’ ]attachments is not empty[/cc]
Also, those running the latest versions of Microsoft Windows are now covered, since Jira 6.2 now supports Microsoft Internet Explorer 11.
Take the next step
Jira 6.2 deeply integrates into your development culture by bringing source code to the forefront of the conversation. Teams are tighter and more transparent, and developers are more efficient as Jira communicates the status of an issue to dev leads, product owners, and the test team.
Regardless of your team’s size or location, Jira 6.2 provides one unified vision for everyone, everywhere. Save time and deliver faster by keeping everyone on the same page with Jira 6.2
New to Jira? Get up and running in a matter of minutes with a free Jira OnDemand trial.
Ready to upgrade?
Check out the full release notes and start seeing real results with Jira 6.2 today.
OnDemand customers, congrats! You’ve have been auto-upgraded to Jira 6.2.
Check back to http://atlassianblog.wpengine.com/jira/ over the next few weeks. We will be highlighting key features and use cases using the new Jira on the blog.