Versions Tab

Versions tab of the Release board enables you to:

• explore all versions from projects added to the board

• change status of any version using drag-and-drop

• organize versions rank in the column using drag-and-drop

Versions are displayed as cards with the following information:

• name

• start date

• release date and delay status

• project details (icon and key)

Type of Versions

Release Management App is built around 2 type of versions, namely

• fixVersion - standard versions reside in the projects (also called as Jira Releases)

• Virtual Versions - the versions that are proprietary to Release Management App only and could be

  • Epic based

  • Sprint based (coming early 2022)

  • Custom JQL based

Throughout this section and the rest of documentation when we use a notion of “version“ both fixVersion and Virtual Version. In case, there are limitations or difference in use cases an appropriate notice will be made.

Common operations with Versions

Create version

You can create new versions directly from the board, without any need to navigate between projects, and use the built-in create version function.

Fix Version

Click "Create > Create version" button to open a new version dialog:

• Project. Select a project host for a new version. Only the board projects where the current user has "Create version" permissions are available.

• Name. Version name along with Project are the only mandatory fields.

• Description. You can either put plain text or click “HTML editor“ to provide HTML markup.

• Packages. To specify a list pf packages that a version belongs to.

• Start date, Release date. Self-explanatory.

Click the "Save" button to create a new version that will be placed at the bottom of the default “unreleased” board column. You can also tick “Click another“ to create yet another version with similar details.

Virtual Version (Epic, Sprint or JQL Version)

Click “Create > Create virtual version“ to open new version dialog:

By default the version is JQL-based and you need to specify a valid JQL that will be executed by your Jira Instance.

If you want to derive the version from Epic toggle the Epic trigger and select Epic from the list.

The rest of the fields are the same as fixVersion.

Move version through Release management process

Configure versions workflow

You can configure custom versions workflow in the board configuration.

When you create a new board it goes with 3 “default“ statuses which are displayed as board columns:

• Todo

• In Progress

• Done

You can add your own status (e.g. UAT) and define its position in the workflow sequence

For more details please navigate to https://releasemanagement.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/RMC/pages/92078312/Configure+board+settings#Versions-workflow-section section of this documentation.

Change versions order and/or status

With the drag-and-drop you can move versions to another column to update their statuses.

Each board column is mapped to version's standard Released or Unreleased status.

• Unreleased is usually used for Todo, In Progress, Integration testing and UAT, etc.

• Released is usually is used for Done

Mark version as Released

When you move a version to another column the version status is automatically changed to released or unreleased based on the destination column mapping.

When version is released due to its status change the Release version dialog is displayed:

You can specify a release date and oversee all the version's unfinished tasks in this dialog.

Version details

Summary view

By clicking on a version card on the release board the Version Details dialog is shown. By default, “Summary” tab is displayed. For all the future occurrences the system will remember your last tab and navigate you to it.

You can view and update the following version fields using inline editing:

• name

• description

• packages

• status

• start date

• release date

Projected release date (PRD) & release delay duration

Projected release date and the release delay duration in days is calculated based on version start date (SD), release date (RD) and issues statistics.

When version is delayed the “Release date” is highlighted with red color and the delay duration in days is displayed next to it.

Version PRD

Version PRD is calculated when all conditions below are met:

• SD is not empty

• SD is in the past

• 👉 % of done work >=30%

• Version is unarchived

• Version is unreleased

Version delay status

The version is considered as delayed in two cases:

1. RD is not empty and RD is in the past

2. RD is not empty and PRD is calculated and PRD > RD

Version delay duration

Version delay duration in days is shown if the version is delayed (see above) and ReleaseDate is not empty.

Issues statistics

Issues statistics is a “Progress Widget” that shows the number of issues by corresponding statuses - To Do, In Progress and Done - as they defined in issues workflows.

For calculating data for the widget we took the same approach as Atlassian calculating Version Statistics Page in Jira Releases. So you should expect to see pretty much the same data.

By clicking on any of the statistic numbers you will be automatically redirected to “Issues View“ with the appropriate filter applied to review corresponding issues list.

Related work

Atlassian has recently (Spring’23) introduced Related work functionality for Releases (versions). In a nutshell, this is a look up of different activities associated with Releasing the versions that could be connected to some external links as well as Jira Issues. Read more details here.

If this is smth you use we seamlessly support it in our App.

Click on any Fix version …

.. under the packages section you will find Related work.

You will see existing related work added either in Release Management App or in Jira’s Release Hub. You can also add new items.

Comments

You can leave comments for any version in rich text format to share some details or insights with your team.

You can also Edit it if you made some typoo or delete completely.

History of transitions

You can see an audit trail of all transitions, namely who and when made the move.

Changes history

Similar to transitions history “changes history“ tab outlines all the changes performed to version, the date and the user performed the action.

Actions

From version summary view you can trigger certain actions, namely:

• View on roadmap. You will be redirected on roadmap view and your selected version or package will be highlighted.

• Release Notes. You will be redirected to release notes screen to select appropriate template for your version and generate your notes.

• Reports. Choose one of the reports you want to generate for your version.

• Actions

  • Convert to package - allows to convert virtual versions into package. This will create appropriate fix versions in all the effected projects and re-assign issues to those fix versions. Plus all the versions will be licked to new package.

  • Archive

  • Delete

Milestones

In addition to custom workflows for versions and packages, Release Management app allows to create intermediate milestones for both that could be

• either linked to accomplishments of certain steps in workflow

• or other important check-ins, not necessarily connected with workflow steps

Once specified for versions and/or packages, milestones will be outlined on Roadmap view (incl. Gadgets) as well as become input parameters for Burnup and Trends Reports (incl. Gadgets).

For more details please navigate to Milestones "on the way" section of this documentation.

Issues View

You can browse all issues assigned to the selected version on the “Issues” tab of Version details dialog.

The following issue fields are displayed by default:

Change columns configuration

If you want to change the fields to display (including Custom Fields) or the order please click on “Fields Configuration“ button to do so

Actions

The following actions are available on Issues View:

• filter and sort issues

• view all or selected issues in Issue Navigator

• edit issues versions

Filter issues

Issues can be filtered by the following issues fields:

• summary - text search filter

• issue type - multi-select filter

• status category - multi-select filter with “ToDo”, “In Progress” and “Done” options

Sort issues

Issues can be sorted by all displayed fields clicking on the field name. Another click is changing the order of the sorting.

Altering Fix Version for issues

Users with “Edit Issue” permission can alter fixVersions property of the issues assigned to the version as well as add new or remove existing.

If you are viewing issues of a particular version and you remove this version from an issue then the issue will disappear from the list when you click Refresh button in the toolbar:

Add existing issues

Users with “Edit Issue” permission can add existing issues to the version. To do so you should click “ + Existing” menu item.

In the “Add issues” dialog you can search for issues you want to add click Add. You can add multiple issue at a time. To do so just continue typing in search input.

Create new issues

Users with “Create Issue” permission can add new issue to the version using simplified in-line editing at the bottom of the screen with just two fields:

• Issue type

• Summary

If issue type that you are trying to create demands few other mandatory fields we will show Jira standard “Issue Creation“ dialog to try again.

Commits

To track source code changes in scope of any versions please navigate to Commits section of this documentation.

Environments

To understand to witch environments the current versions is deployed please navigate to Environments section of this documentation.

🚀 Swimlanes

Swimlanes functionality on the board view are aligned with Swimlanes on the Roadmap view.

You can group version per project, tag or issue type. Few sorting options are also available.

But the most widely used case is grouping by packages (or cross project releases)

If the same version is added to several packages and “Package swimlanes” are enabled then it will be displayed in every package swimlane.

Move unfinished tasks to another/new version

If you release the version with some unfinished tasks we will detect it to offer you move them to next/upcoming version if it exists or create a new one

Merge versions

You can easily merge version into another. To do so right click on the version you want to merge

or click on it to find “Merge“ in actions menu

You will be asked to select a destination version

Upon confirmation all the issues will be reassigned to destination version and the source version will be deleted.

Extra: Multi-select and bulk operations

With Ctrl+ users can select multiple versions on the board. Thus they can move them to destination column all together:

Once multiple versions are selected right click on any of them provides a list of available bulk operations. At the moment we support:

• bulk archive

• and bulk delete

• assign environments for multiple version

• create package our of versions

More ideas sits in our backlog, but please reach out our support if you want another bulk operation to be prioritized.