Renaming “Releases“ to “Packages“

Topics

Work with Versions

Versions tab of the Release board enables you to:

• explore all "Fix Versions" from projects added to a board

• add/remove "Virtual Versions" via custom JQL or Epic Link (available in App ver. 4.0+)

• group versions by packages

• view version details

• create/update/delete versions

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

• archive/unarchive versions

• search versions by name

• search versions by Archived status

• organize versions order 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) for "Fix Versions"

• version issues progress statistics

 or 

Type of versions

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

• Fix Versions - 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

  • either JQL-based

  • or Epic-based

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

Create version

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

Fix Versions

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

Open

• Project - select a project to create a version in. Only the board projects where the current user "Create version" permissions are displayed.

• Name- version name is the only mandatory field.

• Description, Start date, Release date are optional version fields.

• Required custom properties that are defined for versions.

Click the "Save" button to create a new version which is added to the bottom of the default unreleased board column.

Virtual version

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

Open

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 specify existing Epic Key.

The rest of the fields are the same as fixVersion.

Version summary

If you click a version card on the board the version dialog is displayed with the active Summary tab by default.

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

• name

• description

• packages

• status

• start date

• release date

In addition to version properties the following additional information about version is available:

1. issues statistics

2. projected release date

3. comments

4. transitions

Issues statistics

Issues statistics is a progress widget which shows the number of version issues grouped by issue status category: To Do, In Progress, Done

The issue statistics widget data are calculated the same way as on Version Statistics page in Jira Releases.

In addition to issues by status category the number of flagged issues is also displayed.

You can browse issues of any status category and flagged issues using statistics number link.

Projected release date

Projected release date and the release delay duration in days is calculated based on version start date, release date 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.

You can find the details on projected release date, delayed status and delay duration calculation logic in the FAQ section.

Version comments

Users can view/add all comments and edit/delete own comments.

Comments are displayed in the "Comments" tab sorted by comment create date. The newest comments are displayed on top of the list:

Version transitions

All version transitions are tracked automatically and are displayed on the Transitions tab of the version details.

Each transition includes the following details:

• The user who changed the version status

• Date and time of the status change

• How long the version was in the source status

Tags

Tags functionality is similar to labels functionality in Jira, The major difference is in context: Tags are applied on version level in contrast to labels which are applied on issue level.

User can assign multiple Tags to each version. In order to do so:

1. Open version details screen

2. Start typing in the Tags field

3. User will be suggested to add existing labels or create a new one

Filter by Tags

User can filter tags by using Tags filter:

Version issues

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

The following issue fields are displayed by default:

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:

• filter and sort issues

• view all or selected issues in Issue Navigator

• view the last comment of a flagged issue

• edit issues Fix Versions (not available for Virtual Versions)

• add new or existing issues to the current version

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, Done options

Sort issues

Issues can be sorted by all displayed fields using the field name.

View issues in Navigator

Select multiple issues with Ctrl/Command key pressed and then choose View in Issue Navigator option in the context menu.

Click  Total issues in the bottom of the issues list to view all issues in the Issue Navigator.

View flagged comment

An issue can be marked as Flagged on the Agile Board with the optional comment.

In the issues list you can click on Flag icon to view the latest issue comment if available.

The flagged comment is marked with Flag added hint.

Code view

Please see details about code view in Track source code changes chapter.

Edit versions

Users with Edit Issue permission can edit issue versions, 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 Search button in the toolbar:

Add existing issues

Users with Edit Issue permission can add existing issues to the version they browse issues for using Add issue → Existing menu item.

In the opened Add issues dialog you can search for issues and choose to add one or several issues.

Add new issues

Users with Create Issue permission can add new issue to the version using simplified Create issue form with just two fields:

• Issue type

• Summary

Use Create another checkbox if you need to create more than one issue. In that case Create Issue dialog will be reopened automatically once the new issue is saved.

In case there some other required fields user would be suggested to create issue using Create Issue page in Jira.

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.

Commits 

Please see details about commits tab in Track source code changes chapter.

Environments management

On the Environments tab the user can see all environments where the version is available, add new environments (deploy the version to the environment) or delete the version from the environments.

Please read more detail in Environments management chapter.

Change version status

You can configure custom versions workflow in the board configuration.

When you create a new board its workflow has 3 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.

With the drag-and-drop you can move version to another column to update its status.

Each board column is mapped to version's built-in Released property.

• Todo, In Progress and UAT - Released = false (unreleased versions)

• Done - Released = true (released versions)

Release version

When you move a version to another column the version is automatically released or unreleased based on the new 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.

You cannot move unfinished tasks to other versions or see version warnings while moving the version to the with "Released" status column.

Such changes should be implemented  separately and in advance.

A version can be moved from an "Unreleased" status column to a "Released" status column,  provided that the user has admin permissions for the version's project.

User can update status of multiple versions in bulk. Read more details here -  “Bulk version status update” chapter Bulk status update of versions in release.

Archive version

The user can archive and unarchive versions by using the corresponding option in the pop-up menu, by right-clicking the mouse.

User can archive multiple versions in a bulk. Read more details in Bulk version archive or unarchive operations

The versions on the board can be filtered by Archived property:

In situations where archived and unarchived version are shown on the board, archived releases will be "greyed" and an “Archived” label will be shown on the card. Archived versions may be moved to another column or edited without any restrictions.

Archive versions in Bulk

In addition to above listed capabilities you can also archive versions in Bulk. To do so any columns have a special control when you put a mouse over the column header

once you click on it a confirmation dialog will show to list all your versions from selected column grouped by projects

Here you can adjust the list of versions to be released.

Click Archive to confirm.

Delete version

A user can delete a version from the board. In order to do so, right click on the version and choose "Delete" option:

Group versions by package

You can group versions by packages using Package Swimlanes toggle.

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

When such a version is moved to another column in one swimlane it will be automatically moved to the same column in all other swimlanes.

Sync-up version and release dates

When packages contain a large number of versions would be difficult to:

• keep versions and release dates in a consistent state

• ensure each version has a start date that is equal or later than the start date of the package

• ensure the version release date is earlier than, or equal to, the release date of the package

Release Management app automatically checks the abovementioned conditions and suggests to update the package to keep its dates in a consistent state with versions.

In the Update version dialog user can:

• update package with the suggested dates

• keep original dates and accept inconsistency

• cancel an operation.

The Update version dialog is displayed in the following cases:

• To ensure consistency:

  • If the release date of the package is not empty and the nested version has a release date later than the release date of the main package

  • If the start date of the package is not empty and the start date of the nested version of the package is earlier than the package start date

• To schedule package, if it has empty start or release dates

  • If the start date of the package is empty and the nested version of the package has a start date. In that case the app will suggest initiating package start date with the version start date.

  • If the release date of the package is empty and the nested version of the package has the release date. In that case the app will suggest initiating a release date of the package, using the version release date.