Administrivia: Golden Tips for Making JIRA Hum

JIRA Administrivia Golden Tips for Making JIRA Hum  Peter White (Atlassian) & Joanna Thurmann (Polycom)‫‏‬

Agenda   Atlassian Support Perspective (pw)‫‏‬ o Know your JIRA o Administration tips o Resources   Tips from the trenches (jt)‫‏‬ o JIRA at Polycom o Real-world best practices

Peter White… Atlassian Support Engineer

JIRA Works most problems with JIRA are configuration related   Having problems? o Documentation – all in one place o Forums o Knowledge Base o Atlassian Support   Avoid these problems! o Staging server o TEST TEST TEST!

But I just want to tell the time! then you need to understand how it works

JIRA is very flexible JIRA is very complicated   Use simple configurations o Consistent naming   Limited number of administrators o Outsource project administration with roles   Document your changes   Don’t get frustrated o Support Engineers learn new things about JIRA all the time and we use it every day!

JIRA is Well Documented there is waaaay too much to read about JIRA   Where do you start? o JIRA Quickstart guide o JIRA 101   What next? Topics to understand: o Backups o Workflows o Roles & Groups o Plugins

Tip#1: Turn off XML Backup   Use native database tools   They are faster, and guaranteed consistent   During XML backups, the database is not locked

Tip#2: Use Roles   Minimizes the number of schemes   Allows delegation of administration   Use Scheme Tools to migrate from groups to roles

Tip#3: Workflow Drafts   Pre-draft workflow change updates all issues   With drafts usually only the workflow is changed (Faster!)‫‏‬

Tip#4: Useful Plugins   Useful plugins you may not know about:   JIRA Suite Utilities   JIRA Groovy Plugin   Visualizing JIRA Workflows   SU Plugin

Tip#5: Customizing text in JIRA   Use the JIRA translation file to change wording   Modify the velocity templates for email notifications

Tip#6: Silent Killers   Subscriptions (to groups eg JIRA-users)‫‏‬   Messages in POP accounts that don’t go away / Concurrent services   Forgotten XML backup service

Tip#7: Quick java performance boosts   -XX:+UseParallelOldGC   -XX:+ConcMarkSweepGC

Resources   Guides to read o  Creating issues and comments from email o  Troubleshooting issues and comments from email o  JIRA Workflows   Bug and feature database   Most popular feature requests

Administrivia: Tips from the Trenches Joanna Thurmann JIRA Systems Administration June 1, 2009 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Polycom is the global leader in telepresence, video, and voice solutions   Polycom allows you to connect anytime, anyplace and with any device in a virtual experience as natural as being there   www.polycom.com   joanna.thurmann@polycom.com – JIRA Systems Administrator 2 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  3 ½ yrs old   Single global instance   ~24x7   Migrated from 7 other systems   Internal & External •  130,000+ issues •  120 projects •  340 custom fields •  80 workflows •  3900 users (~300 concurrent) •  340 groups 3 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Buy Enterprise Edition   Determine ‘must-have’ vs ‘nice-to-have’ features   Get familiar with the JIRA ‘wish-list’   Know JIRA limitations   Develop standards   Allow play in a sandbox   Good Training   Do Barn raising* – worked for us 4 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Search Limitations   Our Workaround: Custom dashboards, Custom field search page, Export to Excel   Permission Limitations   Our Workaround: workflow transition screens & action conditions   No subcomponents or subversions   Our Workaround: cascaded select fields   Cannot edit or effective-date custom field options:   Our workaround: ‘archived’ field equivalents, bulk edits   Cannot rename users or groups after creation 5 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

6 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Embrace ‘brute-force’   Use available methods   Avoid SQL inserts   Migrate open-issues only   Create links to old system   Do user mapping before you migrate   Get a good Atlassian development partner (CustomWare) 8 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Setup 1-2 staging instances   Inspect the JIRA logs for errors or warnings   Add log4j.properties entries to audit execution of plugins   On-demand Training - write a guide, record a session   User Communication   SQL warnings* – don’t do what we did 10 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  What to document?   Everything   Why document?*   The last JIRA upgrade at Polycom would have sunk without it 11 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Standardize   Less is more   Custom Fields - Limit Context & Reuse   Determine Product Structure   Use Project Roles – e.g. Polycom Partner access   Understand the RESOLUTION field* – we didn’t and it cost us 13 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

Who system admin (2) divisional jira-administrators (12) Why Knows the system better Knows the business better What   Manage system fields (priorities,   Manage workflows issue types, resolutions,   Manage components/versions statuses)   Manage custom field values   Create Projects   Bulk operations   Manage users/groups   Create shared filters, dashboards &   Define standards group filter subscriptions   Approve plugins   Maintain permissions   Manage security   Maintain notifications How Communicate well Train them well 15 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Use Plugins conservatively   Wait for compatible versions   Beware of leaks   Consider performance   Review JIRA logs for warnings & errors   Beware of potential end-of-life Beware: Once you’ve deployed a plugin, it’s hard to pull it out 16 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Allocate sufficient memory   Buy adequate hardware   Consider JIRA Clustering & MultiSite solutions from WANdisco   Archiving JIRA Environment at Polycom:   HP ProLiant DL580 G4, 4 x 3.4 GHz Dual Core processors   8 GB of RAM (3.5 for Java, 2 for SQL Server)   Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition 64-bit   SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition   JIRA 3.13.3, JDK 1.6 Back to Contents 17 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  http://www.customware.net/   CustomWare is an Atlassian Partner providing rapid implementation, training and support to Atlassian customers worldwide   CustomWare worked on and offsite   Strong Enterprise Integration background, understanding of Web Services, Siebel etc.   Fast, reliable & thorough – they *really* know the Atlassian products   Have a large team and 7 x 24 support   Helped us with some complex custom Bugzilla migrations   Have lots of plugins for JIRA and Confluence, including Salesforce.com integration for both products. 19 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Clustering balances workload across servers at a single site over a LAN   MultiSite balances workload across multiple sites over a WAN and resolve WAN latency issues   Both solutions can be implemented in combination   Provides self-healing & eliminates risk in disaster recovery Back to Contents 20 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Schedule regular Java restarts - to clear memory   Schedule reindexes – since index exceptions can occur   Run integrity checker regularly and fix errors   Schedule multiple backup services to different locations   Do secondary database-based backup   Backup attachments 21 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Search Limitations:   Limited Boolean search (4.0)   cannot search for empty /null fields (4.0)   cannot search for multiple values in a cascaded select field   cannot combine search results   cannot search for components & versions across projects even if the values are the same   can only search on custom fields across projects if the prj context is the same   dashboards and canned reports only get you so far   Permission Limitations   No field-level permissions   No permissions per state   No permissions per issue type   Can’t hide time-tracking, work log or change history (e.g. for external JIRAs)   Polycom Workaround: workflow transition screens, workflow action conditions 22 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Custom Fields   Limit Context by Project/Issue Type   Reuse fields (use project contexts)   Don’t put every custom field in a Global context: it clutters the Issue Navigator   Understand the RESOLUTION field !!!!   When an issue has a Resolution field set, JIRA considers it Closed. This affects preset filters and canned reports/queries   set Resolution field ONLY when issue is considered closed (e.g. on Workflow Transition Screen)   Consider a custom plugin to transfer ‘intermediate’ resolution field to system Resolution field (we run a custom plugin from CustomWare) 23 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

  Determine Product Structure.   many small projects (i.e. one per product) VS.   fewer bigger projects with more components, versions, & cascading select custom fields to group issues by ProductLine~Product and Release~Build   You can denote the product information on an issue in these various ways   Project name itself   Components field   Version field   Custom fields: single and multiple select   Cascading select field   The first 3 can be managed by project admin. The last 2 can only be managed by sysadmin   Limitations on cascading selects: not displayed on charts/graphs, cannot search on multiple values in cascading select field 24 POLYCOM CONFIDENTIAL

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Administrivia: Golden Tips for Making JIRA Hum

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