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MPCV Tracking Tool Cheat Sheet

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Hong Chen edited this page May 28, 2015 · 22 revisions

Table of Contents

Issue Types

All issue types are listed as following:

  • Action
  • Action Sub-task
  • Architecture
  • Architecture Sub-task
  • Deliverable
  • Deliverable Sub-task
  • Inline Other Status
  • Inline Other Status Sub-task
  • Meeting
  • Meeting Sub-task
  • Sprint
  • Sprint Sub-task

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Create Issue

As a MPCV project tracking tool Jira user, in general, you are only allowed to create new issues for Meeting and Meeting Sub-task issue types as most issues of other issue types are pre-populated.

  • Click Create button at the top of the screen or Keyboard shortcut: c to open the Create Issue dialog box.
  • Select the relevant Project and Issue Type on the Create Issue dialog box.
  • Complete the desired fields — required ones which are marked by an asterisk.
    • If you want to access fields that are not shown on this dialog box or you want to hide existing fields:
      • Click the Configure Fields button at the top right of the screen.
      • Click Custom and select the fields you want to show or hide by selecting or clearing the relevant check boxes, respectively, or click All to show all fields.
        • When you next create an issue, JIRA remembers your last choice of selected fields.
        • Optional: To create a series of similar issues – with the same Project and Issue Type – check the Create another at the bottom of the dialog.
  • Click Create to save or Cancel to discard.

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Edit Issue

  • Locate the issue you want to edit.

    • Click the Edit button (at the top-left of the 'view issue' page) or Keyboard shortcut: e to open the Edit Issue dialog box.
      • Even though you always can click the pencil icon to edit any editable field shown on the 'view issue' page inline, the Edit Issue dialog box shows all fields associated with the selected issue type. On 'view issue' page, only fields that have values are displayed. Also 'view issue' page displays a lot of other information regarding this particular issue, it is divided into several areas with Details, Description, Sub-Tasks (if available), Activity on the left and and People and Date on the right. You could get overwhelmed by the rich information on the screen and wonder where some specific fields are. If this is the case, bringing up Edit Issue could give you a big relief :-)
      • Tip: Keyboard shortcut: , then enter or select the desired field name to edit a particular field.

  • Modify your issue's details in the appropriate fields of the Edit Issue dialog box. A brief description is shown under each field to help you to figure out what to input for that field.

  • Click the Update button to save your changes or Cancel to discard the change.

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Transition Issue

A JIRA workflow is the set of statuses and transitions that an issue goes through during its life-cycle. Each MPCV Jira issue type has a different workflow associated with it. Each issue has a status, which indicates where the issue currently is in its life-cycle (workflow). JIRA does not allow arbitrary change of the issue status - Issue must go through a workflow transition. The following example uses Meeting issue type workflow to demonstrate how to transition an issue or change the status of an issue.

  • Meeting Issue Workflow

    • Click View Workflow next to the current issue status on the issue view screen top Details area.
    • Meeting Issue workflow pop-up window will be displayed and the workflow is shown as following (you can mouse over objects to see transition names):
      • In this case, there are 3 statuses that are: NEW, IN PROGRESS, COMPLETED. NEW can be transitioned to IN PROGRESS through In Progress and IN PROGRESS can be transitioned to COMPLETED through Completed. COMPLETED can be transitioned back to IN PROGRESS through In Progress in case meetings are re-opened.

  • Transition from NEW to IN PROGRESS

    • You should see the transition name for transitioning to next workflow status from the buttons above Details area. Since this particular issue's status is NEW, the transition button you see is In Progress as it is the transition which a Meeting issue needs to go through to get to the next status based on its workflow as stated above.
    • Click In Progress to transition this issue from NEW to IN PROGRESS. You should see that the issue status is changed from NEW to IN PROGRESS. And the In Progress button is changed to Completed as it is the next transition for the issue to be transitioned to the next status.

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Search Issue

You can search for issues using a range of search criteria. There are three different ways to define search criteria: Quick Search, Basic Search, and Advanced Search. Also, the search can be saved as a filter in JIRA, allowing you to recall the same search and run it again or even share it with other users. So searching issues by recalling a filter is exactly the same as searching issues using search criteria.

  • Quick Search
    • The Quick Search box is located at the top right of your screen as: Quick Search

    If you type in the key of an issue, you will jump straight to that issue. For example, if you type in 'MPCV-727' (or 'mpcv-727'), and press the Enter you will be redirected to the JIRA issue 'MPCV-727'.

    • Quick search also enables you to perform 'smart' searches with minimal typing. The more you use this, the more tricks you'll find. Examples:
    Search Text Description
    mpcv architecture Finds all Architecture issues in MPCV project
    architecture Finds all Architecture issues
    my Finds all issued assigned to me
    r:me Finds issues reported by me
    r:hchen3 Finds issues reported by username hchen3
    created:today Finds all issues created today
    created:yesterday Finds all issues created yesterday
    • You can also search for any word within the issue(s) you are looking for, provided the word is in one of the following fields:
      • Summary
      • Description
      • Comments
  • Basic Search

    • Choose Issues > Search for Issues. The issue navigator is displayed.

      • If there are existing search criteria, click the New filter button to reset the search criteria.
      • If the Basic link is showing (in other words, you are in the Advanced searching mode), click Basic to switch search modes. This is what you should see:

    • Enter the criteria for the search. You can search against specific fields and/or search for specific text, as described below:

      • Searching against specified fields — To search against specified fields, you need to select the fields then specify the fields values that you want to find.
        • Select fields as criteria — The Project, Issue Type, Status and Assignee fields are always available as criteria. If you want to search using additional fields as criteria, click More and tick the desired fields.
        • Specify the value for each field — Click the field criterion and tick/enter the desired value in the drop-down. If the desired value is not shown in the list, start typing the name of value the to filter the list.
      • Searching against specified text — Enter the desired text in the Contains text text box and press Enter. The Summary, Description, Comments, and all text-based custom fields will be searched. You can use modifiers in your search text, such as wildcards and logical operators.
  • Advanced Search

    An advanced search allows you to use structured queries to search for JIRA issues. When you perform an advanced search, you are using the JIRA Query Language (JQL).

    • Perform an advanced search

      • Choose Issues > Search for Issues. The issue navigator will be displayed.
        • If there are existing search criteria, click the New filter button to reset the search criteria.
        • If the Advanced link is showing, click it to switch to advanced searching.
      • Type your query using the fields, operators and field values or functions.
        • For example, the following query will find all issues ordered by Item # in the "MPCV Project Management" project with issue type is either Architecture or Architecture Sub-task and they are just updated today: project = "MPCV Project Management" AND issuetype in (Architecture, "Architecture Sub-task") AND updated >= startOfDay() AND updated <= endOfDay() ORDER BY "Item #"
      • Click the Search button to run your query.

    • Use Filters

      • Choose Issues -> Search for issues.
        • System filters – My Open Issues, Reported by Me, Recently Viewed, All Issues – and your favorite filters are shown on the left of the issue navigator. You also can find shared filters or even create you own as described in later sections.
      • Run a filter by clicking it. Your search results are displayed on the same page.

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Locate Shared Filters

  • Choose Issues -> Manage Filters. There are 4 tabs on the left:
    • Favorite - shows you all your favorite filters.
      • To add a filter as a favorite using the Manage Filters page:
        • Choose Issues > Manage Filters.
        • Locate the filter you wish to add as a favorite. If you created the filter, it is listed under the My tab, otherwise use the Search tab to find it.
        • Click the star icon next to the filter name to add it to your favorites.
      • To add the filter that you are currently viewing as a favorite:
        • Click the star icon next to the filter name on the top of the page.
    • My - shows all filters that you own.
    • Popular - shows you the most popular filters.
    • Search - allows you to search all filters that you can see. It is selected by default after Manage Filters is selected.
  • Click the Search tab. The issue filter Search will display.
    • Tip: You can navigate to this screen via the Find filters link on the issue navigator located on the left top.
  • Leave both Search and Owner blank, and choose Project from Share With and MPCV Project Management from the project list and All from the role list, click Search to see all filters shared within the selected Jira project. Alternatively, enter your search criteria and click Search to run the search if you know which filter to look for.
  • Your search results are displayed on the same page. Click the name of any issue filter to run it. You can also sort the search results by clicking the column headers.

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Create Personal Filters

A JIRA filter is a saved set of search criteria, similar to a bookmark. Some filters are predefined in JIRA – such as My Open Issues, Reported by Me, Recently Viewed, All Issues – these are known as system filters. A filter may also be a set of search criteria defined and saved by a user.

  • Update the search criteria of one of your existing filters:

    • Choose Issues > Manage Filters.
    • Click the My tab. This tab displays the filters that you've created.
    • Click the name of the filter to run it and display the search results.
    • Update the search criteria in the text box right above the search results as desired and rerun the query to ensure the update is valid. You will see the word Edited displayed next to your filter name.
    • Click Save to overwrite the current filter with the updated search criteria. If you want discard your changes instead, click the arrow next to the save button and select Discard changes.

  • Clone a Filter

    • Choose Issues > Manage Filters.
    • Locate the filter you wish to clone, and click the name of the issue filter to run it and display the search results.
    • Update the search criteria as desired. Click the arrow next to the Save button, and select Save > Save as to create a new filter from the existing filter or to discard your changes instead, click Save > Discard changes.

  • Save a search as a filter

    • Define and run your search. See Search Issue for more details.
      • Issues > Search for Issues, if there are existing search criteria, click the New filter button to reset the search criteria.
      • Select either Basic or Advanced to define search criteria.
      • Click the search glass icon button or hit enter from any search text box to run the search.
    • Click the Save as link above the search results. The Save Filter dialog is displayed.
    • Enter a name for the new filter and click Submit to save or Cancel to discard.
Create Monthly Status Filter

This example shows how to create a personal filter for your monthly status report.

  • Click Issues-> Search for issues.
  • Enter text project = "MPCV Project Management" AND assignee = currentUser() AND updated >= -4w in the search box on the top. If there is text there already, you can click New filter on the top left. If you don't see the search box on the top, click Advanced link next to the search icon button .
  • Click the search icon button to make the search criteria to be effective.
  • Click Save As on the top and enter the filter name Monthly Status.
  • Click Columns on the top right.
  • Select Filter option so that selected columns can be saved with the current filter.
  • Select or deselect columns. Select Assignee, Issue Type, Summary, Executive Summary, and This Month Comments if they are not selected and deselect others.
  • Click Done to save. Sometimes, you might see the issue list not reflecting the change you just made immediately. You can either just reload the current page or go to a different filter and then come back to it. After the page is refreshed, you should see the issue list with the selected columns based on the searching criteria and you just created your personal Monthly Status filter.

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Configure Filter Result Columns

JIRA lets you change the columns of the table of search results for any search results displayed using the List view (as opposed to the Detail View). Once a filter is executed, all found issues are listed.

  • Select the (Change view) menu from top right and select List View from the menu as following:

  • Click Columns at top right of the issue result list (under the ) to open the column configuration dialog.

  • All of the columns used in the current table of results are checked. Keep the columns checked if you still want them, uncheck the ones you don't want and add new ones as desired, and then click Done to finish or Cancel to discard. Remember to make sure that Filter is selected if you want to save the columns selection to the filter.

    • My Defaults, Filter options

    If the currently selected option is My Defaults, this indicates that the columns you are seeing are from your default preference. Filter is an available option whenever the issue search results come from a saved filter and if it is greyed out, meaning the search results are not coming from a filter.

  • Sort and rearrange columns from filter result page.

    • To sort issues, just click on a column header.
    • To rearrange the column layout, press and hold the mouse button to enter "column drag mode."
Example: Clone a Filter and Configure Columns

This example shows how to create your own filter by copying a shared one and then configure the columns as needed.

  • Click Issues->Manage Filters->Search-> then Search button by leaving all searching criteria as is, all filters that are shared with anyone cross the project are listed.
  • Click All Meeting Issues (notice that this filter is owned by Test Account (templates) and is shared with Project MPCV Project Management.

  • Click change view icon on top right to change to List View if it is not in List View.
  • Click Columns (notice that you can't update columns for a filter owned by another user) :

  • Click Save As and enter the filter name to save this shared filter as your own filter.
  • Click Columns again (notice that now all columns are configurable):

  • Make sure Filter option is selected if you want to save the column selection to the filter. Check or uncheck columns to modify column selection.
  • Click Done to save. Now, you just created one private filter by cloning from a shared filter and reconfigured the filter result display columns if applicable.

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Manage Dashboard

The dashboard that you see when you first start using JIRA is a System Dashboard owned by the System. You cannot edit the default dashboard; but you can easily create your own dashboard, which you can then customize as you wish.

Create Dashboard
  • At the top right of the Dashboard page, click the Tools menu. Select either Create Dashboard to create a blank dashboard, or Copy Dashboard to create a copy of the dashboard you are currently viewing.
  • Or select Dashboard (top left) -> Manage Dashboards on any page and then click Create new dashboard (top right) button to create a new dashboard.
    • Create New Dashboard page looks like this: New Dashboard image is not available!
    • If Start From selection is Blank dashboard, it will be a blank new dashboard with no gadgets. Otherwise, the selected dashboard whose gadgets will be copied to the new dashboard. The dashboard will be added to your favorites by default. Toggle the star to add/remove it to/from your favorites. You also can share this dashboard as you wish.
    • Click Add to create or Cancel to discard.
Choose Dashboard Layout

To choose a different layout for your dashboard page (e.g. three columns instead of two):

  • At the top right of the Dashboard, click the Edit Layout link. A selection of layouts will be displayed:
  • Your current layout is selected by default. Click your preferred layout to change or click Close to close the layout selection window without changing your current dashboard layout.
Add Gadget
  • At the top right of the Dashboard, click the Add Gadget link.
  • A selection of gadgets will be displayed:
    • Select a category on the left to restrict the list of gadgets on the right to that category.
  • Click the Add it now button beneath your chosen gadget. Continue to add more gadgets as needed
  • Click the Close to return to your Dashboard.
    • If the gadget you have selected requires configuration, you will be presented with the gadget's configuration page(s) on your dashboard. Configure appropriately and click Save for each gadget.
Example: Add Assigned to Me Gadget
  • Go to your JIRA dashboard and click Add Gadget on top right.
  • The Gadget Directory will appear. Locate the Assigned to Me gadget and click the Add it Now button.
  • Then click Close at the bottom of the Gadget Directory.
  • The Assigned to Me gadget will appear on your dashboard as follows:
    • Number of Results — type the number of issues you would like the gadget to display per page (maximum 50, default to 10).
    • Fields to display — select the issue fields to display as columns. Drag and drop to re-order.
    • Refresh Interval — select how often you want the gadget to update the list of issues (never / every 15 minutes / every 30 minutes / every hour / every two hours).
    • Click the Save button. Now you should see something like the following on your dashboard:
Example: Add Monthly Status Gadget

This example shows how to add the Monthly Status filter created in the earlier Example: Create Monthly Status Filter as one of your gadgets in your My Reports dashboard. If you don't have My Reports dashboard, you can create one by following Create Dashboard. Or you can add Monthly Status to any other of your dashboards.

  • Click Dashboards-> My Reports.
  • Click Add Gadget on top right.
  • The Gadget Directory will appear. Locate the Filter Results gadget and click the Add it Now button.
  • Click the Close to return to your Dashboard.
  • At this point, No Filter selected is shown next to the Saved Filter on top this gadget. You can either enter Monthly Status in the Quick Find box and select Monthly Status from the list or click Advanced Search under the Quick Find box and select Monthly Status. Now, you should see Monthly Status is displayed on the top of this gadget.
  • Add Assignee, Executive Summary, and This Month Comments fields in addition to the pre-selected fields Issue Type, Key, and Summary.
  • Click Save to save this gadget.
Move Gadget

To move the gadget to a different position on the dashboard, simply drag-and-drop.

Remove Gadget
  • Hold your mouse over the top right corner of the gadget, until a down-arrow appears.
  • Click the down-arrow to display the menu:
  • Click Delete to remove the gadget from your dashboard.

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Explanation on some fields

  • Summary vs. Executive Summary
    • Summary -- is a required field for the system. In general, it is a short description of what this issue is about. For Meeting issue, it is required to enter the name of the meeting and the date. For Sprint issue, it is pre-generated as [Team Name] [Release].[Sprint Number].
    • Executive Summary -- you are advised to document the Executive Summary and your assessment including the reasoning/rationale for your Stoplight Rating (for Architecture/Architecture Sub-task, meaning SAGE Risk and FSW Due Date Risk). This should include facts as well as professionally worded opinions.
  • Comment -- your accumulative statuses of an issue.
  • Stoplight Indicator -- it is important to update this field as it could easily show the overall status of an issue.
    • Red - Requires Mgmt Attention
    • Yellow - Progress is at Risk
    • Green - Progress is Good
    • White - None/Not Yet Assessed
    • Black - No Oversight/Insight
  • Issue Last Change Info -- the latest change details of an issue including author, date and which field was changed.
  • Last Comment Info -- the latest comment of an issue in the form of [author, date] -- [comment text].
  • This Week Comment, Last Week Comment, This Month Comment, and Last Month Comment -- all comments of an issue created or updated in this week, last week, this month, and last month respectively.

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