JIRA / Confluence tips and tricks to save your day !!
In our daily project work, we all must be using some sort of project management and reporting, knowledge sharing and documentation management tools. JIRA and Confluence are probably the most prominent or at least one of most widely used software for the same.
There comes across time, when we get stuck or could not find a way to perform certain functions in these tools. I have had my share of such instances over the last few years .
Then I started noting them down so that they could help me save me some time. I have compiled a few of these below so that it may help others too who also have similar requirements.
JIRA tips
JQL ( JIRA Query Language) comes very handy when fetching consolidated information from JIRA. I have shared some very basic but useful queries which can make data fetching a breeze for you.
For below queries, consider your project in JIRA is XYZ. So the Jira issue key would be something like XYZ-1, XYZ-2 and so on.
- Retrieve all stories in an Epic or multiple epics.
Consider you want to retrieve all stories from 4 Epics XYZ-123 ,XYZ-189, XYZ-134, XYZ-980
Query — “Epic Link” in (XYZ-123,XYZ-189,XYZ-134,XYZ-980) and issueType=Story
2. Retrieve all Epics in an Initiative
Initiatives are on a higher hierarchy than an epic and would normally constitute multiple epics.
Consider you want to retrieve all epics from initiative ID — XYZ-104
Query — issuekey in childIssuesOf(“XYZ-104”) and type = epic
3. Retrieve all epics linked to all initiatives
issueFunction IN linkedIssuesOf(‘ project = XYZ AND type = Initiative ‘)
4. Get all stories, bugs and tasks linked to a fix Version
issueFunction IN linkedIssuesOfAll(‘ fixVersion = “XYZ- Beta Release and issuetype = Epic ‘) and issueType IN ( Story, Task, Bug) and fixVersion is EMPTY
5. Save queries as filter
You can write all types of queries, but if you don’t save them, you would end up writing them again. So in order to save some time and make it easy to go back to your frequently used jira queries, you can save the search queries as a filter in JIRA.
- Define and run your search under Issues > Search for issues..
- 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. Your filter is created.
- Your new search would now be added to your favourite filters.
Note :
- Above queries are written with the assumption that you already have some familiarity with JQL.
- Some of the above queries working properly are dependent on what jira version you are using.
Confluence tips
- Show user stories for an Epic on confluence page
Generally we create documents for each of our epics in Confluence and link it to jira epic cards. Now an epic would have no. of user stories. How fantastic would it be to have everything in one place. You can easily do so by following the steps below.
- In the Confluence Page, Go to Editor Toolbar and Click on Insert JIRA issue/Filter.
- Input “Epic Link” = <EPIC Number>
All your user stories should be visible on the Confluence page and status for each of them would also reflect automatically as it is updated on jira.
2. Include Page macro to add reference of one page to another
There would be times when you would want to use content of one page on another so as to avoid duplication of information and also maintain a single source of truth. This is possible through Include Page macro. Follow below steps for using this macro.
- From the editor toolbar, choose Insert > Other Macros.
- Choose Include Page from the Confluence content categories.
- Enter the title of the page you want to include. It can be in this space, or another space.
- Choose Insert
- You can then publish your page to see the macro in action
For more information on this macro, check out this page.
3. Page Properties macro for automatic sections mapping from multiple pages to one page.
Another use case of referring content from another page is where you may not want to include the complete page content, but only specific details.
For example : You have multiple teams in your project and each team has their own team page on Confluence listing team members, their roles, location, etc. Now you would like to see all that information — team members, location in a consolidated page on Confluence. This can be achieved using Page Properties macro.
For more details on how to use this macro, you can check out this page.
4. Attachment macro to show all attachments on the page.
If you are using confluence , you would have all used Attachments in your Confluence pages at one time or another. If you wish to see all the attachments on your confluence page at one place, you can use the attachment Macro.
To add the Attachments macro to a page:
- From the editor toolbar, choose Insert > Other Macros.
- Choose Attachments from the Confluence content category.
- Choose Insert.
- You can then publish your page to see the macro in action.
For more information on this macro, refer to the page.
Hope, above would help you in some of the situations you encounter when dealing with jira and confluence. I know there are many jira and confluence masters out there. If you have any tips and tricks up your sleeve, please feel free to add in comments. I would be happy to compile a second part to this blog with the same.
References
- https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/JQL-query-to-find-child-issues-of-Initiative/qaq-p/461409
- https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/attachments-macro-97911315.html
- https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/include-page-macro-139514.html
- https://confluence.atlassian.com/jiracoreserver/saving-your-search-as-a-filter-939937724.html
- https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/page-properties-macro-184550024.html
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