Jira Software Essentials: Plan, track, and release great applications with Jira Software, Second Edition

For this section, we will be using the TAR.GZ or ZIP Archive installation package, as it works with any operating system. You can download the latest Jira Software from https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/download. By default, the download page will autoselect an installation package based on the operating system used by your computer. You can click on the All Server versions link to see all options.

Once you have downloaded the file, go through the following steps to install Jira Software:

Now that we have installed Jira, we need to set it up by configuring its locale, language, and other aspects of the system. Jira comes with a setup wizard that will help guide us through the process.

We can access the wizard by opening up a browser and going to http://localhost:8080. This is if you are accessing Jira from the same machine that it is installed on. If you are using a different computer, change localhost to the actual host name. If Jira started up successfully, you should see the first step of the Jira setup wizard, as shown in the following screenshot. The Set it up for me option is a quick way for Jira to configure itself automatically, and this is a great way to have a trial environment up and running quickly. We will be using the I'll set it up myself option in this exercise to explore all the options available:

The second step is where we tell Jira the type of database we will be using and how to connect to it. The Built In option will create an in-memory database, which is useful for quick trials, but if you want to use Jira in production, you need to select the My Own Database option.

Select the database type you want to use. Note that for some databases, such as MySQL, you will be required to download the driver and install the driver before you can proceed further. Jira will let you know if a driver is needed.

Once you have selected the database type, enter the connectivity details. Each database type is different, so you will need to consult with your DBA or database manual if you are unsure. Use the Test Connection button to check whether the settings are correct and Jira is able to connect to the database.

Sometimes network configurations or firewall rules may prevent Jira from connecting to the database:

The third step is for you to enter some basic information about your Jira installation. All these settings can be changed later, so do not worry if you are not sure. The one setting to take note of is Base URL. It needs to be the fully qualified URL to your Jira instance. If this is set incorrectly, it may lead to issues later, such as links in email notifications not working:

The fourth step is where you enter your license key for Jira Software. If you have a key, simply cut and paste it into the text box. If you do not have one, you can generate a 30-day trial license by clicking the generate a JIRA trial license link on the page.

This will require you to have an account with the My Atlassian portal. If you do not already have an account, you can register one for free and then generate a trial license:

For the fifth step, you will be asked to create the administrator account. This will be the super administrator account that you will need during emergencies, especially if you integrate Jira with an external user management system, such as LDAP, and there is a problem with the connectivity between you and your chosen management system.

For the sixth and last step, you have the opportunity to set up how Jira will be sending out emails for notifications. Unlike the previous steps, this is optional, so if you do not have a mail server ready, you can skip this step and set it up later:

And that is it! Congratulations, your Jira is installed, configured, and ready to be used. Click on the Take me to JIRA button at the bottom-right corner to exit the wizard:

After clicking on the Take me to JIRA button, you will be automatically logged in with the administrator account you created earlier. Since this is the first time this account is being used, you will be asked to set up some personalization options, such as the preferred language and avatar. Once you have personalized the account, you will see the welcome screen, similar to the following screenshot:

Since we have just installed a fresh instance of Jira, we will be asked to create a new project. You have the option to import issues from existing data, such as a CSV file, or another issue-tracking system, such as Bugzilla, with the Import issues option. Create a new empty project and start using it right away with the Create new project option, or create a sample project with Jira's built-in sample data to explore and experiment with using the Create sample project option, which is what we will be doing in the following steps:

The agile board, or simply board, is the main user interface that you, as the end user, will be using on a day-to-day basis for your projects. The agile board allows you to visualize tasks in a project and the available steps in the workflow, and gives you an interactive way to transition tasks through the workflow. Depending on the type of board you are using, there are also additional features that will provide a range of functionalities—for example, some may allow you to manage a backlog of features, provide visual cues to highlight potential bottlenecks, and more. Together with additional add-ons, you can even take snapshots of your agile board and place them onto a physical whiteboard, and vice versa. The following screenshot shows a sample Scrum board in work or sprint mode:

A card is like a Post-it note that you might use on your whiteboard. It captures the user's story and represents the requirement or feature that is to be implemented. In Jira, each card represents a task or issue. The following screenshot shows what a card looks like on an agile board:

Every unit of work in Jira, such as a story or an epic, is uniformly referred to as an issue. Each issue has a field called issue type, which represents the type and purpose of the issue. For example, in a Scrum project, we would have the following issue types by default:

As we will see in later chapters, you can customize the list of issue types for your project to adapt to your project requirements better.

Each issue is made up of a number of fields, such as the issue type field mentioned earlier and other fields, such as summary, description, and assignee. Jira comes with a default set of fields to help you get started quickly, but as we will see in Chapter 5, Customizing Jira Software, it is very straightforward to add fields to your projects.

Workflow is at the heart of Jira and is what powers Jira and its agile board in the background. As we will see in later chapters, Jira is able to integrate with your existing workflows, or adapt to and model after your development process. When you are just getting started, you do not have to know much about workflow as Jira will take care of it for you. We will cover workflows in more detail in Chapter 5, Customizing Jira Software.

The Jira agile board is able to work on either one specific project or multiple projects at once. When you want to have multiple projects, you will need to use filters to define what issues will be included. For this reason, understanding and being able to use Jira Query Language (JQL) effectively can be very handy. You can find more information on JQL at https://confluence.atlassian.com/jiracoreserver075/advanced-searching-935563511.html.