Zephyr for JIRA: Your Top 3 Questions Answered
by Samir Shah • March 16, 2012 • JIRA, Zephyr for JIRA • 3 Comments
In the 3 weeks since we’ve launched Zephyr for JIRA, we’ve been overwhelmed with the response. All this feedback clearly demonstrates that we’ve struck a chord somewhere for JIRA customers as they grapple with integrating testing into everything they do on the platform. It has been a fantastic journey building Zephyr for JIRA but then that is material for another blog post.
We want to address a few things that many folks have been asking us so here goes:
- How often will you update Zephyr for JIRA and do you have a roadmap?
Oh boy, do we have a roadmap! We have all sorts of exciting features planned and you’ll start seeing them rollout soon. In fact, we just launched our 1.1 release of Zephyr for JIRA today with new features and some fixes – a direct response to what our customers have asked for. We will keep doing this at frequent intervals and your UPM will ensure that you have the latest and greatest. Thanks for all your feedback – please keep it coming.
- When can I get Zephyr for JIRA on the JIRA OnDemand platform?
A lot of you have been asking for this. We are working with Atlassian to make that happen but do not have a timeline just yet. In the meantime, shoot us an email letting us know you are interested and we’ll let you know as soon as it is available.
- While we have a larger JIRA license tier, we have fewer QA folks. What should we be buying?
As all Atlassian Add-ons to JIRA (e.g. Greenhopper and Bonfire), Zephyr for JIRA adheres to the licensing tier of the host JIRA platform. So a Zephyr for JIRA license tier needs to match a JIRA 5.x Download license tier. We currently do not have a way to limit access to the plugin and it is automatically available to all JIRA users. This gives you the advantage of letting everybody in your entire JIRA user base use the functionality – be it developers who want to write their own tests, PMs and Execs that want to consume quality metrics, Business Analysts that want to review tests, Tech Support that wants to check on test that have been run or the Business who want to run User Acceptance Tests – besides your growing pool of testers.
Getting everybody involved in quality is a good thing.
For those of you wondering what you’re missing, check out Zephyr for JIRA and bring testing into your JIRA today.
Hi Samir,
I totally understand the rationale that all add-ons work this way, but the GreenHopper is usually used by the entire team with a, AGILE Planning Board, Task Board, Chart Board, Released Board in which the entire team can use.
Concerning Zephyr, only 3 testers will ever come into contact with this product in my organization or will ever execute a test using this tool, as only testers will ever execute test cases here or write them.
I think although it’s very difficult if not impossible to restrict functionality in a dynamic fashion, it also very difficult to warrant the purchase when only 3 testers will ever be using this tool. This will be the deciding factor at the end of the day. I do however think it’s a great tool, but the way the Tier system is set up, we are forced to explore other options due to restrictions from Finance.
Hi Samir,
My company (<50 employees where at most 25 will ever come in contact with testing) use JIRA for development and also as customer issue system. And therefor we have JIRA Unlimited license. But our customers will never use zephyr at all so this makes your license strategy too static.
-G
Hi Gustaf,
Understood but this is pretty much how all add-ons work (even GreenHopper and Bonfire from Atlassian) and for a product like Zephyr for JIRA that is so tightly integrated with the host JIRA 5 platform, it becomes very difficult if not impossible to restrict functionality in a dynamic fashion.
Regards,
-samir