Jira Align's Business Intelligence (BI) functionality was updated and deployed to production instances running version 10.75 on August 5th, 2020. The following enhancements were made:

• Release highlights
• New tables
• Updated tables

Release highlights

• Kanban Board and related objects added.
• Custom Field and Tag List updated for export schema support.
• Rank items added to export_dw schema.

New tables

Updated tables

Due to the nature of continuous software development, some changes are applied to a version after it has been released to production instances. In order to urgently remedy a reported issue, the following change was added directly to version 10.75, via a hotfix deployed on Wednesday, August 5th.

Defect Fixes

• Enhancements and Features
• Defect Fixes 

Enhancements and Features

Time Tracking changes

The previously announced Time Tracking changes have been released in version 10.76. We've made multiple enhancements to our Time Tracking functionality to provide better usability and support more use cases. 

See our feature recap for details on the changes. Highlights include:

• Work Codes have been renamed to Time Projects
• Time projects are no longer locked to release vehicles
  • You may associate time projects with release vehicles, epics, or designate a time project as stand-alone
• Additional customizable terms have been added to Platform Terminology > Time Tracking Terminology
• Blended rates keep a history of rates used over time
• Approval, status, and date settings work together

Story Acceptance Criteria APIs

You can now update story acceptance criteria using the PATCH and PUT methods.

Organization Structure removed from features

We've removed the Organization Structure field from the Details panel for features. Accordingly, we also made the following changes:

• The Organization Structure filter is no longer selectable from the list of filters on the Features page
• The Organization Structure column is no longer a selectable column on the Features page
• We removed the options to display and require the Organization Structure field on features from the Details Panel Settings page

We plan to remove mentions of organization structure tied to features in other locations in Jira Align in a future release.

Configuration bar filtering by Organization Structure

The Capabilities and Objectives pages now support filtering by the Organization Structure field in the Configuration bar. When these pages are filtered by organization structure, work items are shown when the owner or assignee is a member of the selected structure or child levels of the structure.

Configuration bar filtering by Product

The Capabilities page now supports filtering by the Product field in the Configuration bar. When the page is filtered by product, capabilities are shown when any child features are assigned to the selected product or child products in a hierarchy.

For now, the Product field is not a selectable filter in the Configuration bar on the Objectives page.

Configuration bar filtering by Release Vehicle 

The Objectives page now supports filtering by the Release Vehicle field in the Configuration bar. When the page is filtered by release vehicle, objectives are shown when associated features are assigned to the selected release vehicle. Objectives that are associated with capabilities or epics will not display.

Defect Fixes

Due to the nature of continuous software development, some changes are applied to a version after it has been released to test instances. As a result, the following changes were added directly to version 10.75, which will be released to production instances on August 1st, 2020:

Defect Fixes

• End of Support for Internet Explorer 11
• Enhancements and Features
• Defect Fixes

End of Support for Internet Explorer 11

To allow us to continue to take advantage of modern web standards to deliver improved functionality and the best possible user experience across all of our products, we have decided to end support for Internet Explorer 11 (IE11). End of support means we will not fix bugs that are specific to IE11, and will begin to introduce features that aren't compatible with this browser.

For cloud versions of Jira Align, support will end on September 26, 2020. For the on-premise version of Jira Align, support will end on September 30, 2020.

In preparation for the end of support dates, we recommend switching to one of our supported browsers, such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Safari.

Please see our Community article for more information or to ask any questions.

Enhancements and Features

Shareable views for grids

Yep, you heard that right! Now you can filter a grid view and share it with your team. By either copying the URL or using the new Share button in the upper-right corner of a work item grid, you can share your view with others, and if they’d like to, they can even save the filter as their own to use it again later.

Configuration bar filtering by product and organization structure on work item grids

The Stories, Features, and Epics pages now respect filtering by product and organization structures in the Configuration bar.

If the grid is filtered by organization structure, all work items display where the owner/assignee user is part of the selected structure or any level below.

If the grid is filtered by product:

• On the Features page, the grid displays features that are directly assigned to the selected product, or assigned to products at lower levels of the selected product’s product hierarchy.
• On the Stories page, the grid displays stories whose parent features are directly assigned to the selected product, or assigned to products at lower levels of the selected product’s product hierarchy.
• On the Epics page, the grid displays epics whose child features are directly assigned to the selected product, or assigned to products at lower levels of the selected product’s product hierarchy.

Performance: Roadmaps dropdown replacements

To load your roadmap filters more quickly, we updated how you apply filters when filtering by theme, epic, capabilities, features, users, products, organizations, and tags. After selecting one of these filters, enter text in a search field to see a list of the top 20 most relevant items. We also applied these changes to the list of customers in the Briefing dropdown menu.

Performance: Work item list on lean use cases

For better user experience with a long list in work item-based dropdowns, we changed the dropdown selection method to loading list by portions for the lists of epics, capabilities, and features on the lean use case slide-out.

API 2.0: Create acceptance criteria on stories

You can now create acceptance criteria using the POST method on stories. Updates and acceptance criteria on other work items will be supported in future releases. When creating acceptance criteria on a story, the story’s last modified date are updated and the changes are added to the audit log.

API 2.0: Create acceptance criteria on capabilities

You can now update capabilities using the PATCH and PUT methods.

API 2.0: Create key results on objectives

You can now create key results using the POST method on objectives. Updates will be supported in a future release.

Usability improvements to the Azure DevOps connector logs

We added new columns to the Azure DevOps connector logs to improve the ability to find and address sync issues. These include Level (to differentiate between errors impeding a work item sync and warnings that may impact a specific field), Item Type, Jira Align IDs, and Azure DevOps IDs. In addition, searching and filtering were enhanced on all applicable columns.

Average Velocity and Override Velocity fields on sprints

We updated the following fields on the Sprint Details panel:

• Average Velocity: We changed this field to a read-only field. It displays the average velocity over the last five completed sprints.
• Override Velocity: A new field! If you expect a team’s velocity in an individual sprint will be much higher or lower than average, use this field to reflect the expected velocity for planning purposes. This number will display as the Average Velocity on the Backlog and other pages until the sprint is completed. Using this field does not affect the information displayed in the Average Velocity field.
  

Work in Process Lean Metrics supports capabilities

The Work in Process Lean Metric charts now provide information on capabilities.
Note that there are a series of calculation defects currently impacting these charts. We plan to fix these in the 10.76 release.

Defect Fixes

Below is our upcoming release schedule. Please note that the SaaS dates to reflect the Saturday that the release will be available in your environments (versus the Friday that our maintenance window starts on).

Saas environments will be unavailable during our maintenance window, which starts at 11:00PM EST the day prior to what's listed below and ends at 2:00AM EST on the day listed below.

With the Jira Align 10.74 release, we will no longer be sending our release announcement email. We recently enhanced the Help Center to allow those with accounts to sign-up for release notes publication notifications. So, no longer will you have to wait until the beginning of the week after a release to review the details of new and enhanced features, performance improvements, and defect fixes. Now, you'll receive a notification the instant release notes are published on Friday of the release. 

What you need to do

To receive the real-time release notes publication notifications, you'll need to create a Help Center account and follow the Release Notes section. Please note, this will most likely be a different username and password than your Jira Align and Atlassian username and password. 

 To create an account (or reset your password if an account already exists), click the SIGN IN button on the Help Center (see the pink arrow).

Next, click the Sign up link, enter your name and email, and then click the Sign up button. You'll receive an email to finish setting up your account. If you receive a message that says a user has already signed up with the given email, click the Forgot my password link to reset your password.

Once logged in, from the Help Center home page, click the WHAT'S NEW section (bell icon).

Then click the 10X: Release Notes section header (or the link!). Finally, click the FOLLOW button and then the New articles link.

That's it! As soon as we publish new release notes, you'll receive an email notification with a link!