Scheduling a Release using JIRA, Confluence and Bamboo

Question

For the past 20 years I have been writing software, releasing a major version of the product was never a press-this-button affair.  More often than not, release notes has to be prepared, online documentation has to be updated, release branches must be cut and QA must perform a last minute validation.

For large systems this involves multiple JIRA projects, VCS repositories, Confluence spaces and Bamboo Plans.  It doesn't really matter whether its a SaaS or shinkwrap software.  And once software is released, account managers needs to be notified so they can close the deal or calm a customer in distress.

How do you use JIRA, Confluence and Bamboo to manage the release of a major version?

Mehmet Kazgan_qriny9 · Answer

In a nutshell:

JIRA: Track all requirements, issues, tasks, and other types specifying the Affects Versions, Fix Versions. Release versions using JIRA release version option

Bamboo: Setup Bamboo as when you release a version, it triggers the build deployments to staging and/or prod once the version released in JIRA. Build tab will automatically be updated in JIRA with referenced Bamboo build

Confluence: Display status of tickets from JIRA and release notes dynamically from JIRA and Bamboo, track other collaborative documentation

Guilherme Nedel · Answer

Hello Werner, that is comprehensive query, let me try to address some points. A good start can begin with this this products overview page, which can detail the role of each product into the development cicle. Later this article on integrated release management can shed some light into the Bamboo-JIRA integration. JIRA can also create a list of resolved items and compile them for an easy assembly of product release notes.

Confluence offers a number of templates, macros and features that can help the documentation composition process. Some of this items are listed in this reference page.

There are yet gadgets that can pull data from JIRA into Confluence for a facilitated view of a project course, such as the Sprint Health Gadget or the Burndown Gadget.

In summary the integration between products and availability of data from one application into another can improve the process streamlining