What is your #1 piece of advice to new users getting started using Bitbucket?

[Claire Maynard]

Hello Community!

My name is Claire Maynard, and I’m a Product Marketing Manager on the Bitbucket team. I’m interested in hearing what advice or tips you have for new users getting started on Bitbucket. Based on your answers, we will release a digest of the top tips and send contributors some Community swag :). Can’t wait to hear your thoughts! 

Thanks!

[Craig Castle-Mead]

Users as in end users, not admins I'm guessing?

CCM

[Bridget]

Either or, Craig! Just be sure to state which users you're personally referring to. 

[Ulrich Kuhnhardt [IzymesDev]]

Server or Cloud?

[Bridget]

Either / or! Just specify which you're specific tip is referring to. Thanks @Ulrich Kuhnhardt [IzymesDev]

[jredmond]

That actually leads to an excellent piece of advice:

Understand which version of Bitbucket you're using.

Bitbucket Cloud is bitbucket.org, which Atlassian hosts. Bitbucket Server is self-hosted and has a different URL (and a version number). They have separate documentation on confluence.atlassian.com, and they may not have the same features or bugs.

[ic2]

Hello Claire,

I've spent hours already trying to get things to work with Visual Studio. There's very little documentation about this it seems. Basically this is question 1:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Bitbucket-questions/Visual-Studio-how-to-connect-a-local-repo-to-a-bitbucket-cloud/qaq-p/866125#M31257

Question 2 would be how this combines with SourceTree.

Question 3 is this one:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Bitbucket-questions/Best-practice-to-commit-changes-from-Visual-Studio-2017/qaq-p/852289

If you can have something assembled for new users to set up this, that would save lots of new users lots of time.

Dick

[Ana Retamal]

Hi Dick!

I've answered to your questions #1 and #3 separately, please follow up with us in their own threads if necessary :)

For question #2 I'd recommend that you create a separate question so it will be easier to answer and follow. Also, can you clarify what you mean? Do you mean how to combine Sourcetree with Bitbucket Cloud? Or how to combine Sourcetree with Bitbucket Cloud and Visual Studio?

Cheers!

Ana

[ic2]

Hello Claire/Ana,

I've replied to both your comments on the above links. I think I found out a working way for at least question 1 but you may have remarks about it, or a better solution. I've documented the method (I am a IT journalist as well so have the necessary experience in writing documentation). If you would you like to receive my documentation for review and, after (no doubt) making changes, want to publish it as part of a getting started with VS document then drop me a mail. I assume you can see my mail address.

Dick

[Julius Davies _bit-booster_com_]

I'd say my #1 tip for new users to Bitbucket Cloud is this:

Never use "git pull".  Always use "git pull -r" instead!

More info here:  Too much Fun With "git pull --rebase"

[Bridget]

Great one @G__Sylvie_Davies__bit-booster_com_, thanks :) 

[Paulius Pupeikis]

Use command line as much as you can. Any UI tools and integrations may bite you at some point in the future.

[Mikael Sandberg]

Training, training, training! Specially if you are migrating from a different version control system. I created a couple of simple user scenarios that I point our new Bitbucket/Git users to. 

[Jonny Adams]

@Claire Maynard My team uses Bitbucket Server. My #1 tip is to use merge checks when you are getting started. Require approval. It will keep new users from merging when they shouldn't and where they shouldn't.

As a project manager I discovered that different developers brought their previous branching method with them. This created some avoidable issues. It is important that your team agree on one branching model and that all developers understand where they should be branching from and merging to. Create a diagram, explain it to your team, and require merge approvals.

[Julius Davies _bit-booster_com_]

To add to this:

If you're on Bitbucket Server, our free Control Freak add-on is a great way to globally push out a whole bunch of different merge and push checks.

And since it's a global hook, every newly created repository automatically receives the hook's protections.  (New repos and projects can opt-out of the hook if they need to, but by default they are opted-in).

[Ulrich Kuhnhardt [IzymesDev]]

@Jonny Adams - totally agree. Git branching and merge hygiene is key. We’ve had cases where a bug fix branch off develop was merged back to develop ( that’s ok ) but they re-used that same bugfix branch and merged it straight into the release branch (ouch).  

So definitely have some experienced developers as repo/branch reviewers and gatekeepers for pull requests. 

Plus top of my personal wishlist- enable commercial apps on Bitbucket cloud. 

[Bastian Stehmann]

My #1 is, if you are coming from a different vcs than git, start with a Git introduction and learn Git basics before trying to use Bitbucket, because this helps a lot to use Bitbucket in an effective way.

[kumargan]

Hi,

It seems there is some issue in bitbucket while merging from lower branches to higher.

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Bitbucket-questions/why-is-there-conflicts-from-a-child-branch-even-if-there-are-no/qaq-p/871187#M31580

please suggest something, I have not faced this is github ever.

[Ana Retamal]

Hi @kumargan, 

I've sent you a response, please follow up in that thread if you have any questions!

Kind regards :)

Ana