9 August 2010

The Atlassian team are proud to announce the release of GreenHopper 5.2.

The following new features will be of particular interest to Kanban teams:

Version release from the 'Done' column on the Task Board — you can now release an ad-hoc version as soon as there is sufficient value to warrant it. Simply select 'Release' from the drop-down, and GreenHopper will take care of the rest!
Cumulative Flow Diagrams — these area graphs show you the proportion of issues in each state, allowing you to identify bottlenecks at a glance.

GreenHopper 5.2 also includes:

Quick creation of new cards by clicking on the relevant Issue Type in the Legend.
The ability to specify the start and end date for Agile Gadget charts.
Enhanced configuration options for Card Styles.

Upgrading to GreenHopper 5.2 is free for all customers with an active GreenHopper license.

Highlights of this release:

Cumulative Flow Diagrams
Version Release from the Task Board 'Done' Column
Quick Issue Creation from Legend
Other Enhancements
Plus Several Fixes and Improvements

Thank you for your feedback

Your votes and issues help us keep improving our products, and are greatly appreciated.

Please keep logging your votes and issues. They help us decide what needs doing!

Upgrading to GreenHopper 5.2

You can download GreenHopper from the Atlassian website. If upgrading from a previous version, please read the GreenHopper 5.2 Upgrade Guide.

Highlights of GreenHopper 5.2

Cumulative Flow Diagrams

A Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD) is an area chart that shows work-in-progress for a product, version or sprint. The horizontal x-axis in a CFD indicates time, and the vertical y-axis indicates stories. Each coloured area of the chart equates to a column on your Task Board.

A CFD can be useful for identifying bottlenecks. If your chart contains an area that is widening vertically over time, the area immediately below the widening area will generally be a bottleneck.

Read Viewing the Cumulative Flow Chart on the Chart Board for more information.

Version Release from the Task Board 'Done' Column

You can now release an ad-hoc version as soon as there is sufficient value to warrant it. Simply select 'Release' from the drop-down, and GreenHopper will take care of the rest!

You will be prompted for the release Title and Description (date is automatically filled in as today's date)
A new Fix Version will automatically be created
All issues from the 'Done' column will be automatically added to the new Fix Version
The version will be released.

For more details, see Releasing a Version from the Task Board or Planning Board.

Quick Issue Creation from Legend

On the Planning Board or Task Board you can simply click the appropriate Issue Type in the legend at the top of the screen. When you hover your mouse over an Issue Type in the legend, the '+' icon and a 'New Card' tool-tip will appear:

This is available for all issue types that are not sub-tasks.

If the legend is not visible, select 'Legend' from the 'Tools' menu.

Other Enhancements

GreenHopper 5.2 introduces a range of additional enhancements:

You can now specify the start and end date for charts displayed in the Agile Gadget. See Using the Agile Gadget.
You can now add whitespace to your views to improve layout and legibility. See Configuring your Card Styles.
To optimise performance when displaying Hour Burndown Charts, you can now specify the number of issues whose query results will be cached in memory. See 'Cache Size' on the GreenHopper General Configuration page.
Interested in exactly how the GreenHopper Hour Burndown Chart data is calculated? We have written a detailed explanation: please see How Hour Burndown Charts Relate to Time Tracking in JIRA.