ILOG Gantt Bridge

Name	ILOG Gantt Bridge
Version	v2.5
Product Versions	v2.5: Implemented on basis of Jira 3.9.3. Should work with 3.7+ Jira versions v1.0: Implemented on basis of Atlassian JIRA 3.6.1 Tested with 3.6.4 too Server OS: Windows XP/2003 Server
Author(s)	Pierrick - ILOG Upgrade by Benjamin Duchene (Thank you Benjamin!)
Homepage	http://www.ilog.com
Price	free!
License	BSD
Download zip	ilog-gantt-bridge-v2.5.zip ilog-gantt-bridge-v1.0-1.zip

The plugin has been upgraded to work with Jira 3.7, 3.8 and 3.9. (Not tested on 3.10 and more). 

Description/Features

The ILOG Gantt Bridge provides a way to schedule a set of JIRA issues by using a dedicated Gantt Chart tool. The bridge currently supports both ILOG GANTT FOR .NET and MS PROJECT 2003 products.
The plugin adds a new view available from the issue navigator which allows generating an XML file. This file is compliant with ILOG GANTT FOR .NET and MS PROJECT.
Once exported, the XML file can be opened with such a Gantt chart tool. Users can then work on the schedule and resources (assignees), and save the updated file to XML. The plugin adds also a new tab in the JIRA "Browse project" view called "ILOG Gantt Bridge ". From this tab, users can upload the new Gantt and JIRA will process updates on related issues.

Use Case

 

Version history

• 1.0: Initial plugin
• 1.0-1: Small cosmetic changes
• 2.5: Upgrade to work with Jira 3.7+

Administrator's useful information

Documentation related to 2.0 version (for Jira 3.7+)

Set up the import part

• Create an upload directory under atlassian-jira such as "atlassian-jira/ganttfiles"
• Open file ilog-gantt-project-tab.properties (look in \src\etc\com\atlassian\jira\plugin folder)
• Modify the ilog-gantt.upload.path property to point your upload directory
• Example :

  "E:\\atlassian-jira-enterprise-3.9.3-standalone\\atlassian-jira\\ganttfiles"

Compile your plugin with maven

• Open a cmd windows, Run "maven jar" from the root directory of your plugin and within the Jira development kit

Deploy the plugin

• Copy target/ilog-gantt-bridge-2.5.jar to WEB-INF/lib/ilog-gantt-bridge-2.5.jar
• Copy Resources/secure/views/*.jsp to secure/views/*.jsp
• Copy Resources/WEB-INF/lib/*.jar to WEB-INF/lib/*.jar
• Turn on time tracking settings (8h per days / 5d per weeks)
• Start Jira Server
• You're done!

Important notice

When parsing the XML file on import, it could not work and display this message :

XPathFactory#newInstance() failed to create an XPathFactory for the default object model: http://java.sun.com/jaxp/xpath/dom with the XPathFactoryConfigurationException: javax.xml.xpath.XPathFactoryConfigurationException: No XPathFctory implementation found for the object model: http://java.sun.com/jaxp/xpath/dom

The problem is due to Tomcat Java 1.4 compatibility libraries and can be resolved by removing the following files :
$TOMCAT_HOME/common/endorsed/xercesImpl.jar
$TOMCAT_HOME/common/endorsed/xml-apis.jar

Documentation related to 1.0 version (for Jira 3.6.x)

Installation
Download the ilog-gantt-bridge-v1.0.zip and extract it in your JIRA development kit (under /examples/)

Set up the import part

• Create an upload directory under atlassian-jira such as "atlassian-jira/ganttfiles/"
• Open file ilog-gantt-project-tab.properties (look in \src\etc\com\atlassian\jira\plugin folder)
• Modify the ilog-gantt.upload.path property to point your upload directory

• Example :

  ilog-gantt.upload.path = E:\\atlassian-jira-enterprise-3.6.1-standalone\\atlassian-jira\\ganttfiles

Set up the export part

• Add a new action in the WEB-INF/classes/actions.xml file (sample  actions.xml available in zip archive)
  

  <view name="gantt">/secure/views/navigator/navigator-gantt-export.jsp</view>

  <!-- Issue Views -->
       <action name="issue.IssueNavigator" alias="IssueNavigator">
            <view name="success">/secure/views/navigator/navigator.jsp</view>
            <view name="rss">/secure/views/navigator/navigator-rss.jsp</view>
            ...
            <view name="gantt">/secure/views/navigator/navigator-gantt-export.jsp</view>
       </action>

• Add the Export action to the navigator header byadding the following link into the file atlassian-jira/includes/navigator/table/header.jsp (sample header.jsp available in zip archive)

  <a rel="nofollow" href="<webwork:url page="/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa">
     <webwork:param name="'view'" value="'gantt'"/>
     <webwork:param name="'tempMax'" value="/searchResults/total"/>
     </webwork:url>">
  <webwork:text name="'Gantt'"/></a>
  

Compile your plugin with maven

• Run "maven jar" from the root directory of your plugin and within the Jira development kit

• Tips: If you want to avoid compiling, you can change the ilog-gantt-project-tab.properties directly in the ilog-gantt-bridge-1.0.jar archive (open it with winrar for example, modify the path and save back in archive)

Deploy the plugin

• Copy target/ilog-gantt-bridge-1.0.jar to WEB-INF/lib/ilog-gantt-bridge-1.0.jar

• Copy Resources/secure/views/ganttupload.jsp to secure/views/ganttupload.jsp

• Copy Resources/secure/views/navigator-gantt-export.jsp to secure/views/navigator/navigator-gantt-export.jsp

• Copy Resources/lib/.jar* to WEB-INF/lib/**.jar

• Ensure you have updated the actions.xml and header.jsp files into your Jira instance.

• Set your time tracking settings*on* (8h per days and 5h per weeks)

• Restart Jira Server

You're ready to schedule!

• Export from a search,
• Schedule with your tool
• Browse the new ILOG Gantt Project Tab to import changes in JIRA!

Quick User Guide

Step 1: Export issues

STEP 1.1: Log on JIRA, then go to the FIND ISSUES page.

• Run a search request to get issues you want to schedule
• You are now able to export the result with the "Gantt" action available at the top of your page.
  

STEP 1.2: Save the output to an XML File

Step 2: Schedule issues

Once the export is done, you can start working on your schedule with a Gantt chart tool.

At the moment, the bridge is compliant with:

• ILOG Gantt For .NET (Project Editor version 3.0) [ - download here - ]
• MS Project 2003

The data exported to the Gantt chart tool are the following :

JIRA	ILOG GANTT FOR .NET	MS PROJECT
Summary	Name	Task Name
Due Date	End Time	Finish
Start Date (not available in Jira)	Start Time	Start
Original Time Estimate	Duration	Duration
Issue Key	Info (Insert / New Column)	Notes (Insert / Column)
Assignee	Resources	Resource Names

---

STEP 2.1: Start your Gantt chart tool and open your XML file

STEP 2.2: Manage Schedule and Resources of your issues over the time

STEP 2.3: Save your file as XML Format

Step 3: Update issues

STEP 3.1: Go to JIRA - Browse Project Page - "ILOG Gantt Bridge" Tab

STEP 3.2: Give your XML Gantt file to JIRA and process the update

STEP 3.3: Control the update

• Directly on issues : see new values and see the change history tab
• By generating a Graphical Project Gantt Chart report or by viewing the Calendar of your project

Graphical Project Gantt Chart Report (Other Cool Jira plugin: Look at Gantt Chart plugin)

 
Calendar Tab ( Other cool Jira plugin too! Jira Calendar Plugin)

Result

Data updated in JIRA

• Due date
• Original Time estimate AND Remaining Time Estimate
• Summary
• Assignee

Notifications

• Sent by JIRA to involved people (according to the notification scheme setup)
• History of updates tracked within JIRA as standard updates

Permissions

• User who process the update must have the Edit permission on issues, otherwise no update is processed

Features and Limits of the Bridge

Features

When generating the XML export file, the bridge will provide the list of "Assignable users". All resources of a project will be available in the Gantt charting tool.

To display the JIRA Issue Key in your Gantt tool:

• In ILOG Gantt For .NET, you need to insert the column "INFO"

• In MS Project, you need to insert the column "NOTES"

Working time (of JIRA and Gantt Chart tools):

• Days per week = 5

• Hours per days = 8

Behaviors to know

To have a nice representation of your issues, you need to define values for the Original Time Estimate and Due Date fields.

If issue exported has no due date: task will be placed on the gantt with the current date with no duration, and with a constraint of type "Start no earlier than".

If issue has a due date: the task will finish on the due date with a "Must finish on" constraint.

The duration of a task is calculated with the "Original Time Estimate". When you will reimport your issues, both "Original Time Estimate" AND "Remaining Estimate" fields will be updated with the new duration.

If you run a "Graphical Project Gantt Chart Report" (web gantt report available from the browse project page), you will probably see some differences with the gantt generated by the bridge. This is due to the way the duration is calculted.

• In the gantt chart report, Duration = Remaining estimate + Time Spent.

• In the ILOGGanttBridge, Duration = Original Estimate (time spent is not considered).

Known bugs

• During the reimport phase, the update of a particular issue can fail if the "resource" (assignee) is undefined or not recognized by jira. Other issues will finally be updated. Behavior changed on 2.5. A warning message is now displayed to inform that the assignee is wrong and can't be updated.

Screenshots