Updated for GreenHopper 5.9 so it is now easier than ever to get up and running with GreenHopper.
Welcome to GreenHopper 101, an introductory guide to the GreenHopper plugin for JIRA and a tour of the most interesting GreenHopper features. Use this page to guide your evaluation process or quickly get up to speed with GreenHopper.
The intended audience for this document is software developers who are familiar with Agile methodologies.
Getting Started
First things first. If you haven't already got the GreenHopper plugin up and running, carry out the following steps.
1. Installing GreenHopper
Log in to JIRA as a user with the 'JIRA System Administrators'global permission.
Click the 'cog' icon on the top bar (or click Administation if using an older version of JIRA) and select Add-ons. The Universal Plugin Manager (UPM) page will be displayed.
On the Find new add-ons page, type 'GreenHopper' in the search box.
The GreenHopper add-on will appear in the list below the search box. Click the Install button. A confirmation message and the add-on details will display, if it is installed successfully.
Log in as a user with the'JIRA System Administrators'global permission.
Click the 'cog' icon on the top bar (or click Administation if using an older version of JIRA) and select Add-ons. The Universal Plugin Manager (UPM) page will be displayed.
On the Purchased Add-ons page, click Check for Purchases then locate GreenHopper.
Click the Manage button. The details for the GreenHopper add-on will display. Your Support Entitlement Number (SEN) is also shown on this screen.
Paste your license into the License Key field and click Update. You can copy your GreenHopper license from https://my.atlassian.com, where you can either generate a new Evaluation License Key, or retrieve your old License Key if you already have one.
Click the 'Administration' link at the top of the screen.
Select 'Projects' > 'Projects' then click 'Add Project'.
Type a descriptive Name and unique Key for your project, and select the Project Lead (that is, the person who will manage this project).
After creating your project, exit from JIRA Administration.
For more details, please see the JIRA documentation on Defining a Project.
If you set your GreenHopper project to use the 'Scrum' template, your project will automatically be configured to use Stories, Epics, Story Points, Ranking and Flagging.
Tip: You have the flexibility to configure the GreenHopper 'Default' template and/or the GreenHopper 'Scrum' template to your organisation's needs — please see the documentation on Specifying your Project Templates. Further, individual projects can override the templates to suit their requirements — please see Configuring your General Project Settings.
To set a project to use the 'Scrum' template:
Click the 'Agile' menu in the top navigation bar and select 'Planning Board' from the drop-down menu.
Click the 'Tools' menu near the top right, then click 'Configuration' from the dropdown menu provided.
Select your project from the project dropdown, if it is not already selected.
In the 'Project Template' dropdown, select 'Scrum'.
You may want to create 'parent-child' relationships between versions, e.g. you could group sprints under a release version ('Sprint 1', 'Sprint 2', etc) under the version for the major release ("Version 1").
To set up a version hierarchy, e.g. to break up your major version into sprints:
Click the 'Agile' menu in the top navigation bar and select 'Planning Board' from the drop-down menu.
From the Project drop-down at the top left of the GreenHopper screen (not in the JIRA header), select the project in which you are interested.
In the column at the right of the screen, click the 'Add' link. The 'Add Version' popup will appear.
In the 'Version Name' field, type the name of your new sprint version (e.g. 'Sprint 1').
In the 'Parent' field, select your major version (e.g. 'Version 1').
Optionally, enter the 'Start Date', 'End Date', 'Release Date' and 'Decription' for your new sprint version.
Click the 'Create' button to create the verion and keep the 'Add Version' popup open (so you can create another version, e.g. 'Sprint 2'), or click the 'Create and Close' button to create the version and return to the Planning Board.
To force all issues to respect the hierarchy you have set up, you can 'synchronise' versions and components. You can do this either manually or automatically; for more information, please see the documentation.
To synchronise your versions automatically:
Click the 'Administration' menu in the top navigation bar.
Constraints specify how many issues a column can contain. If the constraint for a column is exceeded, the constraint will be highlighted in red.
To set constraints based on the number of issues in a given column:
Select Agile > Manage Boards from the top navigation bar.
On the 'Manage boards' screen, click the 'Configure' link corresponding to the board of interest.
On the 'board Configuration' screen, click the 'Columns' tab.
In the 'Column Constraint' drop-down, select 'Issue Count'.
To set the columns 'Max' constraint, click the red box at the top of the column, type the new value and press the 'Enter' key. E.g. if your business practice is to have no more than 5 issues 'In Progress' at any one time, you would specify 5.
Close the 'Use board' button (at the top of the page). Your board will refresh with the column constraint applied. If the total number of issues in that column exceeds the maximum capacity, the column will be highlighted in red.
Click the 'Agile' menu in the top navigation bar and select 'Task Board'.
From the Project drop-down at the top left of the GreenHopper screen (not in the JIRA header), select the project in which you are interested. Tip: the Task Board will not be displayed if you have not yet configured a version for your project.
From the Versions drop-down at the top left of the screen, select the version in which you are interested.
If you wish to see only the issues that are assigned to you, click the 'filters' icon at the left of the screen and select the 'Only My Issues' check-box.
Click the 'Create Issue' link at the top of the screen.
Enter your issue details into the 'Create Issue' dialog box, as shown below. If you select the 'Create another' check box, JIRA will create your issue and automatically pre-populate a new 'Create Issue' dialog box with your previous issue details, while leaving the 'Summary' field blank. This allows you to rapidly create a series of issues with similar details.
If you wish to choose which fields will appear when you create (or edit) an issue, click the 'Configure Fields' button.
Click the 'Agile' menu in the top navigation bar and select 'Planning Board' from the drop-down menu.
In the Projects drop-down at the top left of the GreenHopper screen (not in the JIRA header), select the project in which you are interested.
In the Modes drop-down (to the right of the words 'Planning Board'), select 'Version' (or 'Component' or 'Assignee' or 'Project Overview' — whichever is most relevant to the issues you need to schedule/assign).
If you have selected 'Version', 'Component' or 'Assignee', a second dropdown will display that you can select the desired version, component or assignee from.
Drag and drop the desired card(s) to the version (or component or assignee) to which you want to assign the issue(s). You can select multiple cards by using the <Control> (or <Command>) key, or by <Shift> selecting cards.
Click the 'Agile' menu in the top navigation bar and select 'Task Board' from the drop-down menu.
In the Projects drop-down at the top left of the GreenHopper screen (not in the JIRA header), select the project in which you are interested.
In the Versions drop-down, select the version in which you are interested. Please note, you will not be able to select 'Unscheduled' or any released versions in this dropdown.
Drag and drop the desired card(s) to the column that matches the status to which you want to assign the issue(s). For more information, please see Transitioning Issues in GreenHopper.
On the Rapid Board (if you are using Kanban):
Click the 'Agile' menu in the top navigation bar and select 'Rapid Board'.
Select your preferred Rapid Board, then click 'Work'.
Drag and drop the desired card(s) to the column that matches the status to which you want to assign the issue(s). If moving an issue causes a constraint to be exceeded, the affected constraint will be displayed in red (maximum) or yellow (minimum). For more information, please see Transitioning an Issue.
You can filter issues on-the-fly, enabling you for example to only see issues of a particular type (such as 'Bug'). You do this by creating a 'Context' for the Planning Board or Task Board, or a 'Quick Filter' for the Rapid Board.
Click the 'Agile' menu in the top navigation bar and select 'Planning Board' (or 'Task Board' or 'Chart Board') from the drop-down menu.
Select the project in which you are interested.
Select 'New' from the Context drop-down (which will display 'Default' if this is a new installation and your first visit).
On the General tab, in the 'Context name' field, type 'Bugs only' (or whatever is appropriate for your needs).
On the Filter tab, in the 'Issue Type' field, select 'Bugs' (or whatever is appropriate for your needs).
Click the 'Save and Apply' button.
The Planning Board (or 'Task Board' or 'Chart Board') will now only display Bugs.
Click the 'cog' icon (which will appear when you hover over the Project Overview column on the right) to display a drop-down menu.
Select 'Create Wallboard'.
A Wallboard will be created with the name '<Project name> (autogenerated)' and displayed. Your wallboard is a new page on your JIRA dashboard (see Customising the JIRA Dashboard), and will contain:
Select 'View as Wallboard' from the 'Tools' drop-down on your JIRA dashboard, and stare in awe at your fresh new wallboard. For optimal use of screen real-estate, enter full-screen mode on your browser (F11 in Firefox 3.6 and Chrome 5; Safari requires a plugin to enable full-screen mode) and refresh. Wallboards are optimised for 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 screens, but should work in some other resolution modes.
If you have already created a wallboard for your project, the 'View Wallboard' menu option will be displayed instead of 'Create Wallboard'.
Ensure that the JIRA Wallboards Plugin has been installed. (This is similar to installing the GreenHopper plugin as described above.)
Click the 'Dashboard' menu in the top navigation bar and create a new JIRA dashboard for your new wallboard. Since existing dashboards may contain gadgets which are not wallboard-compatible, avoid copying an existing dashboard.
Add one or more wallboard-compatible gadgets to your new dashboard. (See the Adding a Gadget instructions for details.) Any wallboard-compatible gadgets added to this dashboard will be shown on the wallboard. Tip: By default, all available gadgets are listed. However, many of these gadgets are not wallboard-compatible. To restrict the list of gadgets to wallboard-compatible ones only, select the 'Wallboard' category on the left of the 'Gadgets Directory' dialog box.
Select 'View as Wallboard' from the 'Tools' drop-down on your dashboard and stare in awe at your fresh new wallboard. For optimal use of screen real-estate, enter full-screen mode on your browser (F11 in Firefox 3.6 and Chrome 5; Safari requires a plugin to enable full-screen mode) and refresh the page. Wallboards are optimised for 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 pixel resolution screens, but should also work in some other resolution modes.
Thanks for taking the time to try GreenHopper using this guide. To help continue your journey, our support staff are always ready to answer your questions in Atlassian Answers for GreenHopper, or solve specific problems at our support portal http://support.atlassian.com.