GreenHopper Quick Start Guide

This page has been deprecated in favour of the GreenHopper 101 guide, please see the GreenHopper 101 guide for current information.

GreenHopper is a JIRA plugin that helps you manage your projects using agile methodologies. GreenHopper essentially adds another layer of functionality to JIRA, via its planning board, task board and chart board. You can use these boards to organise your product and sprint backlogs, track the progress of the current version and monitor the status of your project graphically.

All the data that you can see in GreenHopper is JIRA data (e.g. projects, versions, issues, etc). Hence, anything that you do in GreenHopper will be pushed to JIRA (e.g. notifications, workflow functions, etc) and anything that you configure in JIRA will be reflected in GreenHopper (fields, permissions, security, etc).

New to JIRA?

If you are new to JIRA, we recommend that you read the JIRA 101 Guide to help you learn the basics before using GreenHopper.

Installing GreenHopper

If you haven't already installed GreenHopper, please read GreenHopper Installation and Upgrade Guide.

GreenHopper 4.2.1 has been released! Read the release notes for more information on the features that have been added.

Configuring GreenHopper

Before you start using GreenHopper to manage your projects, please configure the following GreenHopper settings. Please note, you must be a JIRA administrator to modify the settings described below.

1. Configure a Ranking Field

A ranking field is a project-wide custom field in JIRA that is used specifically for GreenHopper. Setting up a ranking field allows you to organise your issues according to an ordinal priority (i.e. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7... etc). Hence, you can prioritise your issues sequentially, at a more granular level.

To set up a ranking field for a project, read Configuring your General Project Settings.
To learn more about using ranking fields, read Ranking Issues in GreenHopper.

2. Organise Versions

GreenHopper allows you to create master-slave relationships between versions. For example, you may wish to group your sprints as milestone versions (e.g. "Version 1 m1", "Version 1 m2", etc) under the version for the major release (e.g. "Version 1"). In GreenHopper, you can set up the major version as the "master" version for the milestone versions. This allows you to view and track all of the issues assigned to the milestone releases under the umbrella of the major release.

To organise your versions in GreenHopper, read Setting Up a Version Hierarchy.

3. Set Up Contexts

GreenHopper 'contexts' help streamline the view of your project by filtering and highlighting issues based on preset criteria. You can set up a context and apply it to any number of projects/versions. If you have a large number of issues in your projects/versions, you may want to configure a few contexts to help keep your boards manageable.

To create and use a context, please read Using Contexts to Filter and Highlight Issues.

4. Add your own Custom Statistics (Story points)

A custom statistic is essentially a numeric custom field. You can add custom statistics to measure and track issues by. For example, a common statistic in agile development is story points. Adding a statistic allows you assign a numeric value for the statistic against each issue and automatically adds a Burnup, Burndown and Value (velocity) chart for that statistic.

To view and create custom statistics, please read Viewing and Configuring Statistics via your Planning Board.

Getting Started using GreenHopper

To navigate to GreenHopper,

Click the 'Agile' menu in the top navigation bar and select 'Planning Board' from the dropdown that displays. The 'Planning Board' will display.
The last Planning Board of the last project you have viewed will be displayed. If this is the first time you are viewing the Planning Board, the first project you are allowed to browse will be displayed.
You can also view the Planning Board for a project by navigating to the project (via the 'Projects' menu in the top navigation menu), clicking the 'Agile' link in the left navigation menu, selecting the planning board from the dropdown and clicking the icon.

Further Help

If you are having problems configuring or using GreenHopper, you may wish to check out the Atlassian GreenHopper forums for advice from other users.

If you need further assistance from us to resolve a problem, please log an issue on our support system.

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