Blog from July, 2017

For months we’ve been providing JIRA Cloud users with the ability to manage their Definitions of Done, ToDo’s, Acceptance Criteria’s inside JIRA issue avoiding complex sub-tasks creation with Smart Checklist add-on for JIRA Cloud. Using Enterprise Cloud Edition (paid) they’ve got even more enhanced functionality.
 The time has come to bring the same good experience for JIRA Serverusers.

We are glad to introduce you Smart Checklist add-on for JIRA Server!

So far Smart Checklist Enterprise became the first add-on among all the other ToDos/checklists types on Atlassian Marketplace which supports both Cloud and Server JIRA instances.

Why you might need JIRA Server

• if you are looking for extensive set of add-ons or even want to implement some set of customized solutions
• if your company has some sensitive data that you don’t want to store in Cloud
• if your company has more than 2000 users
• and if you want to save actual money on JIRA server/add-ons purchase

Check full Pros and Cons list of Cloud vs. Server review from Atlassian

With JIRA Smart Checklist for Server you can

• Use full-screen editor with Markdown support and simple syntax for more convenient work with checklists
• Group checklists with headlines and add details to any checklist item
• Track checklist items state
• Use checklist as a template and share it via view email, pdf, notes
• Populate checklist via usual JIRA API
• Trigger checklist values changes by JIRA workflow transition

And since latest version — users of Enterprise edition can easily work with checklist from issue details view on Agile board!

Smart Checklist is an ideal solution for teams who switched from Trello to JIRA Software and can substitute Trello checklists.
Finally all the extensive configuration and usage guides could be found on our add-on Knowledge Base.

Have any questions, comments, or feedback? Feel free to drop us a line at smartchecklist@railsware.com. We’d love to hear from you!*

We are glad to introduce you the new version of Smart Checklist add-on for JIRA Cloud .

It’s hard to believe, but the first version of our add-on has been launched on Atlassian marketplace half a year ago!
Over this time, Smart Checklist has become a MUST tool in our company’s processes management, as well as in client projects.

It’s in a high-demand of our operation personnel, financial and product managers and we believe it’ll make your life easier as well!

Why do we needed checklists at all

We’ve moved to JIRA after using Trello for quite a while. Trello was pretty good as it provided our team with great functionality on managing Project boards and single Tickets, but most importantly — with checklists embedded in Trello cards.
However, JIRA seemed to have some great support of custom statuses, workflows, APIs and service desk project types, so we decided to switch.

As we handle various projects, from Software Development to managing Company Structure, we needed a place to describe repeatable processes, from release instructions to office plants care. Essentially, we required a substitution for Trello checklists.

Alternative?

There’re subtasks in JIRA which are basically same as JIRA ticket, but located 1 level below your current issue and linked to it. And it works OK for tasks with bigger context. However, often you don’t need that overhead, but rather to put up to 10 To Do items or Definition of Done criteria or other steps and instructions for task execution.

Solution!

Managing such an activity through JIRA subtasks is time-consuming sort of pain. Therefore we decided to implement Smart Checklist add-on and it became a very useful part of our JIRA infrastructure.

What’s new in latest version

The goal we aimed for this release was to make it extremely easy to organize small and big checklists inside JIRA ticket. It’s achieved by using the power of Markdown, extended details per checklist item and ability to populate checklist content with JIRA API .

So, do you want to know what’s in that new plugin version? Let’s see!

Differentiate between states of checklist item
Using dropdown menu that appears on item’s mouse over or by mouse actions (long click, right btn click ) — you can easily switch checklist item state.

Different states of checklist item

Indicating in text-edit mode by simple formatting — you get appropriate statuses rendered:
‘- ’ as ToDo, ‘+ ’ as Done, ‘~ ’ as in Progress, ‘x ’ as Skipped.

Use full-screen edit mode to easily manage multiple checklist items. Copy/paste, import checklists from external source, e.g emails, notes, pdfs or other JIRA Issues.

Full-screen editor

It’s implemented based on ACE Editor and supports ACE Editor Keyboard Shortcuts
Use Markdown to create visual clarity for checklist information. Use headlines to group checklists items.

Support Markdown formatting

Want to add important information about checklists for checklist users or add clarity in steps to be done and particular instructions?

Use “>” quote sign in the beginning of the row

Additional details per item

it’s hidden by default, but available when needed.

Additional details expanded

Smart Checklist for JIRA is a first (but not last) add-on from Railsware published on Atlassian marketplace. We have a bunch of ideas which might increase productivity of Product/Project Managers, Development, QA and even Biz and Financial teams.

To get more insight about Smart Checklist for JIRA Cloud usage — check our knowledge base.
We’d love to hear your feedback! Should you have any questions or feature requests — drop us a note on smartchecklist@railsware.com

UPDATE: And since now all JIRA Server users may benefit from Smart Checklist add-on for JIRA Server! Install it from Atlassian marketplace and get your tasks organized inside your JIRA issue on JIRA Server!