BIG NEWS FROM ATLASSIAN: “Between Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day and unpredictable weather, March is one crazy month –and we at Atlassian are still deeply mad for DVCS! As an expression of our mania, we put extra love for DVCS users into Bamboo 4.0, now available for download. If you’re not a DVCS user (at least, not yet…), there’s no need to feel left out because Bamboo 4.0 has plenty of goodness for you, too. You know we wouldn’t do ya wrong!

Plan Branches Let You Automate More, and Configure Less

Branching your code is a fact of life in software projects –almost as unavoidable as death and taxes. One of the most common reasons for branching is to allow developers to work for a short time in isolation, which is all well and good. But this often means that code on the branches is not part of the team’s CI scheme, leaving uncertainty as to whether changes made on the branch work or not. And if new branches must be incorporated into the CI system manually, the administrative overhead quickly gets out of hand. To help restore developer confidence (and build engineers’ sanity), Bamboo 4.0 comes with advanced support for branching your build plans along with your code and merging the code lines regularly.

Automatic Branching for DVCS

Teams using DVCS repositories can have Bamboo automatically detect new branches in your repo within seconds of their creation. When a new branch is found, all Plans associated with that repo are cloned and connected to the new branch, with the option to override Plan variables and advanced repository settings.

Flexible Options for DVCS Merging

And we’ve got you covered for merging, too. In keeping with the idea that the best way to ease a painful process is to do it frequently, Plan branches can be automatically merged with the main code line in one of two ways.

The “Gatekeeper”

This strategy merges changes from your branch into the main line and builds the result. If successful, the merged code is committed and pushed to the main line, keeping the whole team in sync.

The “Build Updater”

Conversely, the “Build Updater” strategy merges the main line into the branch, and builds the combined code. The merged code is committed and pushed to the branch upon success. This option is great for making sure longer-living branches don’t stray far from the trunk.  

Push-Button Branching for Centralized VCS

Teams using traditional version control systems can take advantage of quick and easy Plan branching whenever they need it: for release branches, patch branches or developer sandboxes. Just click a button to create the Plan branch, specify the branch’s location in your code repository, and you’re off & running! As with their automatically created counterparts, all push-button Plan branches are consolidated with the master for easy access and an at-a-glance view of all branches associated with your Plan.

Test Quarantine: the Antidote for Volatile Builds

Fans of “Freakonomics” know about the Broken Window Theory: the tendency of breakages that are left visible to invite further destruction and neglect. The world of software is no different. Builds with flaky or ever-failing tests tend to fall into severe decay because breakages become the norm. That’s why teams adopt the discipline of either fixing the problem right away, or pulling the test out. But if the test was worth writing, it’s worth keeping tabs on, and Bamboo’s new Quarantine feature makes that easy. Gone are the days of commenting out test code or manually updating test suite configuration files. Simply hit the Quarantine button next to a failing test, and let Bamboo do the dirty work. Not only that, but you’ll see the count of Quarantined tests in every build result as a reminder to reincorporate them into your build.

Clean Workspace, Clear Mind

Springtime means spring cleaning, so we’ve freshened up the UI in Bamboo 4.0. Don’t want to see the Plan Navigator all the time? Toggle it hidden or shown to keep content-packed pages free of clutter and easy to read. On the Plan Summary pages, you’ll notice the Plan Statistics panel has undergone a facelift. Underneath that, you’ll find a list of all branches for the Plan –complete with build status indicators! History buffs and stats junkies alike will rejoice in the new build history bar on Plan detail and configuration pages showing the status of the last 10 builds. Hover your mouse over any indicator to see the build number, what triggered the build and whether any tests failed.

But That’s Not All!

Bamboo 4.0 is over 100 fixes and enhancements in the making. Check out the full release notes for more details as well as the top 10 user-voted issues included in this release. We really do listen!

Upgrade to the latest and greatest in continuous integration servers by downloading your copy today. Start a 30-day free trial, or update your existing instance. Our online Installation and Upgrade Guides are here to help.”

So you’ve probably heard already – Atlassian released Jira 5 today, loaded with tons of new stuff. Here’s Atlassian’s press release, which gives a cumulative primer:

“SAN FRANCISCO & SYDNEY, February 22, 2012—Atlassian, the leading provider of collaboration software for product teams, today launched Jira 5, the latest release of its flagship product. Available through both an OnDemand and on-site offering, Jira 5 offers a social product development platform that connects people, applications and activity to accelerate the software development process. New social features such as mentions, sharing and live activity streams immediately bring users into real-time discussions.

Jira 5′s platform – including an expanded plugin API and improved REST APIs –allows third-party software vendors to easily integrate with Jira and create products that are seamlessly compatible with future Jira releases, saving companies time and money. More than 30 integration partners, including Box, Gliffy, New Relic, Zephyr, Zendesk, Salesforce.com, Tempo and GetSatisfaction are launching Jira 5 compatible third-party products. More than 100 commercial and free plugins are also available with today’s launch.

“Jira 5 continues to push the software development process forward, this time through new social capabilities that improve real-time communication and better connect developers, technical teams, business users and customers – basically everyone building software products together,” said Jay Simons, president of Atlassian. “Jira 5′s enhanced integration platform also helps connect information from other enterprise products – a sales ticket from Salesforce.com, or a customer service request from Zendesk – directly to the Jira issue tracking and workflow engine, putting more information directly into the hands of product teams.”

Jira is used by more than 70 percent of Fortune 100 companies. Jira sits at the center of the software development process, connecting teams with development tasks such as bug tracking, feature development, agile planning, and activity monitoring.

Sharing Features Connect Developers, Teams and Data in Real Time

“Before Jira, our developers lost so much time reproducing the wheel through a tedious process of figuring out what had been done and who’d already been involved,” said Alex Kirmse, head of mobile development for Zappos.

Jira 5’s new sharing and mention features makes it easy to pull team members or co-workers into the conversation. Live activity streams update team members on all related activities and information, much like Facebook and Twitter activity streams.

“The effectiveness of our team’s communications has increased with direct commenting to individuals and live activity streams,” said Max Pool, Founder of Sycorr, a mobile banking company. “The integration platform for Jira 5 is the best yet. REST APIs improve our ability to integrate across platforms, while improvements to Jira’s powerful search engine (JQL) – such as historic change support – allow us to get even more creative in how we use the system and get the data we want from it.”

Building Businesses on the Jira 5 Platform

Jira 5’s new stable plugin API and improved REST APIs make it easy for integration partners and other plugin developers to build integrated software products. More than a quarter of Jira’s 400 plugins and more than 15 remote SaaS integrations are launching with Jira 5 compatibility. Plugins built using the Jira 5 stable plugin API will be compatible with future upgrades to Jira.

“We feel confident in betting our business on Jira’s success,” explains Samir Shah, CEO of Zephyr. “Jira 5′s new API connects development to QA, and gives our test case management tools more adoption because users know they can upgrade to future releases without having to wait on add-on upgrades.”

“Jira 5 is another quantum leap by Atlassian in their mission to creatively enable large scale collaboration at the nexus of engineering and support,” said Adrian McDermott, vice president of engineering and product management at Zendesk. “This integration redefines how support and engineering teams can work together to enrich customer satisfaction.”

Availability

Starting today, Atlassian is offering a free 30-day trial of Jira 5. Jira can be purchased for on-site download for just $10 for 10 users, or OnDemand starting at $10/month for 10 users.

New Jira Enterprise Offering

To ensure the success of large deployments, Atlassian is introducing a new Jira Enterprise offering with additional support, training and engagement. Customers with 500 or more Jira users can now receive 24X7 phone support, end-user training, and administrator certification, among other enhanced services. For more information, go to http://www.atlassian.com/enterprise.

Additional Resources

• Check out Jira 5: www.atlassian.com/jira5
• Watch us on YouTube: www.youtube.com/goAtlassian or AtlassianTV: http://www.atlassian.com/tv
• Follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/Atlassian
• Become a fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/atlassian#!/AtlassianSoftware

About Atlassian

Atlassian products help innovators everywhere plan, build and launch great software. More than 18,000 large and small organizations – including Citigroup, eBay, Netflix and Nike – use Atlassian’s issue tracking, collaboration and software-development products to work smarter and deliver quality results on time. Learn more at http://atlassian.com.”

Did you actually think Atlassian was gonna slow down just because it’s a new year? After an exciting first 6 months in 2011, the Team Calendars development team continues it’s blazing pace in 2012.

Ryan Anderson reported last week that Atlassian’s happy to announce that our next major release - Team Calendars 1.8 - is available for download now!

Connect Team Calendars with Google Calendar

At this point in human existence, managing your schedule is nearly impossible. Once upon a time, one’s agenda only consisted of finding shelter, food, and a mate. Today, however, we need a miracle to keep track of the endless meetings, appointments, and dinner dates. Our increasingly busy schedules deny us the clarity needed to successfully plan and organize our time.

Luckily, the latest release of Team Calendars delivers the vision required to confidently schedule events for your team through Google Calendar integration; satisfying 18 of your votes!

Consolidate Your Team and Personal Calendars

This release allows you to consolidate your Team Calendars and your personal calendar. With an already strapped personal calendar loaded with the day’s responsibilities, the idea of tracking the schedule of your coworkers is as farfetched as an airborne pig. But subscribing to your People and Events Calendars affords a new lens to your personal planning.

You might be planning a team lunch the week the majority of your team is on leave – viewing your People Calendars alongside your personal schedule keeps you from scheduling a meeting no one can attend in the first place.

It’s also helpful to know who’s going to be in the office the day of. If you’re like me, I always check my personal agenda before I leave my house in the morning to see what kind of day I have on my plate. I’m much more prepared for the day if I know which of my closest teammates aren’t going to be in the office that day – avoiding any ‘Oh $&*#’ moments – as I’m not surprised by an absence.

Using Outlook?

Great! You can subscribe to your People and Event Calendars from Outlook too. Bring in the new year by consolidating your team and personal calendars and happily plan and schedule your time with all the information.

So many features, so little time

Be careful not to blink, you might miss the next Team Calendars release (especially if you’re aJira user). And if you did blink, here’s a quick review of what Atlassian’s been up to over the last few months:

• Team Calendars 1.1: Watch calendars, management of repeated events, and hover profiles
• Team Calendars 1.2: Autowatch calendars and improved notifications
• Team Calendars 1.3: View restrictions
• Team Calendars 1.4: Edit restrictions
• Team Calendars 1.5: New user adoption dialog and smarter calendars sharing
• Team Calendars 1.6: Include custom Jira dates in Jira Calendars
• Team Calendars 1.7: Add multiple people to a single People Calendar event

Have Confluence and Team Calendars?

Awesome. Have a look at the release notes or download it now!

Have Confluence, but not Team Calendars?

Team Calendars averages 65 downloads a day and has reached 2,802 teams - like Facebook, Skype, Workday, and HTC. Using Team Calendars helps teams to schedule their leave, track their Jira projects, and plan events. Learn more now!

New to Confluence and Team Calendars?

Learn more about Confluence and Team Calendars now.

The latest release of the Confluence SharePoint Connector is loaded with new features that help make the static content you store in SharePoint easier to embed within the dynamic content you create and share in Confluence.

Access Content in SharePoint From Confluence, Fast

Confluence 4.0 delivered a new intuitive editing interface that lets users create rich content with extraordinary speed and simplicity. Combine the content storage benefits of SharePoint with the new content collaboration power of Confluence and you’ve solved your team’s collaboration struggles.

SharePoint’s often used to store legacy documents. There are times when you need to make these documents accessible in Confluence where everyone’s collaborating around projects and getting their work done. Atlassian’s made it even faster for the users that live in Confluence to embed custom SharePoint Lists and link to SharePoint documents in Confluence pages with Macro Autocomplete.

It’s also easy to jump over to SharePoint from the lists embedded in Confluence pages with a new View in SharePoint link accessible from the macro property panel.

Lastly, Atlassian’s made the integration that the SharePoint Connector provides more discoverable to Confluence users by including the SharePoint Document Link and List macros in the editor’s Insert Menu.

Faster Linking to SharePoint Content

Let’s face it, collaborating around the content in SharePoint is a burden. However, pulling content stored in SharePoint into Confluence will not only save you time, but your mental health too!

Improved SharePoint Document Link Macro

Effortlessly create links to your SharePoint server’s Office documents while editing Confluence pages. Links inserted using the SharePoint Link macro let users open and edit SharePoint documents directly in the appropriate Office application, such as Excel or Word, without having to load the SharePoint site.

SharePoint List Macro

If you’ve got a group of related documents – like collateral for an upcoming product launch – that are stored in SharePoint, the the SharePoint List macro makes it easy to share those documents with other stakeholders that get their work done in Confluence. The macro can display most SharePoint list types and document libraries giving you the ability to access and collaborate around all of your SharePoint documents in Confluence.

Watch Confluence Content from SharePoint

If you’re viewing a Confluence page or blog post within a SharePoint site you can now choose to Watch it to receive email notifications whenever changes are made.

Up-to-date Content, All the Time

Even better, if someone edits the Confluence page or blog post while you are viewing it, the Confluence Web Part in SharePoint will automatically refresh so you’re guaranteed to be viewing the most current version. Keeping up-to-date with the dynamic content that lives in Confluence just got easier.

Available Today!

To try Atlassian’s SharePoint Connector 1.5, click the link below – and to learn more about SharePoint or Confluence and what they can give you, drop us a line.

The latest release of the Atlassian’s Confluence SharePoint Connector is loaded with new features that turn SharePoint into the social collaboration platform you always wished it was. Best of all, it’s available for download today…here’s the scoop:

Unlock Documents and Lists stored in SharePoint
With Atlassian’s redesigned SharePoint list macro, anyone can insert their favorite SharePoint lists into Confluence without needing to know wiki markup.

1. Smarter SharePoint List Macro
New ‘Smart Fields’ for the ‘SharePoint List Macro’ in the Confluence ‘Macro Browser’ make light work of finding your ‘Lists’ from SharePoint and embedding them into a Confluence page for others to see.

2. Custom SharePoint List Views in Confluence
We’ve also made it easy for users to reuse the custom list views they’ve configured in SharePoint. Getting your personalized SharePoint experience in Confluence is now just a couple of keystrokes away.

Bring Social Collaboration into SharePoint
Experience the collaborative advantages of Confluence inside SharePoint like never before with new social features for SharePoint users.
1. Bring Confluence Blogs into SharePoint
A new Blog Post Web Part lets you bring the rich discussions and newsworthy content shared in Confluence, into SharePoint. And, with the power of Web Part Connections, you can connect a Blog Post Web Part to the new Blog Post Tree View Web Part. This lets SharePoint users browse all the blog posts in a Confluence Space directly from SharePoint. Now everyone can stay-up-to-date on the important announcements published in your intranet.

2. Post comments on Confluence content from SharePoint
Users can now make comments on the Confluence pages and blog posts they consume in SharePoint allowing more people to contribute to the conversations taking place inside your Confluence wiki.

For Administrators…
One-step Farm-wide Settings
We’re always striving to make the life of administrators easier. In this release we’ve added a huge time-saving feature – connecting your entire SharePoint farm to Confluence is now single-step process. Now when you add more SharePoint sites to your Farm, they’ll be automatically connected to your Confluence wiki.

Available Today!
There are even more improvements in the SharePoint Connector 1.4. Go get it, try it out, and let us know what you think. Check out the release notes here, or go ahead and download!