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Jama Connect® Features in Five: Jama Connect Interchange™

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Jama Connect® Features in Five: Jama Connect Interchange™

Learn how you can supercharge your systems development process! In this blog series, we’re pulling back the curtains to give you a look at a few of Jama Connect®’s powerful features… in under five minutes.

In this Features in Five video, Debbie Mitchell, Product Manager at Jama Software, will introduce viewers to Jama Connect®’s dedicated integration platform, Jama Connect Interchange™.

In this session, we will explore:

  • Benefits of integrating Jama Connect
  • Features of Jama Connect Interchange
  • Common Jira and Excel Functions integration workflows

Follow along with this short video below to learn more, and you can find the full video transcript below!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Debbie Mitchell: Welcome. I’m Debbie, a Product Manager here at Jama Software. In this video, I’m going to introduce you to Jama Connect’s dedicated integration platform, Jama Connect Interchange. In this video, we will explore the benefits of integrating Jama Connect to other best-of-breed tools, the features offered by Jama Connect Interchange, and some common workflows using our Jira and Excel Functions integrations.

When developing new products, organizations typically employ an entire suite of best-of-breed tools. Requirements management tools like Jama Connect, task management tools like Jira and Microsoft Azure DevOps, and charting and spreadsheet tools like Microsoft Excel.

Working across disconnected tools can present a problem, though. Information quickly becomes out of date, and teams get out of sync with one another, leading to product delays, defects, cost overruns, rework and recalls. This is why we built Jama Connect Interchange, a new integration platform that delivers seamless integration between Jama Connect and other best-of-breed tools.

Unlike other integration tools in the marketplace, Interchange is built, supported, and continually enhanced by dedicated teams at Jama Software. This means Interchange is deeply integrated with Jama Connect configurations and workflows, providing you with a smart and seamless sync while you continue to work in your tool of choice.

Let’s take a common example. Suppose my company is building a new product that includes a software component. Using Jama Connect, I finalize a list of software requirements which will now be decomposed into individual user stories. Those stories will be sent to Jira, the software development team’s tool of choice, for the software engineers to complete.

RELATED: Jama Connect Interchange™ Datasheet

Debbie Mitchell: Let’s see what this looks like in Jama Connect. Using Interchange, I have set up an integration that allows the user stories that I’ve created in this set to automatically flow to a specific project in Jira. In Jira, the software development team can then refine the stories and create additional tasks and subtasks as needed to complete the development work.

In the Interchange admin hub, I’ve specified exactly how information should flow between Jama Connect and Jira for this particular project. I can specify whether each field flows one way or bi-directionally, and the frequency with which changes are synced. Updates can flow as fast as every 15 seconds, so both systems always have the latest information.

For this particular scenario, I’ve configured Interchange so that when development work is complete in Jira, the user story status is automatically synced back to Jama Connect to a field called Development Status. Now I can use the trace view in Jama Connect to easily identify when all user stories associated with a particular requirement have been completed.

To further automate this workflow, I can use the Interchange Excel Functions module to apply additional logical transformations to my data in Jama Connect. You can think of Excel Functions as a calculator that runs in the background while you continue to work in Jama Connect. A Jama Connect administrator maintains the formulas and calculations in an Excel template, and those formulas are then applied to fields in Jama Connect based on the settings and rules the administrator sets up in Interchange.

In this simple example, I’ve set up a rule in my Excel template stating that when all downstream user stories have a status of Development Done, I want the upstream software requirement in Jama Connect to also be marked as Done. Now, this is just one example of how Interchange Excel Functions can be used.

RELATED: Jama Connect®: Accelerating Systems Development with Requirements Management and Live Traceability™

Debbie Mitchell: Jama Connect clients today derive much deeper value from Interchange for scenarios like complex risk calculations, automated field inheritance or data population between related items, customized test case status rollups, and more. You can find out more about Excel functions, use cases, and capabilities by joining the Jama Connect interchange sub-community on the Jama Software community website.

Jama Connect customers can now leverage the power of Interchange to continuously sync information between Jama Connect and other best-of-breed tools. This means teams can continue using their tool of choice to maximize productivity while ensuring that critical project requirements stay in sync. Unlike other solutions in the market, Interchange has been specifically designed and developed to work seamlessly with Jama Connect. It’s easy to deploy, configure, use, and expand, driving efficiency and further lowering your total cost of ownership.

For more information about Interchange, contact your Customer Success Manager today, and thanks.

FREE DEMO: Click Here to Request a Demo of Jama Connect Interchange™

To learn more about available features in Jama Connect, visit: Jama Connect Features

We hope you’ll join us for future Jama Connect Features in Five topics, including, Risk Management, Reviews, Requirements Advisor, and more.


Debbie Mitchell
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