SnapABug improves integration with Pivotal Tracker
SnapABug, a tool that allows you to embed a screen capture help widget on your site, has taken advantage of the recently released new version of the Pivotal Tracker API (V3) to improve the integration between SnapABug and Pivotal Tracker. SnapABug can now automatically upload web page snapshots as Tracker story file attachments.
Read more about this feature and other improvements here.
Pivotal Tracker integration with Zendesk
We've added Zendesk to the list of applications that Tracker integrates with. Zendesk is a "beautifully simple", on demand customer support help desk system. This integration allows your development team to prioritize and collaborate around Zendesk tickets as linked Tracker stories, bringing development and support closer together in your organization.
To learn how to set up Zendesk integration for your project, visit the integrations help page. Once enabled, you'll see a new panel in your project, allowing you to see and drag/drop Zendek tickets into the backlog or icebox. Story comments and state changes will appear in the corresponding Zendesk ticket as comments.
Note: At the moment, the Pivotal Tracker target in Zendesk does not create linked stories in Tracker. We're working with Zendesk to enable that, and make the two integrations seamless.
Pivotal Tracker down for an upgrade tonight (Friday) at 7pm PST
Pivotal Tracker will be down for an upgrade tonight, Friday (2/12/10), starting at 7pm PST. We anticipate to be back up within about an hour.
Apologies for any inconvenience.
New in Pivotal Tracker: API V3, GitHub & Campfire support, JIRA, Lighthouse, and Satisfaction integration
This Pivotal Tracker update allows you to see GitHub or other SCM commits in your stories, your project activity in your team's Campfire chat room, and introduces the first wave of integrations with other bug/issue tracking applications including JIRA, Lighthouse, and Satisfaction.
There is also a new version of the API (V3), with support for moving stories, file attachments, as well as activity web hooks. The first version of the API (V1) is no longer available.
Continue reading for more details on what's new.
API V3
This is a new version of the API. As part of this release, the first version of the API (V1) has been removed. You can continue to use V2, but that version will deprecated at some point in the future.
Highlights of what's new in API V3:
- access to more complete and detailed project activity
- support for adding file attachments to stories
- ability to move (re-prioritize) stories
- GitHub post-commit support, as well as a generic post-commit hook, to allow you to associate source commits with stories
- more information in the project resources, including labels
Complete documentation is available on the API Help Page. For more details about what's new or changed in the API, see this blog post.
Activity Web Hook
Tracker can now post notifications to a URL you specify as story activity happens in your project. The POST body of these requests will contain XML describing the event, as well as the affected story, in the exact same format as the API activity response.
One way to use the web hooks is for integration, to keep stories synchronized with resources in other systems. We're hoping you'll find other interesting ways to use them.
Activity web hooks can be enabled on your project's Integrations page. To get there, go to your project settings, and click on the Integrations tab at the top right. More information on activity web hooks, as well as other types integration are available on the Integrations help page.
Bug / Issue Tracking Tool Integration
In this release, we're introducing the first of many external integrations, starting with support for JIRA, Lighthouse, and Satisfaction.
The objective of these integrations is to allow your team to prioritize, and collaborate around stories that are tied to existing tickets/issues in other systems, increasing overall visibility without having to do manual double entry. For the JIRA and Lighthouse integrations, changes to story states, and new comments will be reflected in the linked ticket/issue.
In the first release of integrations, story - ticket synchronization is 1 way only (Tracker -> JIRA/Lighthouse), but it's possible to make that 2 way by using the Tracker API, and Lighthouse web hooks or a JIRA plugin.
See the Integrations help page for more on integrations, and how to set them up for your project.
Campfire Notification
You can now see activity from your Tracker project in your Campfire chat room.
Read more about the Campfire integration on the on the Integrations help page
As always, we welcome your feedback. If you have something that you've created with the API, and would like to share it with our user community, please let us know!
Pivotal Tracker maintenance and upgrades this weekend
We are planing to do a Tracker upgrade (with new features including API V3 and some integrations) tomorrow, Saturday Jan 23, at 5:30pm PST. We expect the upgrade to take under two hours.
Also, Engine Yard will be performing some maintenance and upgrades our hardware cluster on Sunday, from 10:00am to 1:00pm PST.
Sorry for the inconvenience. If you need access to your project data during the downtime, we recommend you export your project(s) beforehand:
http://www.pivotaltracker.com/help#howcaniexportstoriesfrommyproject
Also, as a reminder, the first version of the API (V1) will be disabled as part of tomorrow's release. More information on that here.
tgethr email collaboration and Pivotal Tracker
If you've been looking for a way to turn emails into Tracker stories, take a look at tgethr. It's an email collaboration service for groups, and it now integrates with Pivotal Tracker.
Read about it in this tgethr blog post.
Pivotal Tracker API - new version (V3) to be released on Jan. 23
We're planning a Pivotal Tracker upgrade on Jan 23. As part of this release, we will be introducing a new API version (V3), which will make it easier to follow project activity, allow you to add file attachments, move (re-prioritize) stories, associate source commits with stories, and more.
The current API version (V2) will not change, but V1 will no longer work. If you're still using V1, you will need to change your client code to use V2 or V3.
To find out what's changing in V3, continue reading.
How to tell what version of the API you're using?
The API version identifier is part of the request URLs. For example, this is a V2 request:
http://www.pivotaltracker.com/services/v2/projects
What's New or Changed in V3
Activity
The response for the activity queries will change significantly. It will include a version # (to allow you to keep track of unique events and their order), event type, when the activity occurred (with time zone), and a nested element with all story attributes that changed as part of the activity. Example:
<activities type="array">
<activity>
<id type="integer">1031</id>
<version type="integer">175</version>
<event_type>story_update</event_type>
<occurred_at type="datetime">2009/12/14 14:12:09 PST</occurred_at>
<author>James Kirk</author>
<project_id type="integer">26</project_id>
<description>James Kirk accepted "More power to shields"</description>
<stories>
<story>
<id type="integer">109</id>
<url>https://www.pivotaltracker.com/services/v3/projects/26/stories/109</url>
<accepted_at type="datetime">2009/12/14 22:12:09 UTC</accepted_at>
<current_state>accepted</current_state>
</story>
</stories>
</activity>
</activities>
You'll also be able to query for all activity since a particular date or version #, and you limit how many entries to return (up to 100):
curl -H "X-TrackerToken: TOKEN" -X GET http://www.pivotaltracker.com/services/v3/activities?newer_than_version=13 curl -H "X-TrackerToken: TOKEN" -X GET http://www.pivotaltracker.com/services/v3/activities?occurred_since_date=2009/12/14&limit=50
Activity Web Hook
This will allow you to specify a URL per project (in project settings), which Tracker will post story activity to, in the same XML format as above. You'll be able to "pull" story activity out of Tracker via normal API GET requests, or have it POSTed to your client as it occurs via the activity web hook.
Projects
The project XML response will include the current and initial velocity, last activity date, and a list of all labels in the project.
Example:
<project>
<id>1</id>
<name>Sample Project</name>
<iteration_length type="integer">2</iteration_length>
<week_start_day>Monday</week_start_day>
<point_scale>0,1,2,3</point_scale>
<account>James Kirks Account</account>
<velocity_scheme>Average of 4 iterations</velocity_scheme>
<initial_velocity>10</initial_velocity>
<last_activity_at type="datetime">2010/01/16 17:39:10 CST</last_activity_at>
<number_of_done_iterations_to_show>12</number_of_done_iterations_to_show>
<labels>shields,transporter</labels>
<allow_attachments>true</allow_attachments>
<public>false</public>
<use_https>true</use_https>
<bugs_and_chores_are_estimatable>false</bugs_and_chores_are_estimatable>
<commit_mode>false</commit_mode>
<memberships>
<membership>
<id>1006</id>
<person>
<email>kirkybaby@earth.ufp</email>
<name>James T. Kirk</name>
<initials>JTK</initials>
</person>
<role>Owner</role>
</membership>
</memberships>
</project>
When creating a project via the API, the user represented by the API token will be made an owner of that project by default. To leave the new project without an owner (because your client is acting on behalf of a different user, for example), you'll need to include <no_owner type=\"boolean\">true</no_owner> in the post data.
Stories
You'll be able to move (re-prioritize) stories via the API. To move a story to after another story:
curl -H "X-TrackerToken: TOKEN" \
-X POST http://www.pivotaltracker.com/services/v3/projects/PROJECT_ID/stories/STORY_ID/moves?move\[move\]=after&move\[target\]=TARGET_STORY_ID"
Or, move it before a story:
curl -H "X-TrackerToken: TOKEN" \
-X POST http://www.pivotaltracker.com/services/v3/projects/PROJECT_ID/stories/STORY_ID/moves?move\[move\]=before&move\[target\]=TARGET_STORY_ID
As part of the new integrations feature (watch for more on that later), you'll be able to associate a story with a ticket or issue in an external system, such as Lighthouse or JIRA. You'll need to specify a ticket/issue ID, and optionally which specific integration to use (a project may be set up with multiple):
curl -H "X-TrackerToken: TOKEN" -H "Content-type: application/xml" \
-d "<story><lighthouse_id>54</lighthouse_id></story>" \
-X PUT http://www.pivotaltracker.com/services/v3/projects/PROJECT_ID/stories/STORY_ID"
Stories that are linked to a ticket or issue in an external system (for example JIRA or Lighthouse) will include the external ID as an attribute, as well as the URL to the linked ticket/issue:
<story> <id type="integer">STORY_ID</id> <story_type>feature</story_type> <url>http://www.pivotaltracker.com/story/show/STORY_ID</url> <estimate type="integer">1</estimate> <current_state>unstarted</current_state> <lighthouse_id>43</lighthouse_id> <lighthouse_url>http://mylighthouseapp.com/projects/100/tickets/43</lighthouse_url> <name>More power to shields</name> <requested_by>James Kirk</requested_by> <created_at type="datetime">2008/12/10 00:00:00 UTC</created_at> </story>
File attachments
Here's how you'll be able to upload a file attachment to a story:
curl -H "X-TrackerToken: TOKEN" -X POST -F Filedata=@/path/to/file http://www.pivotaltracker.com/services/v3/projects/PROJECT_ID/stories/STORY_ID/attachments
The story response will include information about file attachments in this nested XML element:
<attachments type="array">
<attachment>
<id type="integer">17</id>
<filename>Picture_36.png</filename>
<description></description>
<uploaded_by>Rob</uploaded_by>
<uploaded_at type="datetime">2010/01/17 14:57:57 CST</uploaded_at>
</attachment>
</attachments>
Note: Attachments in the story response XML will most likely not include a URL to the actual AWS S3 file, since these URLs are only valid temporarily. You'll need to make a separate API call (details TBD) to get the S3 URL for a given story file attachment.
Source Control Post Commit Hooks
This will allow you to set up post-commit hooks in git, github, subversion, etc., to link commits to stories (and optionally mark them as finished) based on this message syntax:
"Torpedoes now sufficiently powered [fixes #123456]".
Curl example, of what you might do in a custom post-commit hook script for subversion or git:
curl -H "X-TrackerToken: TOKEN" -H "Content-type: application/xml" \
-d "<source_commit><message>$MESSAGE</message><author>$AUTHOR</author><commit_id>$REV</commit_id><url>http://trac.yourcompany.com/browser/?rev=$REV</url></source_commit>" \
-X POST http://www.pivotaltracker.com/services/v3/source_commits
Stories will show associated source commits as comments, with a link to the commit if you include a URL in the post body:
Github Support
The V3 version of the API will also support native Github post-commit hooks, allowing you to configure your Github repo to send commit information directly to Tracker, along with the [fixes #12345] message syntax.
The format of the Github post-commit request will be:
https://www.pivotaltracker.com/services/v3/github_commits?token=API_TOKEN_OF_THE_USER_TO_ATTRIBUTE_ACTIONS_TO
Badges and Widgets - How would you like to promote your project?
We're starting work on Tracker badges and widgets. Our goal is to allow you to share information about your project or backlog on your website, or to promote Tracker and Agile Software in general.
Our current thinking is a few widgets that expose project summary data and stories, as well as something along the lines of "I <3 Tracker"/"I <3 Agile Development" badges for those who just want to spread the love without sharing their private project data. We imagine these being used on open source project pages, personal websites, and blogs.
So I ask you: What information would you like to share (story summaries, upcoming stories, members, etc?). If your project is private do you want to be able to expose some of this information anyway? If you are interested in sharing your love of Tracker and Agile Software but not your project data what kind of badge(s) would you want?
As always, thanks for your feedback!
Faster Pivotal Tracker story writing with Slurper
Written by our friends at Hashrocket, Slurper lets you create stories as plain text files and import them into Tracker via the API. Also, if you use Vim, check out slurper.vim, a Vim companion script with syntax highlighting and key mappings.
Adam Lowe's blog post talks about these really useful new tools in more detail.
For other Tracker tools, see the 3rd Party Tools page.
MobiTracker - new iPhone app for Pivotal Tracker
MobiTracker, written by Steven Nie, is a new iPhone app for Pivotal Tracker. It uses the Pivotal Tracker API, and supports off-line reading and editing of stories, search, email, and more.
MobiTracker is available for download now on iTunes.
