Release Date: 2023/06/20 

Introducing Document View 

Jama Connect has added a new streamlined authoring and editing experience called Document View. You can write, read, and edit items all in one view — without losing your place in the overall document and context of related content.

Key features of Document View include:

• One View
  • Read and write content in a simplified format. 

 

• Inline Editing
  • Double-click on an item to open quick edit mode, where you can update a subset of fields in a condensed form.
    • Switch to full edit mode to work with all available fields. 

 

• Insert Items
  • Add new items exactly where you want without losing your place in the document. 

Document View Comments Panel

You can now view comments and items at the same time, interacting with both as needed. 

From the Comments panel, you can: 

• Read and reply to existing comments
• Add, like, mute and filter comments
• @mention a person or group

Document View — Additional Improvements

• Quick Edit mode now opens when you double-click on an item.
  • When you click in the white space to the right of the content, the item is selected or deselected. 
• When you hover over an item and Quick Mode isn't activated, editable user fields include a gray background.  
• In Quick Edit mode, only fields that are displayed are required fields with an empty value.
  • Required fields with a value are hidden unless you configure them to be displayed.
• From Admin > Organization > Details, you can disable or enable Document View.
  • You might disable it if your organization prefers to more tightly manage the transition from Reading View. 
• In Document View, Quick/Full Edit forms hide required fields that are already populated and show only required fields that are blank if those fields are not configured to be shown in the current view. 

Document View — Future Enhancements

Document View will continue to evolve in future releases with the addition of new features and capabilities; the slide-out panel will include additional widgets and actions, including related items, connected users, activities, versions, and more. 

Additional features under consideration for the longer-term roadmap:

• New content alert and refresh for collaborating with colleagues on content development.
• Breadcrumb and jump-to navigation to quickly access specific content. 
• Nested tables for components or folders. 
• Advanced field configuration for mixed item types and hiding fields. 
• Extending Document View design and usability to other areas of Jama Connect, including Reviewing Center. 
  
  

Introducing Multiple Project Dashboards

With this release, you can now expand dashboard organization and categorize data with individually named project dashboards. Project and organization admins can create, edit, or delete a dashboard. Users with read/write permissions can view dashboards created by their admins. Work with your admin to create a dashboard with the widgets that best support your team's needs.

Organization and project admins now click Add dashboard to name and create project dashboards within these parameters: 

• The initial project dashboard is allowed an unlimited number of widgets, but for optimal performance we recommend a maximum of 20 widgets.
• Subsequent dashboards are limited to 20 widgets. 
• You can have a maximum of 20 dashboards per project.

When you use the dashboard feature, your role determines your interactions and the options that are available. 

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For more information about the dashboard feature, see Working with Dashboards in the Jama Connect User Guide. 
  

Test Management Improvements

Test Step Usability Updates

Several updates have been made to the Single Item View for test cases to improve the editing workflow.

• Result column styling has been updated to better indicate that this column is not editable from the test case item.
• Add Step button is now located at the bottom of the table.

• Keyboard focus shortcuts have been added for easier step editing and navigation. 

• For improved formatting control, the Rich Text Editor now remains at the top of the table when you add steps. 

• You can also highlight and copy an entire test step and paste into other test steps.
  • To highlight an entire test step, triple click on the row number.

Test Management Improvements — Multiple Tests

Testers now have the option to execute multiple tests in a row without closing and reopening the Test Execution window.

• Select Open my next assigned test to allow a user to execute or navigate through multiple runs assigned to them.

• From the Test Execution window, after you run through or execute multiple runs, a summary of all test runs by status now appears for that cycle.  

Test Management Improvements — Saving Progress

Testers can now save progress during execution of a test run when they select Save. 

Additional Test Management Improvements

• From the Test Run Execution window, you can now copy text without clicking Start Test Run. 
• When a test run without steps is started and saved before it has passed or failed, the status In progress is now applied. 
• When the Test Run Execution window opens, associated items are no longer automatically unlocked and action buttons are disabled until you click Start Test Run. 

Baseline Improvements

Introducing the Baseline Compare

This release introduces the ability to compare two versions of a baseline using the baseline in-app Compare option via Document View. This feature allows users to compare older baselines with newer versions of baselines within the same source, a first for baseline management directly within Jama Connect.

When you view a baseline in the new document layout, select Compare to activate the in-app comparison feature. Previously, users had to export a report to view baseline-to-baseline changes.

Changes are displayed inline with version indicated by color: 

• Red = Edited or deleted text/data from an older version
• Green = Edited or added text/data from a new version

Note: The new document layout and baseline comparison aren't visible if the organization admin disabled Document View. Also, baseline comparison reports are still available to support certain use cases.   

Baseline Source List View and In-App Comparison Summary

This release introduces the ability to compare two baselines from the Baseline Source List View. A baseline source is generated when you create a baseline or review; You can now select the baseline source to see all baselines associated with that source in List View. 

This feature provides detailed information about the baseline's metadata, such as the number of items, Baseline ID, Baseline signatures, Baseline status, and Baseline type. Previously, only some of this information was accessible from the baseline's Details View. 

Previously, to see differences between baselines, you had to run an external comparison report. Now, the comparison summary allows you to see a high-level view of baseline changes. You also have the option to run the enhanced baseline comparison report, which was previously only available via Community reports.  

You can run a comparison report by selecting two baselines from the Baseline Source List View, and clicking Compare. From there, you can download and open the report. 

 Additional Baseline Improvements

• A new confirmation message now appears when organization and project admins create baseline folders.
• Users with permission to create baselines can now create them from the Project Explorer Tree by right-clicking on a set, component, folder, or item.

• You can now email a link to a baseline from the baselines header. 

• The Find me option (breadcrumb navigation) was moved from the baselines header to the baseline ID. 

•  To create a baseline from a filter more efficiently, you can now right-click on a filter and select Add baseline. 

Updates to Velocity PDF — Table of Contents, Table of Tables, and Table of Figures

For Velocity PDF exports and reports, there is a new configuration available in the Add/Edit Report modal to include a Table of Contents, Table of Tables, and Table of Figures. The best part? No changes to your Velocity template file are required to include these tables in the output file!

When adding a new Velocity template file or editing an existing one, follow the steps below:

• Ensure the Report Type = Velocity and the Report Format includes PDF.
• Note there is a new section labeled Include Table of... (PDF only):
  • Select the checkboxes for the tables you would like to include in the output file.
• Save the report template after completing all other relevant fields.

When a user runs a report that includes these options, they will be notified in the report window when PDF is selected as the file format. 

Please Note: PDF files that contain tables of contents, figures, or tables will take longer to generate in order to create the hyperlinks to each section. The more pages the PDF includes, the longer the report will take to generate.

Once the file is generated and downloaded, the Tables will be included in the PDF output with each section linked to the appropriate page.

Velocity PDF Report Templates — Additional Improvements

This release also introduces new options for Velocity PDF report templates: Table of Contents, Table of Tables, and Table of Figures.  

• If a report template includes a title page that is wrapped in a <div> container with the given class name TitlePage, the export now places the "Table of..." list on a new page after the title page.
  • Without the container and class name, the "Table of..." list appears on the first page. 
• Each "Table of..." list is enclosed in a unique <div> container/class name so they are targeted by the Velocity template with a specific CSS.
• Support for h5-h7 tags has been added with unique class names so they are targeted by the Velocity template a with specific CSS.

For more information, see Quick Start: HTML Templates for Velocity PDF Reports.

Wildcards in Search Updates

This release updates how Jama Connect uses wildcards in a search. The primary search bar and the filter panel search bar have been updated to improve how search results are presented.

• Removed the Wildcard That Was Automatically Applied to the Front of Search Terms
  • This wildcard returned results that included words with additional characters before the ones typed into the search field.
    • For example, when you searched for "term" the auto-wildcard returned "docuterm", "postterm", "syncterm", etc.
• Added a Checkbox to "Include Wildcard Results" to the Search Results and Filter Panel
  • This options allows you to add a wildcard to the front of you search term as needed.

Important Considerations:

• The primary search bar and filter panel search still use a wildcard that is automatically added to the end of your search term -- the results contain terms that you entered in the search field, but with additional characters after the terms.
  • For example, when you search for "term" the auto-wildcard at the end still returns results for "term", "terminal", "terminus", "termites", etc.
• Additional results included by selecting Include wildcard results aren't included if you switch to Trace View from the search results.
  • This capability will be available in a future release.

Report History Page Updates 

This release introduces new features and a complete redesign of the Report History page. 

Now you can: 

• Search for a report 
• Sort columns to reorganize the table 
• Download multiple reports at a time 
• Delete multiple reports at a time 
• Determine the origin of a report or export by viewing the new Context column 

General and Usability Improvements 

Review Center

Guardrails now prevent you from performing actions on previous revisions of a review or from making changes to closed reviews. 

Categories

• When an organization admin selects Clean up categories, a message now appears in the Activity history. 

• Velocity reports now include the option to retrieve categories with items. 
  
  

User and License Admin 

•  Organization admins can now export a list of all users from the Users page. 

The exported data Excel sheet in License Admin has the following changes:

• A new column was added that calculates the Duration in Milliseconds into an hh:mm:ss format for clarity on the duration of time the user was logged in
• The 'UTC' text was removed from the LoggedInAt and LastActivityAt columns so that Excel can recognize these as date/time formats

Editing Container Items

When you edit a component, set, and folder, the item now opens in the new inline edit mode. 

To edit an item:

• In the Explorer Tree, right-click on an item.
• From the header, select Edit. 
  
  

API

v1 API 

• GET v1/baselines/{baselineId}/versioneditems
  • response now contains the applied category snapshots at the time of the baseline.
• The GET/items/{id}/versioncategories API parameters
  • The versionID has been replaced with versionNumber to match our existing patterns.  

Labs API

• The POST /baselines endpoint now allows you to create a baseline without having to first create a source.
  
  

Velocity

The Velocity API method for returning a list of ChangeRequestAssociation objects is now given a ChangeRequest ID.

General Maintenance and Library Updates

This release includes updates to several libraries and foundational technology components, such as Java and Spring. These updates align with our continuous improvement objectives to support usability, performance, and security across the app.   
 

SAML and REST API Update for Custom Data 

For SAML, the 'Custom identifier' option in the 'Match on field' attribute has been divided into two options: 

• Custom Identifier (NameID)
  • Allows root admins to configure SAML to use custom data sent over in the NameID attribute during user authentication flow.
• Custom Identifier (Attribute)
  • Allows root admins to configure SAML to use custom data sent over in a custom attribute during user authentication flow.

Note: These are Beta features that are still under development.

The following v1 API endpoints now have a property for adding custom data to a specified user. This custom data for users pertains to a beta SAML feature that is still under development.

• PUT /users/{userId}
• POST /users
• GET /users
• GET /users/{userId} & GET /users/current
  
  

BIRT Reports EOL

The BIRT reporting engine and associated reports will no longer be supported with the Spring 2024 release. Look for additional communication via the Jama Software Community on new Velocity reports and other options to assist in transition from this legacy reporting platform.    

Notes for System Administrators

Replicated Kubernetes Off-The-Shelf (KOTS) and Standard Replicated EOL

Our partner, Replicated, is a leader in deploying cloud-ready infrastructure into self-hosted environments, including airgap and customer-managed cloud environments. Replicated developed KOTS, which preserves the previous versions' options for simple installation, monitoring, and updating,  but is upgraded to leverage Kubernetes. Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

This update is part of Jama Software's focus on continual improvements to enterprise tooling. The 8.79.1 release (and any required hotfixes) was the last self-hosted release provided on both the 'standard' and on KOTS deployment channels.  Beginning with this 9.0.2 release, self-hosted releases are only available via the KOTS channel.

In order to maintain standard support under Jama Software's Standard Maintenance and Support Agreement (current release and two (2) releases prior), we also ask that all customers upgrade to the KOTS deployment either inline with, or prior to, the Spring 2024 release.      

Please see the Jama Connect User Guide for detailed instructions on how to upgrade from traditional to KOTS deployment or upgrade an existing KOTS deployment to this new version.

Special Note on Hazlecast During Upgrading to KOTS

To complete the upgrade to KOTS, you may need to restart Hazelcast. Users will then be logged out and taken back to the Jama Connect login screen. If a 500 error is seen instead of the login screen, do the following to complete the upgrade to Jama Connect 9.0.2 on KOTS:

• Admin

1. Restart Hazelcast

   sudo kubectl delete pod hazelcast-0

2. All users are logged out

• Users

1. Log back in with Jama Connect credentials
   Note: This issue corrects itself after approximately 30 minutes.

CentOS EOL

With this release, Jama Connect will no longer support CentOS. Server operating system support will be provided on both Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Ubuntu, per our published supported software at the time of that release.  

Supported Software

For this current release, and for all self-hosted releases, we encourage system administrators to review the complete Supported Software information on the Jama Software Community before upgrading.  

Container Artifacts

Resolved Issues 

Known Issues