Go2Group Case Studies

Two Minutes with Randy DeFauw, Architect of the Go2Group JaM Plugin

Q: Why did you develop the JaM Plugin?

A: One of our missions as a company is automating the software production line as much as possible. In the past we've focused on version control, issue tracking, and continuous build tools, and extending our work to the testing world was the next logical step. From my experience in the software development world, I've seen that the development and testing teams tend to use different products, and I was often frustrated by the inability to share information. JaM is an answer to that frustration ? letting the development and testing teams work in their own tools, but still be able to easily share information.

Q: The installation process is involved, how have you made this simpler?

A: JIRA and Quality Center have very different ways of managing information. Allowing them to easily perform two-way information sharing entails quite a bit of configuration, so that we can keep track of the different names that the two systems use for defect status, for example. We've developed an installation tool that takes care of the mechanical aspects of dropping files in the right place, so that the customer can focus on the data configuration.

Q: Go2Group is a partner with HP, how has this helped in the development of the Go2Group JaM Plugin?

A: HP has extensive documentation and technical resources, and of course we consulted those extensively while working on JaM.

Q: What is your role with Go2Group?

A: I'm lucky enough to keep busy working directly with customers and working on new tools. The hands-on experience with customers gives me valuable real-world experience that is reflected in the way our tools are designed and built.

Q: How do you see customers using the JaM Plugin?

A: The most common use case starts with the testing team running a test suite in Quality Center, which generates a set of defects. JaM will replicate those defects to JIRA, where the developers will work on them. JaM will then send the updated status and resolution information back to Quality Center, helping the testing team verify the data.

Q: Can you talk about new features in upcoming versions of the JaM Plugin?

A: One of the major items we're working on is letting JaM work with more than one Quality Center server at a time. We're also looking at extending the type of data that JaM can handle.

Go2Group JaM Plugin