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1 Replies Last post: Sep 2, 2009 2:55 PM by Derwyn Harris  
Ashley Cook   7 posts since
Jun 18, 2009
Currently Being Moderated

Aug 31, 2009 10:55 AM

Integrating/Using Contour with other COTS Products (Wikis, Bugzilla, MS Project, etc.)?

We are looking for ways to economize our project support tools and maximize the benefits of using Contour.

More specifically, we are investigating ways to integrate Contour technically and/or procedurally with xWiki/Confluence, Bugzilla and MS Project. Ideally, we would like to link to project repositories for documenation being developed and managed using our wiki (xWiki or Confluence, we're still working on a selection). We also currently use Bugzilla for tracking defects and were wondering about how to integrate with Contour for traceability and management of requirements status. Finally, we manage a complex project plan using MS Project. Ideally, we'd like to integrate in some way to automate the updating of the project end dates and release start/end dates stored in Contour directly from the project plan since it changes so frequently.

 

Now to my questions:

1) I am aware that Contour offers integration options for Selenium but are there any other integration plans in the works?

2) Has anyone used Contour effectively with a project wiki, bug tracking tool or MS Project? If so, how so?

Derwyn Harris   184 posts since
Jun 11, 2007

Hello Ashley, I realize we just spoke on the phone but I thought I'd respond with some notes so others could benefit.

 

Integrations:

 

Web Services: We will be exposing our API web services in our next release. Here is a link to the API which we will update periodically leading up to the release. The methods that say "Scheduled for 3.0" simply means that we have provided key methods for customers that we are working with in an early release so they can begin development. Everything will be completed for 3.0 which will be our official public release.

 

http://www.jamasoftware.com/api/ws/latest/com/jamasoftware/contour/ws/v2/ContourSoapServiceImpl.html

 

JIRA: We just release the JIRA Connector which integrates Contour with JIRA down to the field level between items.

 

MS Project: Late last year we built a proof of concept integration with MS Project to determine feasibility. The basic functionality was that a user from MS Project would synch one or more items into Contour including creating or deleting. At some point we will evaluate resurrecting this project but have not received many requests.

 

Bugzilla: With the JIRA integration in place we feel that Bug tracking is at least covered. However, as we discussed it would be a straight forward integration and we would be interested in working with you to build this.

 

Wikis: We have not received many requests for integrations with Wiki's, Confluence, though, seems like a good candidate. Something to certainly consider.

 

 

There are lots of possible integrations out there all of which are viable and are under evaluation. It has been our philosophy that no single tool can be perfect at everything and therefore building integrations between best of breed applications, such as between Contour and JIRA, provides the most flexibility and functionality.

 

Thanks for the call today. I'm pleased to hear there is so much excitement around Contour.

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