Free Jira - Backlog tracking tool

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Overview

• Free Jira is backlog management app where users can track and visualize Epics.
• An Epic can contains Bugs, Tasks and other Epics. It can be in differet states: "confirmed", "work in progress" or "pending validation".
• Users can import a backlog (formatted as a dictionary) to populate database. The app is deployed with a test database.
• The app is built with Django and bootstrap. I choose Django because it is one of the top web development framework and has a big and supportive community. It is also fast, simple and reliable.
• The UX design is very simple since I attached more importance on backend development than frontend for this exercise.

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Database

• I use the default database shipped with Django (sqlite3) in order to manage data in a more efficient way. Django provides librairies to create models, to do efficient queries and to do testing that improves the reliability of the code.
• The database is working with three Models:
  • Epic
    • Title: a unique char field
    • State: a char field that stores the current status of the epic. This attribute is automaticaly computed.
    • Linked epic: a Foreign Key, stores the parent epic
  • Bug:
    • Title: a unique char field
    • Epic: a Foreign Key, stores the parent epic
  • Task:
    • Title: a unique char field
    • Epic: a Foreign Key, stores the parent epic
• Relations between tables are Many to One since we used only Foreign Keys:
  • An Epic can have many children Bugs, but a Bug can have only one parent Epic
  • An Epic can have many children Tasks, but a Task can have only one parent Epic
  • An Epic can have many children Epics, but an Epic can have only one parent Epic

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Features

Home page

• Top Navigation Bar:
  • "Epics": link to epics list
  • "Search": search engine over Bugs table
• Import backlog: upload a text file and parse a backlog formatted as a dictionary. If a backlog is already stored in database, the app wil merge them according to these rules:
  • If an Epic already exists in database (based on title), then it updates it. If not, it creates it.
  • If a Bug already exists (based on title), it updates its parent Epic. If not, it creates it.
  • If a Task already exists (based on title), it updates its parent Epic. If not, it creates it.
• Export backlog: export the current backlog stored in database into a text file, formatted as a dictionary.
• Reset database: flush database. This function is mainly for testing purpose.

Epics page

• Provides a list of all Epics and their status. Each Epic is a link to its detailed view.

Epic detailed view page

• Provides different informations:
  • List of children Bugs
  • List of children Tasks
  • List of children Epics
  • List of all children Bugs linked to all children Epics
• For Bugs and Tasks lists, users can add objects to the current Epic. A Django automaticaly generated form performs all safe checks (empty title, Bug or Task title already exists). Then Epic status is refreshed.
• For Bugs and Tasks lists, user can delete objects from the current Epic. Then Epic status is refreshed.

Search page

• User can make a research on Bug title. It returns all matching bugs and list their blocked Epics (all parents Epics). The highest Epic in this tree is shown first on the list.

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UX Design

• For the web interface, I kept things simple. I used Bootstrap 4.1.3 default components and colors.
• My main goal was to create as few pages as possible to improve readability and to have an easy to navigate website.

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Testing

Automatic written tests

• I must admit that I found this part the biggest challenge of this project, mainly because I did it at the end of it. For the future, it would definitely be better to write tests as I write the code.
• I used Django built in TestCase and test the views, forms and models associated with Epics app and Search app. The tests generally follow these patterns:
  • Create a new object instance, save it, and check if the model works well
  • Test the routes response status codes
  • Test whether an object list is in the global context and its values
  • Test if a form is delivering the correct data
  • Test if a model instance saves correctly
  • Test routes that receive get or post requests by simulating with self.client.post and check if the object has been created / updated / deleted

Browser testing

• I used Google Chrome to test app frontend, such as responsiveness, the grid and fonts.
• For import and export features, I mainly test them on browser. I wish I had time to write some stronger tests for this part.

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Deployment

Run project

• Full project is available on Git.
• Install requirements.txt dependancies.
• Run app by executing command: python manage.py runserver
• The web app is hosted on 127.0.0.1:8000 by default.

Docker

• Dockerfile is provided
• Run commands from FreeJira folder:
  • docker build -t freejira .
  • docker run -p 8000:8000 -i -t freejira
• The web app is hosted on 127.0.0.1:8000 by default.

Testing

• App is shipped with a full test database. This test dataset is available in /serialize/test_backlog_import.txt

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To Do

• Clean up code
• Improve User Interface
• Add more tests, especially on import/export features
• Do not save data if the import fails
• Improve errors management by raising exceptions