jueves, 5 de noviembre de 2009

Php script trac2tracker

This is a small script that exports the data from Trac into Pivotal Tracker. The file has to be edited and the "configuration part" changed to suit your settings.
It has some limitations :
  •  Adding accepted stories is not currently supported by Tracker's API
  •  The story title cannot be searched so the deduplication is made by updating the keywords field in the original database (optional)
  •  It is not possible to set the note author's name. So Trac comments authors are lost
  •  I didn't get the logic with story types and the estimate field. I had to set it to 1 if the story is not a bug otherwise I got error.
You can download it:
Please let me know if it was of some use and of modifications/improvements to this script.

martes, 3 de noviembre de 2009

Widget for Pivotal´s tracker

After years of searching for a good Software Project manager, and trying a lot (the free ones mostly but some unfortunately bought) I finally reached Pivotal Tracker and got immediately interested by its first sight simplicity hiding a very powerful PM that suited perfectly our needs.
I am not a dogmatic Agile programming fan but some of its concepts seduced me, I got interested in GTD methogology , but I found it too personal to be suitable for a team and I was looking for something like a mix of both.
Tracker is flexible enough to let you use it from a simple todo list to a big agile project without ever upsetting you with the usual Error: required field empty (except when you don't enter the story name, but I can live with that). The account setup was immediate, the help page very clear, and they have an API based on REST that accesses directly the database and allows you to virtually do anything.
I got so sure of my choice that we immediately started to develop a couple of tools:
1/ to ease the process of story upload (stories are similar to tasks or tickets in other PMs)
2/ to help us migrate from our current PM: Trac
For #1 as we are mostly based on Mac OSX, we developed a very simple Dashboard widget that can be downloaded
We are currently working on the migration script that I will upload here when it will be ready, in a couple of days.