A single change is required to the web.config to make it work — simply uncomment the following line and that’s it!

Simple.

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The good news is that this is actually a trivial task to push tweets from Gemini given that we have a nice plug-in system that allows us to consume key events such as “issue created”.

So we set about creating the Gemini Twitter Plug-in and within a couple of hours we had a working solution…

Twitter Plug-in Development

Create your plug-in class and implement the AbstractIssueListener class:

Creating a simple plug-in class

Next up, we’ll create a simple configuration file that contains the Twitter login credentials:

Configuration file stores Twitter Login Credentials

Because our plug-in class implements the AbstractIssueListener class we get all those nice event handlers that we simply leverage to push out issue tweets.  The IssueEventArgs object contains the user who caused the event (e.g. issue reporter) and the issue itself.  So now it is very easy to gather and tweet the information:

Events exposed by Gemini Plug-in Framework

We’ll leverage the excellent TweetSharp library for talking to the Twitter API.  Here’s how easy it is to post an update to Twitter:

TweetSharp talks to Twitter

And the final result?  See for yourself:

Final result: Project Issues in Twitter

You can actually view our live Gemini Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/issue_tracker

Twitter Plug-in Deployment

1. Grab the plug-in binaries from here.
2. Put the “.dll” files and “.config” file into your “Gemini\bin\plugins” folder.
3. Put your twitter login credentials into the “.config” file.

That’s it.

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The lure of quick short cycles producing working software.  The attraction of managing just a couple of weeks of work with quick daily meetings and being seen as “agile”.

Sure, you have a certified Scrum Master and everyone involved signs up to the process and gets its.

But the problems arise when the software engineering side of things is not quite geared up for Scrum.

To quote Allen Kelly:

“You hit the Scrum wall when you adopt Scrum and everything goes well, then, after a few Sprints things don’t work any more – to use an English expression, they go pear shaped. You can’t keep your commitments, you can’t release software, your customers get annoyed and angry, it looks like Scrum is broken.

This is what happens when you adopt Scrum without technical practices such as Test Driven Development, continuous integration and refectoring. When teams adopt the Scrum process, they go faster, show progress, things look good… and then the quality becomes a problem. Now the team are fighting through quick sand.”

The underlying  problem is brilliantly framed by Ayende Rahien: processes such as Scrum actually ignore the actual building of the software.

So no amount of project management / scrum management tools will help that much if your software engineering is not up to the task!

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• Dynamic filters that responded to selected Projects; select two or more Projects and watch the Components list auto-magically update.
• Jump quickly to fields you want to filter on without having to scroll around.
• Clutter-free; having multiple list boxes one after the other really isn’t pleasing to the eye.  Less is more?

So here’s a first-look at the new Issues Filter:

When you click on a filter item like Projects, you get a popup list to help you select your desired items:

Projects are organized by their label and when you change your Projects list, other filter options like Components load dynamically the appropriate items:

The Components are organized by Project Name and then by their hierarchy.  Nice, easy, intuitive user experience!

Finally, other filter items are more intelligent and they only show items for the selected Projects:

Irrelevant items are removed and the the item list is unified across the selected Projects.

Try it out now @ http://beta.countersoft.com and share your feedback with us.

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So what would help you?

For starters, a quick tabular summary week-on-week, broken down by issues Created, Closed, and Commented would help.

A handle on Project activity since you last logged in would also be handy.

Project Metrics

This kind of instant visibility into Project activity is really useful when multiple Projects require your attention.

Useful: See Metrics for Multiple Projects

But how about some Charts across all Projects providing quick insights and week-on-week trends?

All Projects: Summary Charts

Naturally, the Charts are clickable — click through to see the actual issues behind the numbers.

See the Issues behind the numbers

Feedback and suggestions always welcome.  Note: this Post applies to Gemini 3.6 — check it out over @ http://beta.countersoft.com !

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A common requirement is to configure Gemini to work with your SMTP server.  Then the fun begins: you have configured Gemini and SMTP but no email alerts are received.

So what can help you quickly debug the SMTP issue without having to change any of the SMTP server settings?

Enter “smtp4dev” — an Open Source tool that is available @ CodePlex (http://smtp4dev.codeplex.com).  It simply listens for SMTP traffic and displays whatever is sent.  It doesn’t actually send the email which makes it great for debugging and testing scenarios.

Here’s how to setup Gemini and use smtp4dev…

1. Install smtp4dev on the same machine that is running Gemini.

2. Use the following SMTP configuration (the important point is the smtp4dev listens on Port 25 but can be configured to use a different port).

Configure Gemini SMTP

3. Finally start smtp4dev and update an issue (or any other activity) that will cause Gemini to generate an email alert.  You should be able to view Gemini email alerts as follows:

Easily View Gemini Email Activity

Simple!

You will notice that if you click on a email message in smtp4dev it is in .eml format. You could also install Mozilla Thunderbird email client which will happily show the actual message as it would be viewed.  Alternatively, click on View Source and see the raw message text.

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A simple Wizard interface will capture key information up front, including components and versions! Conveniently create multiple projects. As always, you can edit or update project attributes later.

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Version milestones can be added within versions from Project Administration > Version. Version milestones are independent of project issues and version start/completion dates. Version milestones are displayed in the Project Schedule, in the Project homepage. Optionally, version milestones can be superimposed on the Version Burndown chart.

The Resource Progress Chart offers a snapshot of progress made by each resource assigned to a particular version. The user has the option to select any version from within a Project. Counts and percentage of closed and open issues are displayed; closed issue in green, open issues in red.

The Version Progress Chart displays counts of open and closed Issues for each version in the selected Project. The user is able to see in a snapshot how each version is progressing.

The Burndown Chart graphs from the version start date to completion date and visually depicts the rate at which issues/tasks are being closed. It also shows how many issues are open today; the day the burndown chart is run. PMs can see exactly how the version is progressing and can estimate if they are on track to meeting the Version completion date. The user can select the time interval at which the burndown chart will graph Issue progress. Also, the user can select to superimpose version milestones on the burndown chart to get a clear picture of work progress.

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