When you upload files to GitHub, you’ll store them in a “Git repository.” This means that when you make changes (or “commits”) to your files in GitHub, Git will automatically start to track and manage your changes. There are plenty of Git-related actions that you can complete on GitHub directly in your browser, such as creating a Git repository, creating branches, and uploading and editing files.

Once you start to collaborate with others and all need to work on the same repository at the same time, you’ll continually:

• Pull/fetch all the latest changes made by your collaborators from the remote repository on GitHub.
• Push back your own changes to the same remote repository on GitHub.

Git figures out how to intelligently merge this flow of changes, and GitHub helps you manage the flow through features such as “pull requests.”

Environment Setup

In the following section, you will get to see the step-by-step process of setting up VS Code and connecting to a Git repository.

Install Visual Studio Code

You can download VS Code exe file on your PC using the following link. Use the downloaded file to install VS Code.
Link: https://code.visualstudio.com/download

Install Git

Use the following link to download the latest Git file on to your PC. Once the exe file is downloaded, proceed to install task.
Link: Git – Install for Windows

Check the Git installation

On VS Code, navigate to View > Terminal and the following window appears. Enter the following command to get the current installed version information of Git.

git --version

If you want to know the exact path of installation, you can enter the following command.

where git.exe

Create a working directory using VS Code

It is a good practice to maintain a separate folder for each project. To open a folder using VS Code, you can either navigate to the Explorer icon on the left and click on Open Folder or Open a folder from the File menu. Select the existing folder or create a new one and open it by clicking on the “Select folder” button as shown below. This will be your working directory for your project files.

Initialize a local Git repository

Once a new folder is open, it will not have source control enabled for the files within it. In order to enable source control features, you need to initialize a Git repository. Navigate to Source Control > Initialize Repository.

Once you click on Initialize Repository, the source control features will be enabled and the next screen will appear as follows.

The other way of initializing a Git repository is through command. Run Git init in the directory. This creates a hidden .git subdirectory that contains all the necessary metadata and internal databases for Git to start tracking changes. In some cases, we need to reinitialize a Git repository, during which the message will show up as Reinitializing existing Git repository after the Git init command has been entered.

Staging a file

Git add command is used to place changes into the staging area (also known as the “index”), which acts as a temporary holding area for the next commit. While git add . as seen in the above screenshot means to add all changes in the current directory and its subdirectories to the staging area. We will go into the details of commit in the subsequent sections.

Git status command is used to display the current state of your working directory and staging area, showing which files are staged, modified, or untracked.

Connecting to remote repository

Now that the files are staged, next is to connect to the remote repository. The git remote add origin command is used to link a remote repository to your local Git repository. This allows you to push and pull changes between your local and remote repositories. The origin here refers to the remote repository URL. Before this, please create your account on GitHub and create a new repository.

The git remote -v command is used to list existing remote repos along with their fetch and push URLs.

Committing a file

Once the file/s are staged, the next step would be to commit the files. The commit command saves a snapshot of your staged changes to the local repository. Committed snapshots can be thought of as “safe” versions of a project.

The git commit -m "initial commit" is the most common way to commit ,i.e, with a message. This saves staged changes and allows you to include a descriptive message directly in the command line.

Changing your remote repository

If you are in one repository and want to change to another remote repository, you can specify the below command. The same is highlighted in red frame in the above screenshot.

git remote set-url origin https://github.com/sampathgithub1/Test

In the above command, you are specifying the destination remote repository that you want to make use of. Create the “Test” remote repository manually on GitHub using the GUI.

Uploading to remote repository

git push <remote> <branch name> command takes in two arguments. In the above screenshot, you can find the git push origin main command that refers to pushing your local main branch changes to your online repository (origin, an alias). Your remote Git repository will appear as follows on Github after uploading is complete. Login to your Github account using the URL Link and navigate to your repository.

In case you make changes to the source file, you need to perform a commit again using the following command.

Git commit -m "second change commit"

This should be followed by the git push command again. In the above screenshot you can observe the “second change commit” text mentioned next to the source file.

Further Reading:

• An Introduction to OCI Cloud Operations
• AI-Powered ITSM with n8n: Integrating Jira SM, OpenAI and Slack
• An Introduction to AI-Powered Software Testing
• Exploring LLMs and OCI Generative AI
• Data Analysis using Python

Power BI Components

Power BI has two main components: Power BI Desktop and the Power BI service. Desktop is best for data modelling and report creation, while the service is ideal for sharing and collaboration. Both can connect to data sources and create reports. There’s also a Power BI Mobile app for viewing reports on the go. Key functional components include Power Query for data transformation, Power Pivot for modelling, and various visualization tools.

Power BI Desktop is a free Windows application that lets you connect to data, transform it, and create interactive visual reports that you can publish to Power BI service for sharing.

The Power BI service is a cloud based platform that enables users to create, share, and collaborate on interactive reports and dashboards. Dashboard is a collection of various graphs pinned from different reports. Users who consume and interact with the content in Power BI service are often referred to as end users, consumers, or business users. They primarily focus on interacting with and deriving insights from the content created by designers, enabling data-driven decision-making and collaboration within their organization.

As a Power BI service user with a free license, you explore content (such as reports, apps, scorecards, dashboards, and more) to make business decisions. That content is created by designers who have Power BI Pro or Premium Per User (PPU) licenses.

Refer to this link for clarity on the licensing.

Other Specialized Power BI Capabilities

Power BI Report Builder is the standalone tool for authoring paginated reports for the Power BI service.
Paginated reports are designed for printing or sharing. You can preview your report in Report Builder, then publish it to the Power BI service at app.powerbi.com.

Power BI Report Server is an on-premises report server with a web portal where you display and manage reports and KPIs. Power BI Report Server lets you keep reports on-premises, with the option to move to the cloud later. Like the Power BI service, you can connect to a variety of data sources. Power BI Report Server hosts Power BI reports (.pbix), Excel files, and paginated reports (.rdl).

Dataset and Data flow

Datasets are the objects that contain the connection to the data source, data tables, the relationship between tables, new columns , measures and the data itself. Datasets are the same as semantic models when used to explain the creation of reports and dashboards.

Dataflow is the data transformation component of Power BI, i.e, power query process that runs in the cloud and stores the data in Azure Data Lake storage or Dataverse. If you are consistently re-using same tables in multiple files, dataflow is highly recommended in such scenarios as a reusable ETL component.

Table Storage Mode

Import mode is the most common mode used to develop semantic models. Import mode is to import data into the Power BI memory for storage. One of the main advantages of import mode is performance. Import mode is known for fast query performance because it queries data directly from memory. A Power BI semantic model can have data copied into it from the source during a refresh operation.

DirectQuery mode is often used in situations where the dataset is too large to load into memory. Models developed in DirectQuery mode don’t import data. Instead, they consist only of metadata defining the model structure. The semantic model can dynamically request data from a data source that it’s connected to using a method called DirectQuery. There is no need to refresh the model.

The Dual storage mode is a performance optimization. Dual-mode tables can act as Import for performance-intensive queries and as DirectQuery for real-time or query-specific needs. Power BI decides whether to query the local in-memory copy (Import) or directly query the data source (DirectQuery), depending on the relationships and query context.

Live connection is a method that lets you build a report in Power BI Desktop without having to build a semantic model for it. This type of connection is similar to DirectQuery because it won’t store data in memory. When you create your report in Power BI Desktop, you can connect it to a semantic model that already exists using the “Power BI semantic models” option under Get data. The options being, Azure Analysis Services database and on-prem instance of SQL Server Analysis Services.

Data Modelling

Data modelling or semantic modelling is setting up your data properly for visualization. This includes setting up tables, relationships, calculations and access for analysis scenarios. Use Power Query Editor to connect to one or many data sources, shape, and transform the data to meet your needs, then load that model into Power BI Desktop for further actions.

If you are to sketch how your data with different tables looks like, you will have a model with components as fact tables and dimension tables. Fact tables store numeric data like sales or order amounts and include foreign keys linking to dimension tables. Dimension tables provide context with descriptive details like product names or customer demographics. Fact tables are long with many rows and few columns whereas dimension tables have few rows and many columns.

In most of the cases, we can see the cardinality or nature of relationship as many to one between a fact table and dimension table. Since dimension tables are the owners of the data we can expect such a connection. This is represented as a “*” next to the fact table and “1” next to the dimension table. In the model view of Power BI tool you can get to see the model view of your data.

A network wherein you have one central fact table and multiple dimension tables is called a star schema.

Once you load the cleaned data from a source onto Power BI, the tool automatically creates a model based on the similarity of the column names and data between the tables. Since some of the tables can be left unconnected, you need to navigate to the model view of Power BI to check on the connection between the fact and dimension tables and make a connection in case any dimension table is not connected.

DAX

DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) lets you create powerful calculations in Power BI, helping you analyze and visualize your data in new ways. DAX can be used to write formulas for calculated tables, calculated columns and measures in Power BI.

You can write a DAX formula to add a calculated table to your model. The formula can duplicate or transform existing model data, or create a series of data, to produce a new table. When your source data doesn’t include a date table, you can create one as a calculated table by using the CALENDAR or CALENDARAUTO` DAX functions. Date tables are required to apply special time filters known as time intelligence. DAX time intelligence functions only work correctly when a date table is set up.

You can use a DAX formula to create a calculated column in any table within your data model. A calculated column performs row-by-row computations and is stored in the model, making it available for use in reports and visualizations. You can also use DAX to create measures. Unlike calculated columns, measures are not stored in the table itself. Instead, they are computed dynamically at query time based on the current filter context in a report visual.

The key difference is that calculated columns are evaluated during data refresh and their results are stored in the data model (visible in Table view). Because they are physically stored, they increase the size of the *.pbix file. Measures, on the other hand, are calculated on demand and do not store results in the model, so they do not increase file size in the same way.

CALCULATE is one of the most important DAX function to be understood. Beyond that, FILTER, COUNT, MAX/MIN, SUM, AVERAGE, DIVIDE, ALL, NOT are all good for a very broad range of tasks. The syntax of CALCULATE is extremely simple. You invoke CALCULATE with an expression as its first argument, and a set of filters starting from the second parameter onwards. The format is as follows:

CALCULATE(<expression>, <filter1>, <filter2>, …)

An example would look as follows, wherein the sum of sales amount would be calculated only for Product A.

Product A Sales =
CALCULATE(
SUM(Sales[SalesAmount]),
Sales[Product_Name] = "Product A"
)

Visualizations

Before creating a visualization, several factors must be considered, the most important being the needs of the target audience, whether a visual can provide meaningful insights to the target audience and compatibility of the visual with the data. Understanding these requirements helps determine what visual should be used.

Build visual

Other than the commonly used chart visuals like Pie chart, Donut chart, Column chart, Bar chart, Line chart you can find the below few chart visuals that can be used in various scenarios.

• Card : The card visual in Power BI is a versatile tool for presenting summary measures in a visually appealing format. Each card can display a specific measure, such as total sales or profit growth, and you can customize it to reflect your objectives and key results (OKRs).
• Q&A : The Q&A visual provides a text box where users can ask questions about data using natural language.
• Decomposition Tree : The decomposition tree visual in Power BI lets you visualize data across multiple dimensions. This AI visual is valuable for ad hoc exploration and conducting root-cause analysis.
• KPI : Key performance indicator (KPI) visuals communicate progress made toward a measurable goal. They’re ideal for measuring progress and distance wrt a metric.
• Waterfall : Waterfall charts show a running total as Power BI adds and subtracts values. The initial and final value columns often start from the horizontal axis, while the intermediate values are floating columns.
• Key influencers : The key influencers visual helps you understand the factors that drive a metric that interests you. It analyzes your data, ranks the factors that matter, and displays them as key influencers.
• Ribbon chart : A ribbon chart combines ribbons for multiple categories into a single view. This visualization lets you see how a given category ranks throughout the span of the chart’s X-axis (usually the timeline) compared to other categories.

Parameters

Instead of building static reports that only answer one question, Power BI parameters lets you create dynamic, interactive visualizations that end-users can explore on their own. Think of a parameter as a variable or a placeholder you build into your report. It holds a value (like a number, a date, or a piece of text) that a user can select. When the user adjusts the parameter to any of the predefined values, the entire report – its data, visuals, and calculations – can update instantly based on that new value.

If you navigate to Modelling > New parameter > Numeric range / Fields , you will get dialog window for Numeric range or Fields respectively based on the selection as follows.

Numeric range parameters are typically used for scenario testing, where users adjust numerical inputs to see the impact on a given output. When you create a numeric parameter, Power BI generates two new measures: one to define the parameter and another to capture the selected value. Add slicer to the visualization by checking the option.

On the other hand, Fields parameters are used to seamlessly change the measures or fields used in a report visual.  Add slicer to the visualization by checking the option.

In Power Query, we have parameter called the Query parameter. To start creating a Parameter in  Power Query. On PQ editor, navigate to Home > Manage Parameters > New Parameter. You can use Power Query parameters to store and manage values that can be reused. Parameters give you the flexibility to dynamically change the output of your queries, depending on their values. 

Format page/visual

In this pane, you can create visually rich report tooltips that appear when you hover over visuals. You can link your Tooltip to your report by navigating to Format visual>General>Tooltips>On>Options, choose the Report Type & Page based on report pages you create in Power BI Desktop or the Power BI service. By creating a report page that serves as your tooltip (Format page> Page information > Allow use as a tooltip> On), your custom tooltips can include visuals, images, and any other collection of items you create in the report page.

Analytics

The Analytics pane lets you add constant and dynamic reference lines, error bars, forecasts, and anomaly detection to your visuals. Access the Analytics pane by selecting a visual and then selecting the Analytics icon in the Visualizations area. Without a visual in your report, the analytics pane will not appear.

Distribute a report or dashboard

Power BI offers several ways to collaborate and share Power BI reports, dashboards, and data with others, inside or outside your organization.

Workspaces are places to collaborate with colleagues on specific content. Power BI designers create workspaces to hold collections of dashboards, reports, semantic models and paginated reports. The designer can then share the workspace with colleagues. Designers can also bundle a collection of dashboards and reports into an app and distribute it to the entire community, to their organization, or to specific people or groups.

Everyone using the Power BI service also has a My workspace. Use My workspace as your personal sandbox where you can create content for yourself. You can see your workspaces in Power BI by selecting Workspaces from your navigation pane.

Roles

Roles let you manage who can do what in a workspace, so teams can collaborate. Workspaces allow you to assign roles to individuals, and also to user groups such as security groups, Microsoft 365 groups, and distribution lists. To grant access to a workspace, assign one of the following workspace roles to a user group or individual: Admin, Member, Contributor, or Viewer. 

Endorse your content

Power BI provides two ways you can endorse your valuable, high-quality content ,i.e, Semantic models, dataflows, reports, apps to increase its visibility through promotion and certification.

Promotion : Any content owner or member with write permissions on the workspace where the content is located, can promote the content when they think it’s good enough for sharing within your organization.

Certification : Certification means that the content meets the organization’s quality standards and can be regarded as reliable, authoritative, and ready for use across the organization. Only authoritative reviewers (defined by Power Bi admin) can certify the content.

Further Reading :

• Essential Power Query Features Every Power BI User Should Know
• Microsoft Power BI : Getting Started Guide
• Power Query Tips & Tricks
• Getting Started with Power Query
• Advanced Data Visualization in Excel

Software companies aim to deliver a high-quality product on time and under budget. This is where software testing becomes imperative to deliver a quality product. Software Testing is a systematic process of evaluating an application to identify defects, bugs, or deviations from the expected behaviour. It is fundamentally a process of verification and validation. For valid results, tests must be performed in environments that closely resemble the production environment, using similar infrastructure and data. High-quality products are never an accident; they are the result of deliberate, intelligent effort in development and testing.

Software Testing & STLC

Similar to the SDLC for creating software, there is STLC for Software testing, which needs to be followed by testing teams to ensure software quality. Skipping the testing phase can negatively impact both the product and the brand’s reputation. The six phases of STLC are: Requirement analysis, Test planning, Test case development, Environment setup, Test execution, Test cycle closure. The testing process is categorized into three primary levels as follows, moving from granular components to the entire system.

• Unit Testing
• Integration Testing
• System Testing/E2E test

Functional testing focuses on what the system does (features wrt requirements), while non-functional testing focuses on how it performs (speed, reliability and security). We have the Unit testing, Integration testing, System testing(E2E test), Interface testing, Regression testing and UAT under functional testing. While the documentation testing, installation testing, performance testing, reliability testing, security testing fall under non-functional testing.

Manual or Automation testing is utilized for the above based on strategic purpose. While manual testing is used in the areas where exploratory, human judgement and subjective human experiences are needed. On the other hand, automation testing is used where speed, reliability is needed. Even for repetitive tasks and complex end to end workflows Automation testing is used.

 AI-Powered Testing

AI can act as a Co-pilot to the tester in the following areas of STLC. This can be for Test case generation, Test automation scripts, Test data generation, Test maintenance, prioritisation, and exploratory testing ideas. It is important to note that blind copy-paste of AI output without human verification is dangerous. AI generated test cases can sometimes be broad but lack the necessary depth.

Playwright Framework & Tools

Playwright is a powerful and versatile automation library developed by Microsoft. It enables developers and testers to automate web applications across multiple browsers with ease. Playwright’s architecture is designed to provide a robust, flexible, and high-performance framework for browser automation. It is preferred over older frameworks like Selenium for writing end-to-end test automation scripts.

If you are using a Windows PC, select the necessary option/s and download the latest Node.js using the following link, which is a prerequisite for installing Playwright. Even npm installation is a prerequisite.

Download nodejs

Once the download and installation are complete, use the following commands to check whether it is installed properly or not. The commands can be used in the command prompt or in the Terminal section of VS Code IDE to verify the versions installed. Here, “npm” refers to Node Package Manager.

If you need to download and setup VSCode, use the following link to download and perform the installation.

Download VSCode

On VS Code, click on “Open Folder” to navigate to an existing folder or create a new one (ECOMWEBTEST) and Open it. We will now go through the following link for more details on playwright setup.

Installation | Playwright

As mentioned in the above link, the following command adds Playwright to the existing project/folder on VS Code if it is not yet setup. Once the following command is executed, you can see the folders/files as displayed in the below picture to get populated under the folder ECOMWEBTEST.

npm init playwright@latest

Test Case Generation

Now that we have set up Playwright in VS Code, let us use an AI tool (OpenAI/Claude etc) to generate Test cases for a sample scenario using the following prompt.

"Consider yourself as a QA testing expert. Generate detailed test cases for saucedemo.com login and checkout flow. Include positive and negative scenarios. I will be using playwright in order to test this."

After all the test cases are generated using the above prompt, we will move on to the execution of the test cases.

Test Case Execution

As you are inside the project folder on VS Code, you can refer to the below prompt result to gain insights on how to run the tests.

"I am inside a folder in VS Code. Guide me on how to run the tests listed above."

From the result of the prompt in the earlier section, copy and paste any one of the test cases into the code file. For example, let us copy the code for login test into the newly created code file under tests folder. The name of the file is set to saucedemo.spec.ts as shown in the below picture.

The code to test the login (generated by AI tool) is as follows. Check the code to confirm whether the website name is mentioned or not.

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';
test('Successful login with valid credentials', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('https:www.saucedemo.com/');
  await page.fill('[data-test="username"]', 'standard_user');
  await page.fill('[data-test="password"]', 'secret_sauce');
  await page.click('[data-test="login-button"]');
  await expect(page).toHaveURL(/inventory.html/);
  await expect(page.locator('.inventory_item')).toHaveCount(6);
});

Execute the above code by using the following command.

npx playwright test tests/saucedemo.spec.ts --headed

Headed Mode enables testers to visually verify automated actions, such as typing and clicking. Whereas the other mode, i.e, Trace Viewer provides a step-by-step trace of every action for verification. Once you press the enter key, the code will automatically run and execute the login for multiple browsers (Chrome, Webkit and Firefox). On successful run, you will get the following output under the Terminal section.

In case the test is a success as shown above, move on to the next test case. Similar to the first test case, execute the code for other tests using different file names.

Further Reading:

• Maximize Your Potential : The AI Tools You Need to Know About
• Exploring LLMs and OCI Generative AI
• Agentic AI for Agile Teams: Smarter Reporting and Insights
• AI-Powered ITSM with n8n: Integrating Jira SM, OpenAI and Slack
• Navigating Jira : From Basics to Advanced

The dashboard that we will create will include a chart, Text display area, table, and a slicer that controls the entire dashboard display based on the selected month. The final dashboard as shown below will have dependency on multiple sheets. The details of the sheets in the visualization is as follows:

• Main Dashboard / Report Sheet
• Pivot etc Sheet
• Data Sheet (May-Aug)
• Text display table Sheet (Notes)

Main Dashboard / Report Sheet

Following is the final dashboard that we will create. The upper Doughnut chart consists of the alert details along with the Total Count of alerts. The total alert count(highlighted) is calculated using the formula as shown below, wherein the ‘pivot etc‘ refers to a separate sheet that you can find in the subsequent sections. This formula needs to be entered in the function entry area (fx) and not in the highlighted text box. The Chart section is followed by an observation section that contains the analysis of the chart. The lower most section is the Alert table that provides the alert details in a Table format.

TOTAL = 'pivot etc'!$E$13

The slicer section is on the upper right of the dashboard. This slicer when stretched will appear as follows. The slicer is mainly used to select the months separately (or make multiple selections at once). You can connect the slicer to multiple PivotTables by using the Report Connections feature, which can be selected by right-clicking the slicer. Tick the check boxes to synchronise the two Pivot charts simultaneously with any active Slicer selections.

‘May-Aug’ Alert list Sheet

Append the data to the list that needs to be analysed. This also includes the columns – Closed by X and Escalated to Y that are not visible in the image below.

Notes Sheet

This sheet consists of the table (Table1) in which the observations are entered each month.

‘Pivot etc’ Sheet

In the “Pivot etc” sheet, we have all the Pivot charts, Vlookup and other functions that is necessary to create the above dashboard. “PivotTable1” can be used as it is in the main dashboard lower section or it can be copied and pasted as a Linked Picture in the main dashboard. The Linked Picture updates automatically as and when the pivot table data changes. The “PivotTable3” is mainly used by the Observation section to read the month information and gather the corresponding month Notes column data from the Notes sheet table using Vlookup function as shown below. Remember to properly do the cell alignment settings so that the text is properly displayed at the upper left end of the observation area.

Vlookup('pivot etc'!E3,Table1,2,0)

The TOTAL section is the summation of the two column values from the Grand Total row of the PivotTable1. You can find the formula used in the corresponding cells as follows. (The same formulae can be found in the image below as well. The formulae is displayed using the FORMULATEXT function.)

G13 = Getpivotdata("Sum of Closed by X", 'pivot etc'!$A$2)

H13 = Getpivotdata("sum of Escalated to Y", 'pivot etc'!$A$2)

E13 = "TOTAL: "&text(sum(G13:H13),"#,###")

Updating the dashboard for each month is easy. Enter your observations for the month on the Notes sheet table in a new row. This needs to be followed by appending the new month alert data to the “May-Aug” alert list sheet. Finally, right-click on the slicer on Main dashboard/Report Sheet to select the Refresh option, which will update the dashboard display automatically.

Further Reading:

• Data Visualization : MS Excel Dashboard Basics
• Data Visualization : Google Data Studio Dashboard Basics
• Data Analysis using Excel
• Jira Data Visualization: A Guide to Effective Dashboards
• Essential Power Query Features Every Power BI User Should Know

According to the Scrum Guide, Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams, and organisations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems. In a nutshell, Scrum requires a Scrum Master to foster an environment where: A Product Owner orders the work for a complex problem into a Product Backlog. The Scrum Team turns a selection of the work into an Increment of value during a Sprint. The Scrum Team and its stakeholders inspect the results and adjust for the next Sprint.

Kanban is another popular way of implementing agile. It is a strategy for optimizing the flow of value through a process. Instead of working in time-based sprints, work is continuously delivered in Kanban. It is about envisioning the existing workflow in terms of steps. These steps can be created on the whiteboard or in tools like Jira. The goal of the Kanban execution is to reduce work-in-progress items by ensuring work items move to the next steps quickly to realise business value faster.

Automating the tracking and reporting of Scrum or Kanban KPIs can eliminate the constant manual effort required to create and maintain filters, dashboards in tools like Jira. Instead of relying on regularly updating the filter & gadgets, a fully automated system can pull the right data at the right time, package key metrics such as lead time, throughput, sprint progress, and kanban board work-in-progress trends, along with the insights and send them directly to your inbox on a recurring schedule. This ensures teams always have accurate, timely insights without any dashboard upkeep, thus enabling faster decision-making, greater transparency, and continuous improvement with minimal overhead.

The Automation Workflow

You can refer to the following workflow to implement the automation using n8n tool. The workflow consists of the Schedule Trigger node, OpenAI Chat Model node, Jira nodes for each of the Scrum and Kanban boards, the Outlook node to send a message and the controller node,i.e, the AI Agent node which controls the whole workflow.

Let us go through the settings and functionality of each node as follows.

Schedule Trigger

The Schedule trigger node can be set to trigger the workflow based on the length of the sprint. In my previous blog, i had explained on how to navigate to select a node. For our scenario, the node is set to trigger the workflow once a week, i.e., on Monday at 9AM. In case of a 2-week sprint, we can get to know the status mid-sprint and at the end of the sprint.

Jira Software Tool – Scrum Board

The next node ,i.e, the “Jira Software Tool” node can be used to extract the data from a particular Jira board. Here, we are extracting the data from the Scrum board of the “Scrum project”. The following JQL can be set at the appropriate location (JQL section) in the node as shown in the picture below. The JQL will extract all the Stories, Tasks and Sub tasks from the active sprint that do not have any labels. The node has been renamed to Scrum by editing the default name “Create an issue in Jira Software”. Remember to connect this node to your Jira account with appropriate credentials. You can refer to my earlier blog for the details of connecting the node to your Jira account.

project = "Scrum project" AND sprint in openSprints() AND labels = EMPTY ORDER BY Rank ASC

Jira Software Tool – Kanban Board

The next node too is the “Jira Software Tool” node. Here, as we are extracting the data from a Kanban board, the following JQL can be used to extract all the issue types from the kanban board with labels “test”. The node name has been renamed to Kanban from the default name. You can refer to the input section in the node below to check the requested information from AI Agent node.

project = "Scrum project" AND labels in (test) ORDER BY Rank ASC

OpenAI Chat Model

We will be making use of the OpenAI Chat Model node, similar to the one used in the earlier blog. The settings to connect will be the same, but any other model can be selected from the list as well.

AI Agent

Each of the above nodes need to be connected to this AI Agent node as shown in the above workflow diagram. The prompt section (prompt text file attached below) needs to be input with the appropriate prompt so that the node requests the necessary information to each of the Jira nodes. The outputs from each of the Jira nodes will be further analysed using the OpenAI chat model node. Finally, the formatted output will be sent to the Outlook node that is mentioned in the next section.

Microsoft Outlook

In this final node ,i.e, Send a message node present under Microsoft Outlook node tree, we will first connect to our outlook or hotmail account using the credentials. Once the connection is done, set the Resource, Operation, To, Subject and Message sections appropriately. The Subject section will be the subject of the report mail to be sent. It will consist of the text “Sprint Insights Report” followed by the date and time. The Message section will consist of the output of the AI Agent node.

Once the settings are done and the “Execute workflow” is clicked, the workflow will be triggered and the stakeholder(s) set in the To section of the node will receive the following report mail. Since the outlook node is connected to your hotmail id, the same is used to send mail to the email id set under the To section (gmail id) of your node. In real scenario, there is no need to click on the execute workflow since the workflow will be triggered on a weekly basis by the Schedule Trigger node.

Verification

Now that we have got the report mail with information that is insightful, we can cross-verify the Story/Task/Subtask Summary or names, Assignee and Statuses from each of the Jira Scrum and Kanban boards directly for the correctness of data. Find the screenshot of the Jira Scrum board, Kanban board, Time Spent filter as follows. For the lead time part, refer to the above report “Kanban Board Output” section.

Jira Scrum Board

Jira Kanban Board

Jira Time Spent Filter

Further Reading :

• AI-Powered ITSM with n8n: Integrating Jira SM, OpenAI and Slack
• Optimizing Scrum in Jira: Board Filter, Automation and Dashboard
• Integrating Jira SM Alerts into Kanban Workflow
• Streamline Your Workflow with Jira Kanban Boards
• Essential Jira Automation Rules for Scrum Teams

Jira SM Node

On the top right-hand side click the + icon, which indicates the “Open nodes panel” wherein we can search for the nodes to be inserted to our workflow.

Under Jira node tree, select the “On issue created” node and set the parameters. Refer to the below image for the setting to be done.

Under parameters, in the “Credentials to Connect to Jira” section, select the “Create new credential” and specify the details as displayed in the next window that appears, i.e, email id, API token and domain in order to connect your node to your Jira account.

For the API token, login to your Jira account and navigate to Account settings > Security > API tokens and click on “Create and manage API tokens” which will take you to the below screen. Create your API token and paste it to the section as in the above image along with the domain information ,i.e, “https://sampathka.atlassian.net/” in our scenario. Finally, click on Save button and you are done with the setting to connect your Jira account to your node.

OpenAI Node

Since we are done with the setting for the above node, next we will click on the + icon at the top right and search for the next node. Under OpenAI node tree, select the “Message a model” node and set the parameters as shown in the image below.

For the credentials to connect to OpenAI we can make use of the free 100 credits available. Select the resource (input is text), operation and model (any simple LLM model is fine) as shown above. Now we are left with the prompt section which is where we specify the system prompt for smart decisions. Below you can find the file that contains the system prompt. Set the Role to User and enable the Simply Output and Output Content as JSON options and you are done with the settings for this node.

Slack Node

Next we will move on to the Slack node. On the top right, click on the + icon and search for “Send a message” node under Slack node tree.

On parameter setting screen of the above node, you need to connect to a Slack account using the “Create new credential” option under “Credential to connect with” section. In the next screen, click on the Connect my account button and your Slack node will be connected to your Slack account (Slack account 2 used in this example).

The other parameters of the node ,i.e, the Resource, Operation and Send Message To needs to be set as shown in the earlier node screenshot. In the next option, you need to select the Slack channel to which the message is to be sent (n8ntest is the channel in our example). After setting the message type as “Simple Text Message”, enter the format of the output under Message Text as follows and you are done with the setting for this node.

{{ $('Jira Trigger').item.json.issue.key }},
{{ $('Jira Trigger').item.json.issue.fields.status.name }},
{{ $('Jira Trigger').item.json.issue.fields.description }},

Classification:{{ $json.message.content.category }}

The above JSON under Message Text can also be set by dragging the output of Jira trigger node as shown below. The input and output sections will be visible once you execute the step/workflow.

Connect all the three nodes to each other as follows.

The workflow is not yet complete ,i.e, you need to have a trigger to start the workflow. For this, we will use the forms feature in JiraSM that will automatically generate a ticket once the form is submitted by a user. Inorder to create a form you can refer to my other blog here. The form user interface will appear as follows. The users can submit their service requests using the following form.

Executing the Workflow

Inorder to check the workflow, click on the “Execute workflow” button at the centre as shown in the three node connected workflow above. The workflow will not wait for the form to be submitted by a user. Submit the form by inputting all the sections as shown above and click on the Send button. This will generate a ticket (ITSAMPLE-125) on JiraSM that will appear as follows.

Now the workflow is triggered and all the three nodes will be executed one after the other. If there are no errors generated, the nodes will appear as follows after successful execution (green tick mark on each node).

Since our workflow is connected to a Slack channel, we will have to check the appropriate channel(n8ntest) for the output message. You can see the latest JiraSM ticket number, followed by the status of the ticket, description and the classification of the ticket into a category for the appropriate team to take necessary action.

Further Reading:

• Integrating Jira SM Alerts into Kanban Workflow
• Jira Service Management Forms: Enhancing User Experience
• Integrating Service and Software Workflows on a Single Kanban Board
• ITSM and System Management Tools : A Basic Guide
• Exploring LLMs and OCI Generative AI

Board Filter Refinement

If we have multiple boards in a project, tasks and stories from one board can appear in another board’s backlog if proper board filters are not set. Additionally, to create a board that only displays work items you want included, you can use filters based on a JQL query.

In the above Scrum board setting, the filter query is set to display only the work items that has the sprint section with some value. Since the board filter is set as above, you can view only the work items within the SP Sprint 1 backlog as the sprint section in each work item is set to SP Sprint 1.

In the same project, you have one more board called Kanbanx ,i.e., Scrum project (SP). The kanban board filter query is set to filter only work items with the labels section set to test.

As you can see in the screenshot below, on the kanban board we can get to see only the work item/s set to the value of test with the sprint section empty.

Advanced Automation Rules

The picture below depicts the branching rule in Jira automation. For any newly created subtask in the project, if the summary contains the letter X, the description field of the work item will be edited to include the text “Notes by Sampath”. The same is depicted in the next picture below.

In the below picture, you can see the subtask with X in the summary part.

However, if the description section does not contain the letter X, then the description will be edited to include the text “General notes:” as shown below.

The last branch rule in the above description update is about adding the Labels as scrum to any subtask that has empty labels.

Another helpful feature in Jira automation is the Multiple work item events. Using this feature, you can trigger the workflow at multiple events of work item without using branches, that can be really helpful in some cases.

Custom Dashboard

In this section on the dashboard, i will introduce you to the usage of a Workload Pie Chart to display the per-person effort of a scrum team. This is an inbuilt Jira feature. Let us say the sprint starts on 3rd and ends on the 16th of September. The JQL filter that we need to create would be as follows. Remember to make the appropriate settings under Filter details so that the data is visible to the concerned person or group.

From the gadget section under Dashboards, select the Workload Pie Chart gadget. You can configure the gadget as follows by selecting the above filter, Statistic Type needs to be set to Assignee, Time field to report on needs to be set to Time Spent. Select the refresh interval appropriately and click on save.

Once you click on the Save button, you will be able to see the following pie chart. Two users have logged the hours in the sprint and hence the respective hours is getting displayed. If more members of the team login in the hours on their subtasks, their efforts will also be displayed.

Further Reading:

• Jira Data Visualization: A Guide to Effective Dashboards
• Essential Jira Automation Rules for Scrum Teams
• Navigating Jira : From Basics to Advanced
• Jira Service Management Forms: Enhancing User Experience
• Integrating Service and Software Workflows on a Single Kanban Board

In order to test out the following features, the freely available Power BI desktop version is sufficient. Assuming that you have already installed the app, from the start menu click on Power BI Desktop icon to start the Power BI application. If you are new to Power BI, read this blog post before going through this blog. A few of the useful features of PQ editor for Power BI is as follows.

Change Datatypes

Since the Power BI datasets are large, it is a good practice to set your data types as early as possible. Either you can navigate to each of the columns and change the data type as shown in the below picture or select all the columns in the PQ editor to change the data type at once using the Transform > Detect data type option.

Create and transform columns

In the process of data cleaning, you will need to remove the white spaces in many of the columns with random values. To do this, just navigate to Transform > Format > Trim. The trim option will remove the white spaces in a single click.

To add a new column in Power BI that calculates the length of text in an existing column, select the column and navigate to Transform > Extract > Length. Just a click on the Length option creates a new length column with the length values for each row.

A conditional column in Power BI allows you to create new columns based on conditions applied to existing columns. This feature is useful for categorizing data, creating flags, or deriving new values based on specific criteria within your dataset. After selecting the existing column, navigate to Add column > Conditional column to create a new conditional column based on the conditions specified.

Reference vs Duplicate

Duplicating creates an independent copy, where changes in the original query don’t affect the duplicate, and vice versa. Referencing creates a link, where changes in the original query are reflected in the referenced query. If you want to duplicate or reference a query, just right click on the query to select the desired action as shown in the picture below.

Append and Merge Queries

Append queries adds rows from one table to another with the same number of columns, essentially stacking them vertically. On the other hand, merge queries can combine tables with different number of columns based on a common column. This is conceptually similar to VLOOKUP function in MS Excel.

Primary or Foreign Keys

Primary keys and Foreign keys are fundamental for creating relationships between tables, enabling efficient data modeling and accurate analysis. A primary key is a unique identifier for each record in a table. In a database, this is a column (or a combination of columns) that contains unique values and cannot contain NULLs. A foreign key is a column or a combination of columns in one table that establishes a link between data in two tables. It typically refers to the primary key in another table.

When you import data into Power BI, the columns that uniquely identify rows in your data tables are effectively acting as primary keys. While relationships between tables in Power BI are often established using what are conceptually foreign keys.

Configure Load Options

The option ‘Enable load’ can be found by right-clicking on the table. Typically, by default, the load is already enabled. You can refer to the above Reference vs Duplicate section to view the option in the screenshot. Disabling the load means the query/table won’t be loaded into the front-end report. However, these helper queries will work behind the scenes. By disabling the load, you keep your model size small and make it efficient.

Further Reading :

• Microsoft Power BI : Getting Started Guide
• Power Query Tips & Tricks
• Data Visualization : MS Excel Dashboard Basics
• Data Analysis using Excel
• Data Visualization : Google Data Studio Dashboard Basics

Space/Page/Page tree

Your content lives in pages ,i.e, the documents you create on your Confluence site. You can create pages for almost anything, from project plans to meeting notes, troubleshooting guides, SOPs, policies, and more. Use the Presenter mode option from More actions(…) of a published page to present it in full screen. Pages are stored in spaces,i.e, the workspaces where you can collaborate on work and keep all your content organized. It’s best to group related content together in the same space, but you can create as many or as few spaces as your team needs. Organize space content with a hierarchical page tree that makes finding work quick and easy. The page history helps you understand the number of changes made by users within a specific period of time. In addition, you can create a completely centralized content repository by hyperlinking the various pages.

Macros

Using macros helps you to extend the capabilities of your Confluence pages and live docs, allowing you to add extra functionality or include dynamic content. Typing “/” opens a list of available macros, allowing you to quickly search and insert them into a page without navigating through the toolbar. I will list a few of the macros that I have come across as follows.

• Table of contents
  • An automated table of contents can be built into Confluence pages. The macro automatically picks up the contents based on the headings within a page.
• Status
  • The Status macro displays a colored rounded box that is useful for reporting the status of a page, project, or task. It’s a simple yet effective way to communicate progress, priority, or any other relevant status information. 
• Roadmap planner
  • Add the Roadmap Planner macro to a page to create a simple, visual timeline that’s useful for planning projects, releases and much more. It’s a simple yet effective way to represent upcoming plans with lanes, bars, and markers.
• Quote
  • The Quote macro adds weight and credibility to your words with a visual cue, such as a vertical line on the left margin and a change in font color.
• Change history
  • The change history macro shows the history of updates made to a page. The information displayed here are version number, date and comment(author). It displays the information inline.
• Date
  • With the Date macro and the integrated date picker in an appealing calendar view, the current date or any other date can be quickly selected and integrated into pages.
• Anchor links
  • The anchor link macro allows you to hyperlink to a specific part of a page or live doc so that a reader can jump directly to that section upon selecting it. These can be especially useful for allowing your readers to navigate to specific parts of a long document. Anchor links are invisible to the reader when on a page in view-only mode. This macro is used in combination with the link macro. The anchor link is set to a particular name that will be input to the link macro section with the # prefix and the display text. The display text will be visible to the reader. When the visible text is clicked, the reader will be taken to the part of the page where the anchor link is set and is invisible.
• Decision
  • This macro gives you a nice and quick way to format and highlight any important decisions taken, especially during meetings. This macro adds some nice formatting and allows you to create decision reports. Starting your meetings with a review of past decisions and action items can make a huge difference.
• Excel/Word/ppt/pdf
  • Embed Excel, word, ppt or pdf with respective macros. To use each of these files upload the respective file using the image macro and select the file. Later on, use the respective file type macro as above to display it.
• Chart
  • The Chart macro allows you to display a chart based on tabular data. You can edit the macro parameters in the macro browser to configure the format of the chart.

Formatting toolbar & Content status

The formatting toolbar provides tools to format and color/highlight page content, create lists and tables, indent and align text, and insert other content into the page such as symbols, links, images, multimedia files, and macros. If a space admin allows statuses in a space, you can add or change them at the top of your content when editing. That means anyone with edit permissions can set the content status, choosing from the suggested options defined by the space admin or creating your own. Assign a status to your content to help set clear expectations for viewers and collaborators when they visit a page, live doc, or blog post.

Comments & Labels

For a page that is being prepared, you can use the comments feature to highlight the text and address the concerned team member with your comments. You can add comments to content while you’re editing it or viewing it in published status.

Labels are keywords that you can add to pages, live docs, and attachments to make them easier to group and find. For example, you could add the operations label to all pages related to operational activities. That would allow you to easily see, display, and search for related pages. It is handy for finding content across spaces if labels are consistently used. Labels are not only important to search results but can be extremely beneficial in dealing with certain macros. Since labels provide Confluence with another way of grouping information, you can use macros like Filter by label or the Labels list for more functionality and to easily navigate between content by looking for a topic or other articles if one does not meet your requirements. The Popular Labels macro can be used to generate the heat map of the most popular labels.

Whiteboard

Whether you’re brainstorming, planning projects, having a sprint retrospective or mapping out strategies, whiteboards provide a flexible canvas for collaboration. Use existing templates, sticky notes, shapes and connectors to visualize your thoughts and keep everyone on the same page. With real-time collaboration, your team can contribute simultaneously, making it easy to capture everyone’s input. Use a timer if you want to limit the sessions like in a retrospective.

If you have both a Confluence and Jira app in your Cloud site, you can seamlessly track project updates across both tools and create Jira work items without leaving the Confluence content you’re working on. To display Jira work items list on a Confluence page, use the Jira work items macro. Display a single work item, a list of work items, or show the total number of work items using separate macros. The simplest way to add a Jira work item to Confluence is to paste a Jira URL on a Confluence page or doc.

Further Reading:

• Jira Data Visualization: A Guide to Effective Dashboards
• Streamline Your Workflow with Jira Kanban Boards
• Jira Service Management Forms: Enhancing User Experience
• Getting started with Excel Macros
• Power Query Tips & Tricks

Service Request with Approvals

The decision to use SR with approvals issue type depends on the complexity and risk associated with the service request. If external validation is needed to ensure accuracy, compliance, or proper execution, approvals should be implemented. If the request is straightforward and can be handled by the assigned agent, then an approval step may be unnecessary. The default “Service request with approvals” issue type will appear as follows.

Workflow Improvement

Since we will be calculating the SLA for the tickets using this workflow, to ensure proper calculation we will add a transition from “In progress” status to the “waiting for customer” status and vice versa in the workflow. In general, the Project admin role will not be able to edit the workflow, for this you will need to be a Jira admin. The changes are implemented in the next steps as follows:

Creation of Service Request Form

Now that we are ready with our issue/work type, the next step would be to create a form using the above issue type with the updated workflow. Let us create a simple native form without attachment.

The sections can be seen as shown in the below “Simple form” picture. Summary and Description are the inputs from the user, while the other sections are hidden from the user. Labels section would be needed to display the ticket on a kanban board, while the Approvers section need to be input with email id of the approving authority. Multiple people can be specified but anyone from the specified list can approve the request.

Approvers get an email once the user submits the form. The template of the notification mail can be seen as shown in the below picture. In the standard version and above of Jira, this template can be edited to include the description of the Jira ticket as well (appropriate variable needs to be included in the Content section). If you are using an external form as an attachment and want to reflect the description there onto the contents of the mail, don’t forget to select the link to jira section in the attached form edit option.

If you want to include a template for the description of the ticket, using automation would be one idea, but can be used for the tickets created manually by the agents. However, if you want to use a template for the user, an external form can be used with a preset input that is linked to the description field. Regarding approvals, it can be done by using the notification email as shown below or on the ticket by clicking on the Approve button.

SLA Rule Setup

Now that we are ready with the updated workflow and a form that is using the updated workflow, the next step would be to use the SLA feature on the tickets. The SLA rule can be set by navigating to the Project settings > SLA section. The Goals and Conditions need to be set appropriately.

Our final form will appear as follows. The user can access this form to enter the necessary information.

Further Reading :

• Jira Service Management Forms: Enhancing User Experience
• Streamline Your Workflow with Jira Kanban Boards
• Integrating Service and Software Workflows on a Single Kanban Board
• Integrating Jira SM Alerts into Kanban Workflow
• Understanding Data Center and Service Desk Operations