Project Management with Confluence

When someone decides to become a volunteer with OpenMRS and needs to know what tools are available within Confluence in order to get a project prepared for development.

Step-by-step guide

  1. Get an OpenMRS account

  2.  

    1. Sign up for an OpenMRS account at https://id.openmrs.org/

    2.  

      1. This is a all in one account to stay connected to OpenMRS (Jira, Confluence, Bamboo, Subversion (if needed), Talk (our message boards and central communication platform) for more information see https://openmrs.atlassian.net/wiki/display/RES/OpenMRS+ID

  3. Confluence templates and tools

  4.  

    1. Calendar:

    2.  

      1. Current calendars

      2.  

        1. Can be found at https://wiki.openmrs.org/calendar/mycalendar.action

      3. How to make a calendar

      4.  

        1. Determine what page you would like a calendar to be located

        2. Place the page in edit mode and select the “+” sign

        3. Select “Team Calendar”

        4. Add the types of events you would like to keep track of to your calendar

    3. Decision Register

    4.  

      1. Purpose: A simple tool to use to collect and collaborate on issues or questions with multiple people.  It outlines the question, who’s involved, and the outcome in a good table, while creating a page for each question for discussion and collaboration.

      2. How to setup

      3.  

        1. Go to the space in which you want a decision register

        2. Select the create button and pick it from the existing templates

    5. Meeting Notes

    6.  

      1. Purpose: When having either team meetings or other meetings within the community notes should be taken.  These notes not only serve those who were not able to attend the meeting, but also serve as a form of documentation that assists when people join and leave this project in one specific place.

      2. How to setup:

      3.  

        1. Go to the Confluence space you want meeting notes to be stored

        2. Select the create button from the main menu bar and select the the meeting blueprint (template)

        3. This will generate a page in this area as well as an index page to collect meeting notes.  The template gives you areas to collect who attended, goals of the meeting, notes, and action items.  If used correctly and with user tagging (“@” and name) it will notify all those about the items related to them on the page.

    7. Product Requirements

    8.  

      1. Purpose: The Product Requirements blueprint helps you to define, scope and track requirements for your product or feature.The first time you use the Product Requirements blueprint in a space, Confluence will create an index page and add a shortcut on your space sidebar (shortcut only available in the default theme). The index lists all the Product Requirements pages in that space, and displays a summary of the information on each page (such as status and owner). You can have as many Product Requirements pages as you need.

  Product pages are actually great theme pages (pages where Epics and user stories are collected)  When done well, this assists with the development of your project charter (project plan).  Explaining what you are accomplishing as well as specifically what you don’t want to accomplish with this work.

  1.  

    1.  

      1. How to setup:

      2.  

        1. Go to the Confluence space you want Product Requirements to be stored select the create button from the main menu bar and select the the Product Requirements blueprint (template)

        2. This will generate a page in this area as well as an index page to collect Product Requirements.

    2. Retrospective

    3.  

      1. Purpose: Retrospective pages help you track team successes and opportunities after projects or at the end of a sprint. Use this blueprint to document what went well, what needed improvement, and assign actions for the future.  The first time you create a retrospective page in a space, Confluence will automatically create an 'index' page, which will list all retrospectives in the space, and add a shortcut to it in the space sidebar.

      2. How to setup

      3.  

        1. Go to the Confluence space you want a retrospective or when you complete a sprint Jira will automatically prompt you to create a page.  

        2. If you choose to manually create one, once you are in the space select the “create” button within the menu bar and pick the retrospective blueprint(template)

    4. Project Charter

    5.  

      1. Purpose

      2. How to setup

  2. Maintaining communication with the Project Manager

  3.  

    1. Each volunteer is responsible for maintaining an up-to-date progress report for their tasks for each week