For restoring projects, Jira offers the built-in "Project Import" tool which allows partial, project imports (i.e. importing a specific project from a previous backup). 

This tool has some limitations though; it cannot transfer apps/add-ons related data between instances unless apps are prepared for it.

Fortunately, since v3.3, Xray is able of taking advantage of this mechanism; on previous versions, issues would be restored but the testing data wouldn't.

Thus, you can now use built-in backup&restore facilities of Jira:

• for copying a project from one Jira instance to another Jira instance (e.g. from staging to production, or from internal to a DMZ instance)
• to restore a project upon some mistake/data loss has been done in that project within an existing Jira instance

Learn more here.

Xray now provides a built-in .

Learn more here.

Two new gadgets to track QA progress in your Jira dashboards: Requirements List Gadget and the Overall Test Results Gadget.

The Requirements List Gadget provides an enhanced list of requirements, including hierarchical information (e.g., Epic > Story), along with completeness information and respective number of Tests, analyzed in the context of some version or Test Plan. This information is similar to the one seen at the end of the page in the Overall Requirement Coverage Report whenever drilling-down on some requirements.

The Overall Test Results Gadget provides an overview of the status of Tests, in the context of a version or Test Plan. Thus, you can see the number of Tests that passed or failed, displayed in a pie chart or in a table layout.

Learn more about these and all other gadgets here.

As more and more people use the hierarchical test organization via the Test Repository and the Test Plan Board, we introduce a new flattened view for easy visualization and selection.

While the default hierarchical view provides a way to see how Tests are organized, the new "Flat View" provides the means to obtain all Tests within a given folder, eventually filter them using some criteria, select a subset of those and then do operations with them, regardless of the folder they're stored in.

Learn more here.

As part of our continuous performance improvements, we've improved several areas from reports/gadgets to functions.

The most intensive task related with calculation of coverage is now pre-calculated, which should provide quite noticeable performance improvements.

In sum, we improved performance on:

• Test Lists gadget;
• Overall Requirement Coverage gadget & report;
• Historical Requirement Coverage gadget & report;
• requirements() and requirementsWithStatusByTestPlan() JQL functions.

Improving performance is an ongoing effort, so expect additional enhancements to come ahead.

We know that the editing of Tests is quite dynamic. Some users want to get notified upon every change in the Test/Pre-Condition specification, while others don't.

Since Test cases are abstracted as Jira issues, you can also have changes on all the standard fields at the issue level.

On the other hand, Jira's notification schemes don't allow you to define notifications on a per-issue-type basis, and you may want to get updates on Stories and Bugs but not on Tests, or vice-versa.

Thus, we have created a specific event that will be triggered whenever the specification of a Test/Pre-Condition is changed, giving you the ability to define notifications for it.

It will be triggered upon:

• adding/removing/updating steps in Manual Tests
• updating the "Generic Test Definition" of Generic Tests
• updating the "Cucumber Scenario" of Cucumber Tests
• updating the "Conditions" of Pre-Conditions.

Learn more here.

Welcome to our new area of the triple T: Tutorials, Tips & Tricks 

We have created a specific section in our documentation with tutorials, tips, recommendations and some articles so that you deepen your knowledge of Xray.

All available from within one place, easing the task of finding useful information to you.

Learn more here.