Spira v8.0 Released: SpiraApps Marketplace & Risk Management Comes to SpiraTeam

16-May-2024 by Adam Sandman Product News

We are pleased to announce the release of the latest version (v8.0) of our award-winning test management SpiraTest system, application lifecycle management SpiraTeam platform, and enterprise agile planning platform - SpiraPlan. This new version includes a major update to our SpiraApps extensibility framework, allowing third-party developers to create SpiraApps for the first time. In addition, with the release of Spira 8.0, the risk management features of the platform are now available in the SpiraTeam edition of the platform for the first time.

SpiraApps Now Open to Third-Party Developers

After much work by our product teams, we are excited to announce that we have opened up our SpiraApps ecosystem to third-party developers for the first time. With the new version of Spira, we have updated the design of the grid that shows you which SpiraApps are installed in your instance and whether they are active or not:

List of installated SpiraApps

In addition to being able to activate and deactivate SpiraApps more easily, the new page lets you also upload a packaged SpiraApp for the first time:

Where to upload a new SpiraApp

To make it easy to add SpiraApps to your instance of Spira, we have released a new SpiraApps homepage that contains information on how to use and develop SpiraApps, as well as a download marketplace of all available SpiraApps:

Download page on website

All you need to do is download the SpiraApp from the Inflectra marketplace onto your local computer and then upload it directly into your Spira instance. This process works with all editions of Spira (SpiraTest, SpiraTeam, SpiraPlan) version 8.0 or newer. It works for both cloud and on-premise customers.

Upload in progress

Once you have uploaded the new SpiraApp to your instance, it will be listed in the table of installed apps. Then, you can click on the Activate button and start using it!

Uploaded SpiraApp in installed list

For more information on SpiraApps, please refer to:

 

Risk Management Now Available in SpiraTeam

Previously, the risk management and risk-based testing features of the Spira platform were only available in the SpiraPlan edition of the product. Now that we have completed the first version of the scaled agile functionality in SpiraPlan - with the ability to manage program backlogs, define program capabilities, plan program milestones, track projects in a portfolio, and perform project portfolio management, we felt it was time to enable the one product-level feature that was excluded from SpiraTeam.

This change lets us clearly focus our product lineup on the intended audience:

  • SpiraTest - designed for QA teams, with a focus on test case management, requirements traceability, and defect tracking
  • SpiraTeam - a complete project/product level platform that lets product teams manage their entire project end-to-end
  • SpiraPlan - an enterprise product that contains support for organizations wishing to deploy Spira at scale across multiple programs and portfolios.

Bug Fixes and Enhancements

In addition to the two new marquee features, we have implemented the following enhancements and bug fixes:

  • Add an API call that will allow Spira to track when a data sync starts running or changes status from Not Run to In Progress [IN:8629]
  • Fix the test case folder count not updating correctly when one of its subfolders is deleted [IN:7165]
  • Fix v6 & v7 APIs to return the user's full name when getting project users (introduced in 7.13) [IN:9440]
  • Help admins get help or more information about a SpiraApp by showing the link of the SpiraApp on their settings pages [IN:9416]
  • Improve SpiraApps for developers by requiring API calls to third parties be made with reference to the guid and not the name of the SpiraApp [IN:9427]
  • Improve the SpiraApp developer experience with css nesting and localStorage support [IN:9417]
  • Show the test coverage indicator at the top of the requirement details page to help users see the same information on the details page that they can on the list page [IN:9185]
  • Show the test coverage indicator at the top of the release details page to help users see the same information on the details page that they can on the list page [IN:9186]
  • Update the SpiraPlan product name to use bold for "Spira" [IN:9418]
  • Upgrade the icon set used throughout the application to allow for future flexibility in icon design [IN:9296]

 

How Do I Get the New Version?

Download customers can get the latest version right away by going to the secure Customer Area of our website. Cloud customers will have already been updated during the May maintenance window. If you have any questions about the new version, please get in touch with support@inflectra.com. The full release notes can be found on SpiraDocs.