Release notes formatting - table & sequential layouts

Introduction

Release notes content can be laid out in either tabular or sequential format. This feature is available only for one of the two variants of JQL section pop-up explainer here -Customising templates with visual builder | Variant 1

Availability

Some of the places where Table & sequential layouts are available:

  • Email

    • Email body

  • PDF

    • PDF content

  • Confluence

    • Page content

  • MS word

    • Word content

  • HTML

    • Content

  • Markdown

    • Content

How to

While adding/editing a JQL section, navigate to the Layout tab. There lies the option to choose either of the formats - Table or Sequential.

Table format is chosen by default when a JQL section is added for the first time.

Table format

This formatting is fairly straightforward & does not need any additional configurations. All the fields that are selected (from Feilds tab as shown in above image), will be displayed as table columns from left to right. There will be a table header whose column titles will be populated from field customizations (Customising templates with visual builder | Field customisation ). Below is a sample screenshot of the generated release notes in tabular format.

In this example you can see coulmn in the table like Priority, Key, Status, Issue type, and Summary. At the left top corner of tble notice the Task issue type icon which means the table is grouped by the issue type. This way using different customisation you can define the way of displaying issues from the given release.

Table format can be further customised using css - Custom CSS for release notes

Sequential format

When sequential format is selected in the JQL section pop-up, a layout section appears that is specific to this format. Desired layout needs to be designed within this area.

Here, the design is simply a sequence of available variables. These variables are displayed based on what fields you have chosen on the Fields tab.

Any fields that you have selected to be used, can be arranged in any order you wish. For every field that is configured under FIELDS section on the left, there will be two variables on the right. One that will fetch the field value & other to fetch its display label. e.g. for Priority field, there are two variables - {priority} & {priorityLabel}.

Required condition is, you have to add fields & their configurations before they can be used in the Layout section. The layout created will be repeated for every issue that is returned by your section JQL. For example, layout in the above screenshot will generate data that looks like the below screenshot.

 

In below image check the check box called Hide field label variable when the field value is empty. If this is checked, and if the JQL does not fetch any data in the field value against a particular issue, then it hides the field variable and you can make sure that the release notes do not look like and incomplete piece of information.

sequencial layout.png

 

If you are using Priority, Status, Issue type in your layout - the generated Email/PDF could be a bit mis-aligned because these issue fields are images.

To avoid this, modify the field configuration for these fields - and check the box Display as text.