Background

When you want to present release notes within a PowerPoint presentation/attach such a presentation in the automated release notes email you can use this template. This documentation explains how to create the template and generate a release notes PwerPoint presentation.

Also, check Actions | Attachments to know how a release notes PowerPoint presentation can be attached within a release notes email.

Create MS PowerPoint template

Navigate to ARNR screen >> Templates >> Click on Create button.

 

You will be brought to the template selection pop-up, and select the MSPowerpoint template. This launches the template builder as shown in below image -

The default template body will be populated. Make any required changes & save them to create a new template.

Fields in MS PowerPoint template builder

• Template name

  • This is for internal reference & doesn’t show up in the actual release PPTs.

• Level

  • Below tables will help you understand whar are the levels and how they impact

• File name

  • This will generate the file with a given name and save it on your system. Variables are supported within the file name field.

JQL Configurations

Configure Stats

Introduction

ARNR provides Stats macro to make release notes more insightful for you & your team. To put it simply, Stats feature comes up with a number that corresponds to the count of issues that are returned by the configured JQL & chart feature lets you include a simple bar chart showing the count of issues returned by configured JQL aggregated over values of specific Jira field.

Clicking on Stats macro would open a pop-up with below fields -

• Title - Name of the macro

• JQL - JQL to fetch relevant issues to generate stats (count)

• Return - Currently, only Count function is supported. This will return the number of issues fetched from the given JQL.

Typical use cases may include, informing the audience about

• Issue distribution based on priority, type, assignee, etc

• Story point distribution across different issue types

Currently, the system can return the number of issues the stored JQL retrieves. So a typical use of this would look something like the image below.

Below are the sample stats generated with ARN MS PowerPoint template :

A slide from the file uploaded in ARNR template -

 

Output of the above file -

• Date variables with operator

  • Read How to use operators in date variables?

• Select PowerPoint template

• You can choose the default themes (if that suits your requirements) or upload your own PowerPoint presentation with the theme of your choice.

• You can use the Download option to see what default themes would look like and the basic format of the template.

• Please refer to the below steps to create your own PowerPoint presentation.

Preparing PowerPoints slides

• ARNR has two sample light and dark-themed PPTs in MS PowerPoint editor. You can use them right away to download, edit, and upload the edited PPT again

• When you are editing the sample files or creating your own PowerPoint presentation from scratch to be uploaded in ARNR, there is a standard syntax for JQL and ARNR variables you need to follow that will fetch issues (via JQL section) and variable values correctly.

• In the below example, we shared screenshots of the main slides from a sample PPT that is available to download in MS PowerPoint template editor. Here is the full PPT file -

• Let us see more details of some important and mandatory slides -

• The first three slides can be designed as per your requirement with different styling or relevant content. You can put your titles, images, etc. However, make sure that when you are adding variables, you follow syntax properly. If there are any typo errors, it will not fetch any value against that variable and the text will appear as it is.

• Input Slide - 1

 

• Slide - 2

• Slide - 3

 

• Slide - 4 Mandatory

This is a very important and mandatory slide. Please read all the given points on the slide carefully. Most importantly this slide should not be removed from the presentation.

• Slide 5 - Mandatory

You can add different issue field variables here like, {key}, {summary}, {issueType}, {asignee}, {description}, etc. You just need to make sure that you are including all these variables in the JQL section in the MS PowerPoint template’s JQL section.

 

• Slide 6 - Mandatory

This is again a mandatory slide that is used at the end of JQL section.

 

Once the template is ready and the relevant PPT is uploaded, Save, Preview, and download the release notes PPT!

Preview an MS PowerPoint template

Once Saved, Click on Preview. If you have used variables like [fixVersion], [versionId], [releaseDate], or any custom variables, select the appropriate values for those variables and custom variables. After that click on Preview, and it will download the PopwerPoint file on your system.

Limitations

Below are some current limitations with MS PowerPoint template BETA. We are actively working on all enhancements.

• Currently, images, videos, or PDFs from Jira issue fields are not supported. If there is any such content it will be displayed as broken in the output file.

• If any wiki renderer type Jira issue fields contain any kind of inline formatting is not supported

• Macros contained in any wiki renderer type Jira issue fields are not supported.

• Any tables contained in issue fields are not supported.

• Custom variables are not yet supported.

• Parent field is not yet supported.

• [VersionURL], [confluenceURL], and [releasepageURL] are not supported yet.

Also, read

• Adding issues from different projects to release notes

• Generating release notes from multiple versions in a project

• Generating release notes from one or more sprints