if version is used to track full releases, how do I track incremental alphas?

[Louis Mehr]

We have migrated our workflow from Bugzilla, where we used the 'Target' field to track full release versions 1.0, 1.1 etc., and the found in version and fixed in version to show where a bug was found and fixed eg 1.0 alpha 1.

Since migration, we've done something similar in Jira, with a 'Target' custom field and the affects version and fix version behaving as before. I realise now that this is not really how JIRA wants to be used and that there are various metrics and tools in JIRA that I cannot use as a result.

Each release typically has a number of pre-release iterations with new bug fixes and verifications to do. Testers need to track which of these a bug was fixed in. Others need to know which version it was reported in.

If I were to change our thinking and use 'Affects Version' as the release it was found in and the 'fix version' as the place we want the fix to go, how do I track these incremental versions?

Say we have release 3.0 to test, I get an initial version with a bug in it, do I say the affects version is 3.0?, if we want it to be fixed in that release, is the fix version also 3.0? When I receive another version with that fix in, how would I know? Everything is set as 3.0.

There must be a way to use JIRA properly without this stumbling block, but I just cant see it. Also, we don't use Bamboo or anything, just JIRA Software. All our testing is manual.

[Rahul Aich [Nagra] · Accepted solution]

Y cant you use point versions, i.e. 3.0.1, 3.0.2 etc...?

Versions is a multi select field, so you could even have more than one version selected, i.e. say build number 1011 and 3.0 both selected at same time.

Rahul

[Louis Mehr]

Thanks Rahul, I can see how that would work <lightbulb moment>