26th of March, 2020
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Download the latest version of Structure and its Extensions
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We are introducing new pricing for Structure Server, effective April 1, 2020. Learn more: 2023-04-26_13-51-52_Structure for Jira New Server Pricing |
Version Highlights
Changes in DetailEffectorsThe Attribute to Issue Field Effector allows you to write the values from Structure attributes (formulas, structure-specific columns, Structure.Gantt attributes, etc.) to Jira issue fields. For more information, see our Effectors documentation and check out these sample use cases:
Permissions Per UserIt is now possible to assign structure permissions to specific users. Previously permissions could only be set based on user groups or project teams. Documentation: Structure Permissions API ChangesStructure 6 introduces significant changes to Java API. (REST API remains backwards compatible.) The changes are called for because of a large remake of the attributes subsystem in the product. If you have an integration or an extension of Structure, your code might break. More specifically:
For more specifics about these API changes, see Structure 6 API Changes. Attribute Sensitivity SettingsAttribute sensitivity settings provide a new level of data security within Structure, allowing admins to specify fields that may contain sensitive information and, therefore, should not be included when calculating aggregated functions. Documentation: Attribute Sensitivity Settings Improved Rank SortingWhen items are sorted by rank, sub-issues now appear beneath their parent items. Supported VersionsStructure 6.0 and all extensions support Jira versions 7.13 or later. All editions of Jira (Jira Core, Jira Software, Jira Service Desk) are supported. Jira Data Center is supported. Compatible plugins versons:
Installation and Upgrade
Installing StructureIf your Jira server does not have Structure yet, the installation is simple:
Upgrading StructureThe upgrade procedure from versions 3.0–5.6 is simple:
Upgrading from Structure 2.9–2.11
Starting with version 6.0, Structure is no longer able to access the old Structure 2.x database, but old backup files are still supported. Therefore, you'll need to back up your Structure 2.x data before upgrading. The recommended upgrade procedure is as follows:
Enterprise Deployment NotesStructure 6.0 is a major release with a lot of changes in the attribute system and an important new feature, effectors. Changes to the Attribute SystemIn Structure 6.0 we have largely rewritten the attribute system, which is a crucial part of Structure, responsible for displaying all values that you see in columns inside the Structure grid, including issue field values, aggregates, and formulas. We have run extensive performance tests internally, and we are pretty sure that the new attribute system performs no worse than the old one, and significantly better in many cases. However, we still advise you to perform load- and stress-testing on a staging environment before you upgrade, especially if you rely on aggregates and complex formulas, or export large structures to printable and Excel formats. EffectorsEffectors are a completely new feature, and they shouldn't affect the performance of the rest of the product. However, effectors were a pretty popular feature request, and we expect their wide adoption. If you already have a potential use case for effectors in your organization, we advise you to try them on a staging system before upgrading. Using effectors can put a noticeable load on the system, because running an effector, especially on a large structure, could require a lot of issues to be loaded from the database, and then updated. Because of that, we designed effectors so that they do not run automatically; instead, they have to be controlled manually by Structure users. Effectors always operate on behalf of the user who runs them, and all the necessary permissions are checked as if that particular user were trying to make the changes. Access to EffectorsBy default, any user who has the "Access Automation" global Structure permission will be able to add effectors to their structures, and any user with the "Bulk Change" global Jira permission will be able to run previously-installed effectors. If you prefer a gradual roll-out, you can limit users' access to effectors as described in Changing Permissions to Configure and Run Effectors. Effector ExecutionRunning an effector is a two-step process. First, a preview is generated, listing all the changes that the effector is going to make. Then, if the user approves the preview, those changes are actually made, in a separate background process. To calculate effector previews, Structure uses a separate thread pool (in a Data Center environment, on each node), so several previews can be calculated in parallel. By default, the effector thread pool is limited to N+1 threads, where N is the number of available processor cores. You can change the maximum size of the thread pool by setting the "structure.jobManager.effectorThreads" dark feature. In contrast to preview calculation, effectors never update issues in parallel. If several users want to make changes using effectors, their requests are queued and processed one-by-one. In a Data Center environment, a single node is responsible for making the changes. If that node leaves the cluster, a different node picks up this responsibility, continues the current task from where it stopped, and takes the next task from the queue. New Database TablesThere are three new tables in the database schema to store the data related to effectors. The The The There is a new maintenance task that deletes old effector processes and their changes. By default, finished effector processes and their changes are kept for 30 days, and unfinished processes that didn't make any changes are kept for 24 hours. For more information on automatic maintenance please refer to the documentation.
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