FAQs for SpiraPlan

This section provides answers to some of the most Frequently Asked Questions by our prospective customers. The FAQs are grouped in several categories to make finding the answers easier:

General Questions

  1. What makes SpiraPlan better than other Agile Project Management systems?
    SpiraPlan has all the features you would expect in a world-class Agile Project Estimation, Planning and Management suite yet is only a fraction of the price of our competitors. You just won't find a more feature-rich Agile PM suite at anywhere near the price of SpiraPlan.
  2. What makes SpiraPlan better than other Bug/Issue Tracking tools?
    SpiraPlan provides all the features you'd expect for detecting and tracking bugs/issues, yet for the same price as many standalone bug/issue tracking systems you also get the tools to manage your project requirements/scope, project estimation and planning.
    How many times have you wished you could determine which bugs affect the most important requirements, or been able to demonstrate that fixing X bugs will impact the existing project plan and result in Y development tasks getting rescheduled to the next iteration. With SpiraPlan you can now manage projects with this level of rigor, using just one integrated application.
  3. What makes SpiraPlan better than other Planning and Collaboration tools?
    SpiraPlan provides all the features you'd expect for creating, managing and executing project plans and tasks yet for the same price as many standalone collaboration systems you also get the tools to manage your project requirements/scope, track the defects discovered during the project lifecycle and have a central document repository of all project artifacts.
    How many times have you wished you could prove to a customer that all the requirements have been fully completed, that all bugs have been fixed. With SpiraPlan you can now manage projects with this level of rigor, using just one integrated application.
  4. Do you have a guarantee? What if I'm not happy with SpiraPlan?
    We are so confident that you will be fully satisfied with our software that we offer an unconditional, 30-day money back guarantee!
  5. Can I take a trial of SpiraPlan to see how it works before purchasing?
    Absolutely, you can sign up for a 30-day free trial, which enables you to try out all of the features of SpiraPlan on either our SaaS environment or on your own servers. No credit card or payment needed, and you get all the features of the full system. Best of all, if you like SpiraPlan, you can switch to production and keep all your trial data. So, lets get started!
  6. What is the difference between Spira Edition and Spira Version?
    The editions control what level of artifacts, grouping, and additional functionality are available. Spira comes in three editions. These are:
    - SpiraTest
    - SpiraTeam
    - SpiraPlan

    The versions control functionality that is released or updated in the Spira editions as part of the SpiraPlan roadmap. For example, a version would be version 7.4 vs. version 7.3.

Purchasing Questions

  1. Can I pay for the software using a purchase order?
    Yes. We gladly accept purchase orders. Please contact us at sales@inflectra.com for more information.
  2. Do you offer a discount for Government, Non-Profit, and Academic Institutions?
    Yes. We offer a 20% discount off our already low price for non-profit, Government and academic institutions. Please contact us at sales@inflectra.com for more information.
  3. Can I pay for the software using a wire transfer or ACH payment?
    Yes. We gladly accept wire transfers and ACH payments. Please contact us at sales@inflectra.com for more information.
  4. How will I access my instance of SpiraPlan?
    Once your purchase has been confirmed you will be logged into the secure customer area of the website. For on-premise customers, this will contain the link to download the software as well as the license key for the version you purchased. For cloud customers, this will contain the URL for your dedicated instance of SpiraPlan, as well as any add-ons you have purchased for your subscription.
  5. What is the price to upgrade from one edition of SpiraPlan to a higher edition?
    The price to upgrade from one edition to a higher edition (e.g. from the 10-user to the 20-user edition) is just the incremental difference in price between the two editions. Please contact us at sales@inflectra.com for more information.

Getting Started Questions

  1. Should I setup my SpiraPlan users or products first?
    There is no preference. They can be done in parallel. What is important is that both the products and user setup are followed by product membership and role setup so that people can start working on the projects.
  2. What are the different ways to set up users?
    There are four ways to set up users. All these are based on the level of controlled access an organization plans to have. These involve the following:
    - Users sign up themselves. The benefit is that the administrator need not know the password. Any such user signed up should be approved in Spira by the administrator.
    - Users are added natively. The administrator can set up these users themselves and enforce organizational IT policies such as the password and MFA.
    - Users are signed up with OAuth providers: Users can sign up themselves by using one of the OAuth providers (like Google or OKTA Authentication). The administrator should set up the OAuth authentication.
    - Users are imported en-massse from Active Directory (using LDAP protocol). The benefit is that the organizational controls from AD are extended as part of the SSO.
  3. What is the purpose behind a SpiraPlan template?
    When products are created, they have some properties. These include types of artifact, priority, importance, severity, workflow, notifications, custom properties, etc. A business may want to have products/projects that have the same characteristics and avoid duplication of effort or potential misses among projects without a common way to standardize these properties. That common mechanism to standardize project properties is the template.
  4. What version or Spira edition is required for SpiraApps?
    SpiraApps are not connected with a specific edition but has limitations based on theedition. So, the better question would be what SpiraApps is relevant to various Spira editions. Since the Spira editions support certain artifacts, the specific SpiraApps is relevant based on the Spira edition.
    For instance, the FMEA SpiraApps uses the risk management module relevant only in SpiraPlan. Similarly, the Task and Test presets SpiraApps works with both Tasks and Tests. The task portion is relevant only for SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan but the Tests portion is relevant for all Spira editions.
  5. How to Import Data into SpiraPlan from Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets?
    SpiraPlan comes with a free utility to import tabular data (e.g. CSV or TSV exports) into the system. To make it easier, SpiraPlan provides add-ins for both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets that allow you paste in your data and import in just a few steps.
  6. How to Import Data into SpiraPlan from Microsoft Word?
    SpiraPlan comes with a free utility to import requirement and test case Microsoft Word documents into the system. The importers can handle different document styles, images, tables and bullets/lists. To make it easier, SpiraPlan provides add-ins for both Microsoft Word 365 and Microsoft Word 2016 or earlier.
  7. Does SpiraPlan have an Application Programming Interface (API)?
    Yes, SpiraPlan comes with a robust, fully-versioned REST and SOAP API that contains built-in documentation and sample code for the different API calls. When we release a new version of SpiraPlan we make sure the older version APIs maintain backwards compatibility. This significantly reduces your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Technical & Support

  1. Where can I find information about SpiraPlan release notes or product roadmap?
    Inflectra publishes the SpiraPlan product roadmap and release notes at https://spiradoc.inflectra.com/About/roadmap/
  2. Where can I get information on the tables available for custom reporting?
    These are available in SpiraPlan documentation available from within the product as well as outside of the product. Please refer to https://spiradoc.inflectra.com/Reporting/Custom-Report-Tables/
  3. What is XSLT and why is it required for Custom Reporting?
    Custom Reporting is a niche field that requires a good understanding of extensible stylesheet language (XSLT) that transforms extended markup language (XML) required with a lot of data elements in SpiraPlan. The XSLT converts the data in XML to Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) so that these reports can be rendered in the browser or exported into one of the other formats like Portable Data Format (PDF) or Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel.
  4. Where can I find more information on XSLT?
    - Inflectra Documentation - https://spiradoc.inflectra.com/Reporting/Custom-Report-Tutorial/#understanding-xpath
    - Microsoft Documentation - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/data/xml/xslt-transformations
    - W3 Schools - https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xsl_intro.asp
  5. How can I accelerate my knowledge of custom reporting available in SpiraPlan?
    We recommend that you start with some of the tutorials first available. Once you have reviewed them, we recommend that you also look at Inflectra Knowledge Base on SpiraPlan Custom Reports.
    - Custom Reports Tutorial and Introduction
    - Webinar on Custom Reporting
    - Library of Example Custom Reports
  6. What is Inflectra’s security and privacy policy for SpiraPlan?
    Please read our security and privacy policy at https://www.inflectra.com/Company/Privacy-Policy.aspx