Spira Spotlight 7.0: New Plugin Architecture With SpiraApps

May 23rd, 2022 by inflectra

spotlight roadmap plugins extensibility spiraapps extensions

We are very excited about the upcoming release of Spira 7.0 in July 2022. In previous articles we've described some of the new plugins and integrations coming to SpiraTest, SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan in this release. However even more exciting than that is the actual plugin architecture itself. To differentiate it from the other plugins we already have (data-synchronization plugins, RemoteLaunch engines and other add-ons), this new plugin architecture will be known as SpiraApps. Initially the available SpiraApps will be created by Inflectra, but the future plans are to open up the SpiraApps architecture to allow technology partners, solution partners, and customers write their own Apps to further customize Spira to better suit their needs.

Overview

One of the key attributes of the Inflectra Spira platform is that it is a complete, integrated turnkey solution for companies that need to develop, test and manage their software applications. However there are specific features that are needed by different industries and methodologies that would be better served by a more extensible set of ‘add-on’ features to the core system. For example working in healthcare you have to comply with 21 CFR Part 11, whereas in automotive you need to support ISO 26262. This new plugin architecture will allow Inflectra and its customers and partners to provide increasingly niche features for different industries.

Inside Spira, administrators will be able to browse the list of SpiraApps and enable them at a system level:

Once an App has been enabled in a Spira instance, individual project owners can then enable it for their specific product / project:

In the previous blogs we have described some of the plugins that will be shipped by default with v7.0 - GitLab, GitHub, CircleCI and FMEA, but we have two more plugins that will be part of the initial release:

Standard Tasks and Test Cases for Automating Steps to Doneness
Default Descriptions for new Artifacts

Standard Tasks and Test Cases

The purpose of this plugin is to allow you to create standard tasks and test cases for a requirement or release. A user will have a dropdown menu in the requirement and release details pages that lists different sets of standard tasks and test cases that can be auto-created for the current requirement/release.

This will allow you create a “checklist” for a release or requirement that would be completed.. For example, a release deployment checklist could be a set of tasks. A "steps to doneness" could be a set of standard tasks and test cases (unit, acceptance, UAT) for a requirement.

The product admin will be able to fill in four multi-line plain text boxes:

Requirement - Standard Tasks
Requirement - Standard Test Cases
Release - Standard Tasks
Release - Standard Test Cases

From there, the system will generate the series of tasks and/or test cases when you click on the appropriate menu entry inside Spira:

Default Descriptions

This plugin lets you specify the default rich text Description for a variety of Spira artifacts. It is often requested by clients who want to have a standard “template” for logging a new incident or creating a new requirement.

To use this plugin, once activated by administrators, you can setup the default rich text description for any of the following supported artifacts: