IceScrum2 for Agile Development Introduction

IceScrum is an Open Source tool (under GPL).Now lastest IceScrum² version R2#15.1 is Released.

Introduction

IceScrum is an J2EE application for using Scrum while keeping the spirit of a collaborative workspace. It also offers virtual boards with post-its for sprint backlog, product backlog and others.

The tool offers everything that is in Scrum :

The role management: Product Owner, ScrumMaster, Team member and StakeHolder
The product backlog management with advanced features for prioritizing stories
Scrum lifecycle including a roadmap view
Release planning
Sprint backlog, as a task board facilitating the Scrum ceremonial
Management of impediments
Chart production such as burndown charts, velocity charts, cumulative flow diagram

Icescrum offers others agile practices like :

Roadmap
Vision
Features
User stories
Acceptance tests associated to stories
User roles
Planning poker

Demo Project

The demo project can help you to understand what our tool can do. This is a small project about the creation of a website. You can download it here or view the online demo website: http://www.icescrum.org/demo/

About Installation

IS² pre-requesites :

In order to be able to install IS2, you need :

JRE 1.5

The default database is HSQLDB (included in the IS2 distribution), but if you want to use another RDBMS (MySQL, Postgres, …), you have to install it by yourself, and then to configure IS2 to use it (see « Configuration FAQ» ).

How to install IS² :

You can install IS² in two differents ways : with the war, or with the bundle.

To install IceScrum² with the war, you can follow this tutorial:

To install IceScrum² with the bundle , you can follow this tutorial:

About Configuration

How to configure IceScrum² with my own DataBase :

To install IceScrum² with your own database, you have to change some core configuration in a single file. Please ensure that the database you have created is set to use the UTF-8 encoding character. In MySQL, set the default character encoding for your database to utf8_general_ci. Moreover you will need the Java driver from your DataBase provider.

You have two ways for doing this, by using the Administrator account in IceScrum, or by manually editing the configuration file of IceScrum.

Note : Check if your database is supported on http://www.hibernate.org/80.html

1. With IceScrum Administrator account :

This simple tutorial will show you how to do it in 4 steps.

Download the Java driver in your [Tomcat-WebApps Root]/[icescrum2 Root]/WEB-INF/lib repertory. Let’s taking MySQL driver for example (note : MySQL driver is already included in the icescrum2 libs). On MySQL official website, you will search for MySQL Java Connector and you will find mysql-connector-java-5.x.x-bin.jar file. Put it in the said lib repertory and go step 2.

Log as an admin (default login: sa, pwd: sa). Use driverClassName provided by the Java Connector documentation. For MySQL this is : « org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver ».
Don’t forget to change your database URL which begins usually with jdbc:[name of your database provider in lower case]://[DB adress]/[databaseName which contains icescrum2 tables]. If you’re using MySQL, add the string ?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf8 at the end to force the UTF-8 character encoding (required if you’re using non-latin-based characters).
You can also define your database login and password here.

Change the database Dialect. In order to fully support your DB, you have to change the database dialect used : for mysql org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLInnoDBDialect

Validate the changes and restart the server.

2. Manually :

Download the Java driver in your [Tomcat-WebApps Root]/[icescrum2 Root]/WEB-INF/lib repertory. Let’s taking MySQL driver for example (note : MySQL driver is already included in the icescrum2 libs). On MySQL official website, you will search for MySQL Java Connector and you will find mysql-connector-java-5.x.x-bin.jar file. Put it in the said lib repertory and go to step 2.

Search for the file named « configuration.properties » located in
- C:\Users\<your_user_name>\.icescrum\icescrum-web-R2 (on Windows Vista/7)
- C:\Documents and Settings\<your_user_name>\.icescrum\icescrum-web-R2 (on Windows XP)
- /home/<your_user_name>/.icescrum/icescrum-web-R2 (on Unix-based systems).

Open this file with a text editor and search for these lines :

database.driverClassName = org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver
database.url = jdbc:hsqldb:file:${user.home}/.icescrum/${contextRoot}/icescrum2_db.tmp;shutdown=true
database.dblogin = sa
database.dbpwd =
database.dialect = org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect

Replace the database driverClassName by the one provided in the Java Connector documentation of your database management system. For MySQL this is : « org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver ».

Replace the database URL to fit your own database. The syntax is generally jdbc:[name of your database provider in lower case]://[DB adress]/[databaseName which contains icescrum2 tables]
. If you’re using MySQL, add the string ?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf8 at the end to force the UTF-8 character encoding (required if you’re using non latin-based characters).

Define your database login and password.

Change the database Dialect. In order to fully support your DB, you have to change the database dialect used : for mysql it is org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLInnoDBDialect

Save the changes, and if IceScrum² was already running, restart the server.

An example with a MySQL DataBase Management System :

database.driverClassName = org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver

database.dialect=org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLInnoDBDialect
database.dblogin = myDBLogin
database.dbpwd = myDBPassword
database.url=jdbc:mysql://127.0.0.1/icescrum2?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf8

About Usage

Web Browsers compatibility:

To use Icescrum², Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 8, Safari 4 and Chrome are the most recommended browsers.

There are some presentation issues with Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 6 and Safari 3 which can make the software difficult to use.

Tutorials and tips:

You’ll find here a few tutorials about IceScrum² usage.

Video :

Demonstration video : Getting started with IceScrum!

Articles :

Actions in IceScrum: How to interact with IceScrum with right click, left click and drag’n drop.
Tips : The Sprint Backlog: A few tips you should know about the Sprint Backlog usage.
Project settings and actions: How to adapt the project settings (mask a project, …)
Summary of the user rights: Recap of what a user can do depending on his role in IceScrum.