Setup & Onboarding

We’re glad to have you on Middleware and excited to be a part of your growth journey!

Our goal is to make your team productive vs being busy and in this doc we will talk about the quickest way to get started! We will also discuss about any permissions required, assumptions taken and if any optional process change is suggested.

Goal: Get to your first insight 🚀

The recipe to get your first productivity insight is simple. We need:

• Your Git or Jira Integration
• A team
• Mapping the repo/projects to the team

Step by Step guide 🤝

1. Login into your workspace 🔓

Open https://app.middlewarehq.com. We offer Google and Microsoft workspaces

Permissions required

1. [Optional] To view calendar events: You can opt-in for calendar events to ensure your team is not over-burdened with scheduled calls.

2. Integrate Git 🔗

Connect your git provider (Github/Bitbucket/Gitlab) to sync in your Pull Requests (or Merge Requests if you use Gitlab 🙂). Note: If you’re not interested in viewing code insights at the moment, skip to the next step.

1. You can find the integrations page from the side bar on the left.

2. Choose your Git provider from the choice of Github, Bitbucket or Gitlab

Permissions required **

1. Organisation - We need this permission to list repositories for the particular organisation.
2. Repo - All the git providers we support (Github/Bitbucket/Gitlab) provide only a full repository access for private repos. However, we only use your token to read the following data:
   1. Pull Requests(PR) - We only read and store the event timestamps, author details, titles and PR numbers for linking
   2. PR Commits - We only read and store commit id, created at timestamp
   3. PR Comments and activity - We only read and store counts, type of comment and event timestamps for analytics

Assumptions/Process change needed There is no process change needed as long as your team uses Pull Requests to make changes to your repository. We do not track your code or any commits which do directly to the main branch.

Troubleshooting While integrating with Github, You might see Grant option in front of your organisation. Clicking on Grant might send it for the approval to the admin. Proceed after granting access to sync in your insights with Middleware!

In case of any confusion, reach out to us at contact@middlewarehq.com

3. Select repos to sync. Choose your org → Select repos → Save and Done!

3. Integrate JIRA 📈

Let us integrate JIRA. Naturally, the way to integrate any of your engineering tools is very similar on Middleware. If you followed through the Git integration above, JIRA will be a breeze for you. Note: If you’re not interested in Jira insights at the moment, and have integrated a git provider, skip to the next section.

You can find the integrations page from the side bar on the left.

Click on Link on the JIRA card

Once you link with JIRA, Manage to select the Projects you want the insights on

Permissions Required

1. Project - We need project permission to enlist the available projects while integrating
2. Sprints - We read and store sprint ids, states and event timestamps
3. Boards - We read and store board ids and event timestamps
4. Tickets - We read and store ticket title, id for linking, ticket events (including state transitions), assignee details and event timestamps

Assumptions We assume you’re using JIRA sprints! Currently Middleware works best with JIRA Sprints. If you’re on non-sprint boards - kanban or list boards, Middleware Project insights might underwhelm you.

Process change needed To ease up the starting point Middleware allows you to define workflow states based on how your team operates despite of how your board is configured. This will help you get the insights without any process change.

*Only for analysing story point insights like these (click the "story points based insights" tab), you will need to add story points to your tickets. If that’s a difficult change for your team at the moment, you can still leverage the project flow, investment insights and ad-hoc analysis.

That’s it! No other process change needed. Let’s head towards creating teams.

4. Final step: Create Teams 🤝

Mimic your org’s structure by creating teams on Middleware. We need to do 3 things here: a. Create a team. Add a name for it b. Assign a manager, add members to the team c. Select the repos/projects your team works on. We provide an already populated list from repos and projects based on your integrations.

For Jira/Bitbucket users:

1. After you add team members, go to Manage Teams

2. Click Link Users (as shown above) and choose Link Jira/Bitbucket users

Time for your first insight 🎉

Good things take time! Middleware will be ready in 5-10 minutes with a bucket full of insights based on your last 90 days. The best places to get started are:

1. Project Overview - Understand at which stage your team is losing delivery predictability. This view requires JIRA integration.
2. Pull Request Overview - Spot the bottlenecks in your Pull Request process. This view requires a Git integration.

Congratulations on setting up Middleware! Now, you should integrate with your CI tools and incident management tools to see your DORA metrics!

Onward and upwards 🚀

Process excellence and quest to productivity is an iterative journey for every engineering organisation and we strive to be for your support throughout. Middleware might get updated faster than this document. So incase of any queries, hiccups or feedback, you can get in touch with us in a couple of ways:

1. Email
2. Slack
3. Website Help (bottom right corner help widget)