Getting started

This page walks a product owner through setting up a product: creating it, adjusting its settings, bringing in the team and describing its structure. The terms are explained in Concepts.

Create a product

On the dashboard, choose Create Product (/products/new). Any user can do this if the administrator has enabled product creation; administrators always can. You become the product’s owner.

Adjust the settings

Settings in the product’s sidebar has five tabs. Changes are saved as you make them.

• General: name, description, estimation mode and workflow mode.
• Categories: the categories of requirements, tasks and constraints, each with a name and an identifier prefix. The defaults are listed in Concepts. Settle the prefixes early, before identifiers like FR-12 appear in commit messages.
• Statuses: the workflow columns. New products start with New, In Progress, In Review and Done. One status is the default for new items; statuses marked closed (like Done) count as finished, so their items drop out of “open” lists. At first, requirements, tasks and defects share one set of statuses. If defects need a different workflow, split the sets; splitting cannot be undone.
• Environments: the runtime environments tests run in, such as linux, windows or firefox. Name them the way your CI jobs will (see CI integration).
• Pyramid levels: the levels of the test pyramid, by default Unit, Integration and End-to-End.

Bring in the team

On the Team page, search for existing users, add them with a role, and change or remove roles later. The roles are explained in Concepts.

People who have no account yet can be invited:

1. Under Invite New User, enter their email address and the role they should get, and choose Send Invitation.
2. nexmap shows an invitation link. It does not send emails, so pass the link on yourself, through a channel only that person reads: whoever opens it can use it.
3. The link opens a page where they choose a username and password. Their account gets the invited email address, joins the product with the invited role, and they are signed in right away.

An invitation link works once and expires after 7 days. Accounts created from an invitation never need an administrator’s approval.

If the administrator has enabled self-registration, people can also create an account themselves on the sign-in page (Register) and then be added to the product by you. With moderation enabled, such an account waits for an administrator’s approval under /admin/users before it can sign in.

To hand the product over, use Transfer Ownership next to a member. They become the owner and you become a developer.

Describe the structure

Under Structure in the sidebar:

1. Create the components the product consists of.
2. Create capabilities, each under a component or at product level.
3. Optionally, lay out the roadmap as milestones.

The structure can grow over time; nothing else depends on it being complete.

Fill the backlog and the test catalogue

• Write down the rules that always apply as constraints, and what the product must do as requirements, each with a definition of done. Link both to the capabilities they concern. See Backlog.
• Describe how requirements are verified as test cases, linked to the requirements they cover. For automated tests, nexmap test sync can create the test cases from a test run instead; see CI integration.
• When it’s time to test, run a testing campaign; see Testing.

Your own account

Under your user menu:

• Profile (/user/profile): display name, email address, password, theme, two-factor authentication, and a request to delete your account.
• API Tokens (/user/tokens): personal access tokens for the CLI.