Creating plugin integrations#

Work with external tools by defining integrations.

Before you can create an integration, ensure you have the user credentials and connection information required by the external tool, such as URLs, and API endpoints. To create an integration with HCL™ Launch, for example, you need a user token generated by HCL Launch, and the URL where the server is located. Ensure that you have all the necessary connection information before starting.

Credentials and other connection properties vary among individual plugins. You can find property descriptions and use cases for all plugins on the product website.

A plugin is a software add-on designed to communicate with external services and applications. Each plugin defines an expected record type and communication method. Communication can be uni-directional or bi-directional. To use a plugin, you must install and configure an integration.

Note: You can use the search bar to query existing plugins. You can sort the plugins by Name and Status.

To configure an integration, complete the following steps:

  1. On the HCL™ Accelerate Home page, click Settings > Integrations > Plugins.

    The Plugins tab lists the available plugins. You can use search for existing plugins in the Plugins tab. The search query finds the matches in the Name field. On the Plugins tab, you can sort the Name and Status fields in ascending or descending order by clicking on the required table header field.

    Note: On the Integrations tab, you can use the search bar to query existing integrations. You can sort the integrations by Name, Status, Type, and Last sync.

    For some plugins, you use the Add Integration button and for others you first use the Install button before you can create integrations for the latter. Parser-type plugins generally provide metric or quality-type data. You can access the data supplied by parser-type plugins by using the Insights feature. Installed parser-type plugins are listed on the Plugins tab.

  2. Use the following table to configure the plugin by clicking on the Actions available for the required plugin on the Integrations page.

    Actions Procedure
    *Add Integration* Define the integration properties. For information about the properties that are unique to the plugin, visit the product website.
    *Install* Install the plugin and after a successful installation, click Add Integration and follow the above instructions to create an integration for the plugin. Note: If any issues are encountered during the installation process, typical status codes are displayed to provide information related to the cause of the problem. A status code of There was an error when trying to install this plugin (Reason: xxx) is one example of the aforementioned case with xxx identifying the status code number.
  3. You can configure integrations for some plugin types by adding an integration definition to a value stream JSON file.

    Using a text editor, define an integration object in the integrations array of the value_stream_name-vsm.json file. The following code example illustrates a Jira integration.

    ```

     {
          "_id": "velocity-generated-id",
          "type": "ucv-ext-jira",
          "tenant_id": "velocity-generated-id",
          "name": "my-JIRA",
          "disabled": false,
          "properties": {
            "baseUrl": "http://my-jira-url",
            "username": "admin",
            "password": "****",
            "jiraProjects": [
              "My-Project"
            ]
          }
        },
    

    ```

    Integrations created by the value stream method are displayed on the Integrations page along with integrations created by the other methods.

  4. Additional HCL Accelerate product features requiring you to perform plugin installation before use include the following:

    • Handlebars Reporter
    • Bottleneck detection
    • Parser

The integration is listed on the Integrations page. The Integrations page is where you manage integrations.

Integrations start providing data when successfully configured. For some integration types, such as quality-data types, you can start using their data without additional configuration. For example, you can create dashboard charts that contain quality data when the integration is added. For example, JUnit is a quality-type plugin.

Other integration types require additional configuration before you can start using the associated data. Native integrations require that tasks are added to deployment plans. Value stream integrations, such as GitHub™, require a reference in the value stream JSON file. If you define an integration on the Plugins tab, add a reference to the integration name in the JSON file. If you define an integration directly in a JSON file described in Step 3, no additional configuration is required.