Updated on October 2, 2023

Last April, Jama Software announced our partnership with Auth0 to provide seamless Enterprise integration with our Cloud customers' authentication and authorization management systems. Our partnership with Auth0 for authentication and authorization management systems has been a great success for our customers.

Effective November 1, 2023 -- Jama Software will no longer support our internally developed Jama SAML service for authentication.  

Jama Connect® SSO Impacts with the Continued Use of our Internal Developed Jama SAML Service Post October 30th, 2023

To learn more about the Jama SAML EOL and what steps an organization should be taking to be prepared for the EOL, click HERE.

Earlier today, we deployed a patch release (1.5.1) to all Jama Connect Interchange (JCI) Cloud customers. This release includes the following resolved issues:

• Authentication error with Jira Cloud API, which temporarily paused all sync activity (Jira Cloud integrations only)
• Miscellaneous improvements to the Add Integration Wizard (for all integration types)

To learn more, please read the related article HERE.  

As a reminder, Jama Connect customers interested in developing or modifying their own custom reports can work with their Jama Software Consultant or Customer Success Manager (CSM) to request Velocity Custom Reports training! Our team strongly recommends taking our offered trainings to ensure our customers have the knowledge and tools needed for custom report development.

To learn more, click HERE.

In order to better support users undergoing KOTS installations, Jama Software Community members now have access to a curated FAQ resource. 

Once logged into the Community, members can access the KOTS Installation FAQ HERE.

Not a Jama Software Community member already? Create an account using your work email address HERE.

On December 2nd, Planview is introducing you to a new platform to contact Planview Tasktop technical support. In the continuing effort to provide a world-class Customer Care experience, they will be transitioning Tasktop’s current support application and product news content to the Planview Customer Success Center.

Contact Planview Customer Care here!

The migration to the new platform began at 5 PM CT on December 1st, and they anticipate the transition of existing tickets to be complete early the following week. You will be able to submit tickets on the new platform beginning December 2nd.

You can access FAQs regarding the transition here: 
https://support.tasktop.com/hc/en-us/articles/8268206547476-Tasktop-Customer-Service-Platform-Transition-FAQ

In addition, detailed instructions on how to use the new platform can be viewed in this documentation.

Here's a short intro video for Jama Connect Advisor...

Features in Five: Jama Connect Advisor - Jama Software

I want to thank everyone who participated in, and provided feedback, on our initial Public Beta. This free, non-Jama Connect Cloud-integrated tool is still available at https://labs.jamasoftware.com/.

It's been renamed as Requirements Optimizer, powered by Jama Connect® Advisor™ Technology.

Information about the production version, which is an add-on product for Jama Connect Cloud, is available via the URL below. This includes the features and capabilities, the data sheet and a Features in Five Video. Please provide your feedback on it!

Thank You,
Joseph

Microsoft has announced EOL, for basic authentication in Exchange Online starting as early as October 1^st, 2022.  

If you use basic authentication on a Microsoft-hosted IMAP server, you must update the connection settings to use OAuth. You must also register a Microsoft AAD application with the appropriate permissions.

For more information, see Authenticate an IMAP, POP, or SMTP connection using OAuth.

Jama Connect supports the Client Credentials Flow using a client Secret. Other IMAP server providers or relays can also be used.

In response to this change, Jama Software is releasing hotfixes for 8.66, 8.71, and 8.74 on October 5th, 2022. We will also address this change in the upcoming 8.79 self-hosted release targeted for early November 2022. 

If you don’t implement the changes outlined here and apply this hotfix:

• Replies to stream comments via email aren’t saved in Jama Connect.
• Users aren’t notified if an error occurs.

Outbound notification from Jama Connect utilizes SMTP and should continue to work as intended. Microsoft has communicated customers can either continue to use SMTP basic authorization or it can be re-enabled.

Additional information from Microsoft on this change is included below:

• Latest on deprecating basic auth for Exchange
• Basic Authentication Deprecation in Exchange Online – September 2022 updates

Jama Connect supports the Client Credentials Flow using a client Secret. Other IMAP server providers or relays can also be used. 

Field content for the flow Jama Connect supports:

User (email)	{dedicated email that Microsoft AAD service principal has granted Exchange access to}
Password	{Microsoft AAD Application secret instead of user password}
Port	993
Server	outlook.office365.com
Folder must exist
Error folder must exist
SASL XOAuth2 must be enabled
OAuth ClientID	{Microsoft AAD application (client) ID}
OAuth authority	https://login.microsoftonline.com/{Microsoft tenant ID}
OAuth scopes	https://outlook.office365.com/.default

 

In the spirit of continuous discovery, the Product team is looking to get your feedback on Improving Relationship Rules!

This survey is open through September 7th, 2022 and responding involves a timespend of 5-10 minutes.

Please feel free to share the link for the Jama Connect Relationship Rules Improvement Survey with your colleagues that use Jama Connect -- we appreciate your feedback and collaboration!

Survey: Jama Connect Relationship Rules Improvement Survey

Jama Connect Interchange™ is a web framework that simplifies the process of linking data across multiple product development applications, including Excel, and helps Engineering organizations struggling to comply with live traceability requirements across siloed teams and tools. 
  .  
To help you get the most out of this exciting  solution, we are thrilled to announce the launch of the Jama Connect Interchange™ (JCI) Community! We created this area to be the hub for all things Jama Connect Interchange -- by joining this space, you'll have access to Jama Connect Interchange™ release notes and admin guides, additional resources, as well as staying up-to-date on feature announcements. 

• To learn more about Jama Connect Interchange, please see its data sheet HERE

We are extremely excited to share with you the improvements and additional offerings we’ve been working on with our Customer Success Programs. With in-house industry experts, extensive consulting, training, and data-driven insights to measure and improve outcomes, the Jama Software Success Program enables you to accelerate development, improve product quality, reduce risk, and manage innovation in systems engineering.

Our new program catalog offers more flexibility in how you work with your Customer Success team and breaks down what to expect from each of our new success programs, which have three primary offerings:

To learn more about the new success programs, and to see sample offerings like monthly reporting of requirements quality, check out our Customer Success Program Catalog.

If you have any questions or you’re ready to learn more, reach out to your Customer Success Manager or to a Jama Software consultant – we’ll be more than happy to help!

In the upcoming months, Jama Software will be hosting its 3rd Annual Virtual Users Group for Aerospace and Defense customers. In addition to presenting “What’s New in Jama Connect,” we will share Jama Software’s product roadmap and leave plenty of time for live questions.

Please help us out as we prepare for this exclusive event, to ensure we’re focusing on themes that are the most meaningful to you, by answering a short survey (accessible HERE). 

Note that this survey is intended to capture responses specifically from Jama Connect® users who are within the Aerospace and Defense spaces, and is open through May 6th, 2022.

We appreciate both your feedback and support!
 

What is Requirements Management? 

Requirements management is the process of gathering, analyzing, and validating the needs and wants for the given product or system being developed. Successful requirements management ensures that completed deliverables meet the expectations of key stakeholders.

Requirements can be managed using documents; however, complex systems or products in highly regulated industries mitigate risk by using trusted requirements management tools.  

Visit The Essential Guide to Requirements Management to take a deep-dive into the following topics and more:  

• Best practices for writing requirements  
• Requirements gathering and management processes  
• Evaluating requirements management tools and software 
• The requirements validation and verification process 
• Meeting regulatory compliance and industry standards 
• Key product development terms and definitions 

This is an announcement to all Jama Connect® users that we are in the process of upgrading the infrastructure for some instances. This work will require a downtime of 3 hours, and we are spreading these downtimes across our customer base in separate day intervals between March 22nd and April 14th, 2022. 

Learn more HERE

The Product Design team is looking for customers to identify pain points that affect your use of Jama Connect®. Meetings are one hour on Zoom for you and your Jama Connect users. Schedule a time that works for you and your team.

What to expect

During a scheduled meeting, our team will listen, watch, and further define the issues that slow you down, such as workflow or UI/UX issues. Discussing these issues will help us build a customer-focused list for our team to knock out with each upcoming release. We are committed to making your experience with Jama Connect more efficient!

Note: this session is not intended as a road map presentation or to demo any upcoming features.

Good design begins with open conversations

If you don’t have time to discuss any usability issues now, no worries. We are always looking for customers to partner with us on future projects through research studies, customer interviews, and usability testing. We designed the Jama User Research Program to foster collaboration with our customers so that we can create user-centered solutions. Learn more and sign up today.

• Review Center and Workflow 
• Modeling Tool integrations for MBSE via Smartfacts 
• Administration Tools 
• Risk Management 
• Introducing Categories for improved requirements allocation and variant management 

Registration is now open at https://go.jamasoftware.com/whats-new-in-jama-connect.html

Please feel free to share this event with anyone in your network/organization that you feel would benefit from it, and we look forward to having you join us!

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If you missed this event, you can find the recording at https://resources.jamasoftware.com/webinar/whats-new-in-jama-connect

CVE-2021-44228, a zero-day vulnerability identified in Log4j

Description
A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to take control of an affected system. Log4j is an open-source, Java-based logging utility widely used by enterprise applications and Cloud services.

Affected system and version
Log4j versions 2.0-beta9 to 2.14.1.

Jama Software’s Review
After a thorough software and code review, Jama Software has been unable to identify any open-attack vectors or evidence of past exploit. Additionally, Jama Software has determined that the JDK versions in use both in Cloud and updated Self-Hosted instances are not affected by the LDAP attack vector. In these versions, the LDAP object trust is set to false, meaning JNDI cannot load remote code using LDAP.

Jama Software’s security team has both implemented additional threat detection measures and are actively monitoring this issue, should further response be required.

Conclusion
Jama Software customers on supported Self-Hosted versions and in the Cloud do not need to take any action. While Log4j is in use, the attack vector cannot be exploited because of our default configuration.

Interested in learning more about how Jama Connect can help your organization achieve its goals? The Jama Connect Discovery Center lets you control your knowledge journey and get your questions answered, all at your own pace.

We’ve put our most relevant and valuable content—from discovery to optimization—right at your fingertips!

Access resources to discover, explore, launch and optimize Jama Connect, the leading solution for requirements, risk, and test management.

Visit the link to learn more. 

As part of the Jama Connect 8.63.0 Cloud release, an update to the content header for components and items resulted in abnormal database behavior and sporadic performance issues. As soon as Jama Software Support identified the issue the new feature was turned off, which returned the content headers to their previous design (as seen in 8.62.0 and prior).

No functionality or data has been lost. 8.63.1 Release to release the new header design has now been scheduled for Tuesday, August 3rd for North America and EMEA, and Wednesday, August 4th for Australia/APAC.

Jama Software® Applies NLP to Requirements Management with Requirments Advisor Beta from Jama Labs.

No Cost for a Limited Time.

Hello, all members of the Jama User Community are Invited to use the new, Free (for a limited time) Jama Labs Requirements Advisor Beta. Just go to http://labs.jamasoftware.com

Why Use This Beta?

• Improve the quality and usability of your requirements.
• Save time authoring, reviewing, and updating requirement statements.
• Continuously enhance team requirements authoring skills with regular use.
• Deliver programs and projects on time and on budget with long-term success.

Jama Labs looks forward to hearing about your experience using this Beta.

Thanks for your attention! 

Joseph Pitarresi
Jama Labs Sr. Innovation Manager 

jpitarresi@jamasoftware.com