Exalate Menu Panel

Navigating through the Exalate Menu Panel is required for all the administrative tasks related to the Exalate application.

In case the Exalate App is not embedded in your task management system, you can reach it by directly accessing the Exalate Node URL. The menu panel will be located on the left side of the screen.

If you are using Exalate on Jira, Zendesk, or any other platform that supports the embedded Exalate version, first of all, you need to access the Exalate app through the task management system interface. After that, you will find the Exalate Menu Panel on the left side of the screen.

You may notice that look and feel is a little bit different depending on the task management system but the options mostly remain the same.

Getting Started

On the Getting Started screen, you can find two useful options: Tutorials and User Documentation. The Tutorials button will lead to the Exalate site with step-by-step video instructions specifically for the platform you are using. The User Documentation button will take you to the Documentation portal.

General Settings

The options within the General Settings vary depending on the platform you use. Check out General Settings specifically for your platform here.

Azure DevOps

• Exalate URL - your Exalate node URL.
  
• Azure DevOps URL - a link that you use to access your Azure DevOps.
• Organization - the Azure DevOps organization used to install Exalate.
• Configure - Exalate proxy user personal access token configuration.

GitHub

• Exalate URL - your Exalate node URL.
• Tracker URL - GitHub URL.
• Account  - the GitHub account used to install Exalate.

HP ALM/QC

• HP ALM URL - a link to the HP ALM/QC instance without the /qcbin path.
• Exalate URL - your Exalate node URL.
• HP ALM user- a proxy user that is used by Exalate to communicate with HP ALM/QC.
• Password - a proxy user password.
• Do they need to know our HP ALM user/password? - a toggle that can be used to enable or disable required authentication. If you set the authentication as required, you will need to share the credentials with the remote instance so that they could authenticate to your instance.

Jira Cloud

• Exalate URL - your Exalate node URL.
• Show Exalate and Connect actions - the toggle controls if Exalate and Connect buttons are displayed on the issue view. If the toggle is active, the buttons will be visible to the users on the issue view.
• Show Unexalate action - with this toggle, you can control if the Unexalate button is visible on the issue view. If enabled, the users will be able to see the Unexalate button in case the issue was previously Exalated.
• Show sync panel only for admin users - the toggle controls if the Sync Panel is displayed for all the users, or only for admin users.

• Hide inactive connections - with this toggle, you can hide/show inactive connections in the Connections tab.
• Allow project admins to set up basic connections - this toggle controls if the project admin users can initiate basic connections on the project level.

Jira On-Premise

• Proxy User- a user that will be used to carry out any changes such as creating issues, updating data, adding comments and attachments, etc. You can use an existing Jira user or create a new one.
• Email Notifications - use the toggle to enable/disable email notifications. If enabled, email notifications will be sent once an hour.
• In-Jira Notifications - pop-up messages with confirmation of successful actions, alerts, errors, and other information related to Exalate.
• Authentication required - relevant only for Exalate v.3.x and lower. Toggle to enable or disable authentication to your instance and secure the connection. If you set the authentication as required, you will need to share the credentials with the remote instance so that they could authenticate to your instance.
• Polling Interval(in seconds) - a time interval in seconds used to poll the destination instance in case of a Private - Public connection.
• Show Exalate and Connect actions - the toggle controls if Exalate and Connect buttons are displayed on the issue view. If the toggle is active, the buttons will be visible to the users on the issue view.
• Show Unexalate action - with this toggle, you can control if the Unexalate button is visible on the issue view. If enabled, the users will be able to see the Unexalate button in case the issue was previously Exalated.
• Hide inactive connections - with this toggle, you can hide/show inactive connections in the Connections tab.
• Display URL - your Jira URL.
• Configure - click the Configure button to adjust General Settings.

Salesforce

• Exalate URL - your Exalate Node URL.
  
• Tracker URL - your Salesforce instance URL.
• Configure - here you can set or modify the Organization type, Consumer Key, and Consumer Secret information.

ServiceNow

• Exalate URL - your Exalate Node URL.
• Tracker URL - your ServiceNow instance URL.
• Client ID - your ServiceNow Client ID.
• Auth Protocol - either Token or Basic auth.
• Client Secret - your ServiceNow Client Secret.
• Refresh Token - your ServiceNow token.

Zendesk

• Exalate URL - your Exalate node URL.
• Proxy user- a dedicated Zendesk agent. Exalate performs ticket changes on behalf of this user.
• Token - access token generated by the proxy user.
• Change Proxy user - this button allows you to change the current proxy user.

Connections

You can find a list of all the created connections under the Connections tab. If you do not have any connections yet, this is the place where you can create and configure one.

Under the Connections tab you can find the following options:

• Initiate Connection
  Click this button to create a new connection.
• Accept Invitation
  If the connection has been initiated from the other instance, you can Accept the connection invitation by clicking the corresponding button. 
• Refresh
  Use the Refresh button to instantly refresh the connections screen without reloading the whole page.

If you already have a connection, there are several available actions under each connection:

• Edit Connection
  This option allows you to modify the connection Sync Rules, add a trigger, view statistics, and general connection information, and add a connection description.
• Deactivate
  Use this option to deactivate a connection. When you deactivate a connection, it stays in the connection list with the Deactivated status. You can activate it anytime by clicking the Activate button.
• Delete Connection
  You can delete a connection from the connections list by clicking this button. When deleting a connection, the synchronization information as well as the configurations will be removed. You will see a warning with the connection information and a confirmation screen whenever deleting a connection.
• Exalate
  By clicking Exalate you can start the synchronization of a specific entity right away. Enter the entity key and click Exalate to proceed with the sync.

Exalate Notifications

Under the Exalate Notification tab, you can add users to receive email notifications every time Exalate raises a synchronization error. Click Create to add a user's name and email to the list of notification recipients.

Errors

Here you can find a list of errors when the synchronization is blocked. The errors can be related to a single issue error or a Connection-level error that blocks the entire Connection. 

There could also be an instance-wide error that blocks all the Connections within that instance.

You can manage these errors and find the error details.  Error overview includes an error summary description, its impact level, and the time when the error occurred. 

You can get to the Error Details page from the actions to find out more information on every specific error. Or click Resolve and Retry to start sync again once the error has been fixed. Refer to error handling in Exalate to see more details. 

The Exalate app provides a Sync Queue utility to monitor outgoing and incoming synchronization messages that are in progress. You can find it in the Exalate admin menu as a separate tab.

The tool stores data related to the synchronization that is under processing. You can also track attachment synchronization separately.

The Sync Queue can be filtered by Connection name or even a particular Local or Remote entity ID.

This can be really useful when there is a big amount of issues under synchronization and you need to find out the information on something specific.

The Outgoing sync tab displays outgoing synchronization events queued in the In progress status.

Exalate creates a Sync Event once the local issue has been updated. You can find all processing sync events under this tab.

The Incoming sync tab displays incoming synchronization requests queued in the In progress status.

Exalate creates Sync Request once the remote issue was updated. You can see all processing sync requests under this tab.

Outgoing attachments display outgoing sync events of the attachments that are in progress.

Incoming attachments display incoming sync events of the attachments that are in progress.

Usage

• Track all synchronizations that are under processing.
• When you use Bulk Exalate or Bulk Connect to sync a big amount of issues at a time you can track the synchronization progress.
• Troubleshooting: you can get details of the queued synchronization events or requests.

Usually, the support engineer requests data from the Sync Queue to get more context of an issue.

Below you can see an example of the outgoing sync event details

Bulk Connect

If you have an existing entity and you want to connect it with the existing entity on the other side, you can use the Bulk Connect operation. Under this tab, you can upload a simple mapping file and sync a set of existing issues within just one operation.

To know more about how to perform this operation check the guide on How to perform the Bulk Connect operation?

Triggers

Here you can configure automatic synchronization by creating triggers. Each trigger includes a search query with specific parameters. If the entity fits a search query it is triggered for synchronization automatically.

Learn more about how to create Triggers. 

Entity Sync Status

Under this tab, you can check the sync status of any entity and start synchronization. Enter an entity URN and click Search to find out the current status of this entity.

If the entity is already under sync, you can Unexalate it from here. If the entity has not been synchronized yet, you can Exalate or Connect it by clicking the corresponding button.

To know more about the Entity Sync status on different platforms visit this page. 

License Details

Here you can manage your Exalate license information, and check your license type, status, and expiration date.

Clean-up Tools

Under this tab, you can stop synchronization and remove synchronization-related metadata on both sides. Usually, this tool is used to resolve unhandled synchronization problems. There are two available options, you can clean up by Connection or clean up by Entity.

Learn to use the Clean-up Tools.