Recently, Rally (our parent company) acquired Flowdock, a collaboration tool for teams. Flowdock includes real-time chat and a shared team inbox that aggregates activity from project management tools, version control systems, operations monitoring, customer feedback channels, etc.

We have used Flowdock for some time, and by dogfooding it with AgileZen, have a great understanding of how the products work together. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be writing a bit about how we use AgileZen and Flowdock to collaborate on our work more effectively. A deeper integration is in the works, but for now, check out the following for details on how to set up the existing integration (available on the beta version of AgileZen).

Our Team’s AgileZen – Flowdock Setup
We are currently using the publicly-available AgileZen to Flowdock integration as a team working on the AgileZen beta product. Below is a screenshot of our Flow’s inbox, complete with updates from our board:

This integration helps keep the team aware of what work is being done while we are conversing in our Flowdock Flow, and allows us to have direct conversations around work items:

This keeps us from having to break our workflow or change applications when needing information about a specific card or story.

Set up the Integration :: Step 1: Retrieve Your Flowdock API Token
In order to integrate your AgileZen board with your Flowdock Flow, you first need to get your Flowdock API token. This can be found by logging in to the Flow you want to integrate and clicking the “Settings” icon:

Next, copy the “Flowdock API Token”:

Set up the Integration :: Step 2: Add the Token to your AgileZen Project
On your AgileZen project, click the “Settings” icon:

On the “Integrations” tab, click the green “+” button:

In the modal window, paste your Flowdock API Token in the text box and click “Save”:

That’s it! The integration is up and running and your AgileZen project updates will be pushed to your Flowdock Flow’s inbox.

In the coming weeks, we will be delving more deeply into our process and how we use AgileZen and Flowdock to effectively collaborate and get work done.

After releasing our GitHub integration last week and seeing all the positive feedback, we figured Bitbucket should be the next up, another application for source code hosting. This integration works in pretty much the same way as the GitHub integration, so teams that use both Bitbucket and AgileZen can now associate their commit messages with story cards! Please review the Bitbucket article in our knowledge base for detailed instructions on how to get set up with this integration. Once you’re up and running, you can comment in your messages with the AgileZen story card number and have the commit message appear under the changeset list on the story card.

We hope you’ll check it out!

Today we released the integration of AgileZen and GitHub, a collaborative code repository. This means that teams that use both tools can now associate their commit messages in GitHub with story cards in AgileZen! To get started, check out our help article with detailed instructions. Once everything is set up, users can comment in their GitHub messages with story card numbers in AgileZen and the commit messages will appear under the changeset list on the story card. We thought it would be useful to have visibility into commits as part of AgileZen, since the product serves as an information radiator for customers.

We love GitHub and we’re looking forward to using the integration on our team!

Today we released the integration of AgileZen with Campfire, a web app for real time group collaboration. Like our HipChat integration, Campfire can be used to see notifications about the status of work items, so you can get updates about AgileZen story cards along with your chat. This means that even if you don’t have your AgileZen project open, you’ll still be up on the latest information!

This is a project-based notification system (as opposed to email and IM notifications, which are user-specific), so you can associate messages in a certain AgileZen project with a specific room in Campfire. If you’re the account owner, you’ll see the new integrations tab on the home screen of your projects. All you need is your Campfire User API Auth Token and the Campfire Room URL to get started. It’s really easy to set up, and the full instructions are available on our help site.

Many of our customers have posted integrations they’ve written to the API forum on our help site, so be sure to check those out too. If you’ve written integrations with AgileZen or would like to, let us know because we’d love to see them!

Today we released the integration of AgileZen with HipChat, a private group chat and IM client for businesses that has features like file sharing, video and voice chat, and cool emoticons. This integration allows HipChat to be used as another stream for notifications about work items. What this means for you is that you can get updates about story cards along with your chat if you’re using both tools. Even if you don’t have your AgileZen project open, you’ll still be up on the latest information!

This is a project-based notification system (as opposed to email and IM notifications, which are user-specific), so you can associate messages in a certain AgileZen project with a team room in HipChat. If you’re the account owner, you’ll see the new integrations tab on the home screen of your projects. All you need is your HipChat Auth Token and the Name or ID of the room you use for chat to get started. It’s really easy to set up, and the full instructions are available on our help site.

While this is our first integration, many of our customers have posted integrations they’ve written to the API forum on our help site. We have a lot of integrations planned for the future, but we started with this one for a few reasons. First, we use HipChat and we love it. We also use the GitHub/HipChat integration and have found it very useful for visibility in to what’s being committed. Our friends over at Adzerk use both AgileZen for project management and HipChat for team communication and thought it would be useful if they could have information about their work items from AgileZen posted to HipChat. We thought that this would also be really useful for us too, so Nate started working on a proof of concept for Freeform Friday, our version of hack days.

For the proof of concept, Nate created the AgileZen “cash register”, so that every time a customer buys an account, it posts that information to the chat. It’s a great way for everyone to have visibility into the number of new customers, and it’s definitely a motivator to see all the new sales as they come in. Now that we’ve been using this for a while, it was time to take Nate’s hack project and make it into a customer-facing feature. With a few tweaks, we created the integration of AgileZen and HipChat.

We’ve also released the source of the node.js HipChat library that drives the integration. It’s pretty simple, and just does what we need it to do. (Pull requests are appreciated if you’d like to add features!)

If you’ve written integrations with AgileZen or would like to, let us know because we’d love to see them!

As you may have noticed, we pushed a new version of AgileZen over the weekend that, among a few infrastructure improvements and bug fixes, included a beta version of our completed REST API! The first version of the API was read-only and although intended to add write access soon after, other feature work kept taking priority. We’re very happy with the results of our work, and we’re planning to move the actual AgileZen app over to the new API once we complete our UI re-tooling effort.

More information on the new API is available on our new developer site. If you used the previous version of the API, there are a few breaking changes to be aware of:

1. The URL scheme has been changed to be less confusing. Originally, URL segments like projects became project (singular) when referring to a single resource. To avoid confusion, all segments are now always plural.
2. The default response format is now JSON instead of XML.
3. To protect API keys in transit, all requests to the API must be done via HTTPS. This will work even if your account’s plan doesn’t include SSL support.
4. The blocked and ready properties in stories have been replaced with a status enumeration.

Since the previous version of the API was read-only and pretty rough around the edges, we didn’t think it was a good idea to carry forward support for it. We’re sorry if this causes trouble with anything you’ve built! However, the new API is essentially feature-complete, so we plan to honor backwards-compatibility, and will version and deprecate if we make any major changes.

Another thing to note about the new version of the API is that the way access is granted has changed. Before, there were two permissions called Read via API and Write via API. We’ve replaced those permissions with an access level which can be one of four values: None, Read, Read/Write, or Admin. Most of these are relatively self-explanatory, with the exception of Admin, which allows users to rename projects, edit project membership, change permissions, and generally do anything a project owner or administrator would be able to do.

All users were granted Read access to the projects they’re involved in, but to be able to write data to the API, you will need to change their access level. The access level that is required for each endpoint is documented on our developer site.

We’d love some feedback on the API, so please hack on it and let us know if you run in to any issues. We’d also love to know if you’re building something cool with the API, so if you’d like to share something, post a comment here, send us a message on Twitter, or send us an email!

We’re happy to announce that last night, the first piece of the Zen API went live. You can use it to push and pull information between Zen and your own applications. Our plan is to roll the API out in phases, and this first step represents only the beginning of the functionality that the API will provide.

To use the Zen API, you need to generate an API key. This key must be supplied with every request – it’s essentially your password, but only for API requests. You can also optionally enable the Developer Console, which lets you interact with the API in a testing environment.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Go to your dashboard, and click Settings.
2. Choose the Developer tab.
3. Check Enable Developer Console.
4. Click New API Key. Zen will generate and display a new API key. Give it a description (just for your reference).
5. Click Save Changes.
6. Click Dashboard, and you will see the Developer Console link on the navigation bar.

Here’s what the developer tab looks like:

Once you have access to the developer console, head over to the new Zen documentation wiki to learn what requests are available, and how to structure them. The documentation is admittedly a bit messy at the moment, but just as we’re working to improve the API gradually, the documentation will also improve over time. :)

For a limited time, the API is open to all users (including those with free accounts), but eventually it will be restricted to paid accounts only.

So, go start tinkering! As always, we’re very interested in any feedback that you have. Please let us know if you have ideas for improving the API, and of course, if you use it to build something cool, we’d like to know that as well!