LinearB Configuration Best Practices
Welcome to LinearB! We're excited you're here. Below is a list of helpful steps you can take to fully configure your LinearB account.
Add more repositories to LinearB
During setup, you should check that LinearB is scanning all relevant repos for your team. Additional repos can be added from your settings page, instructions can be found here: How do I add more repos to LinearB?
From the Git settings page, you can also add additional Git accounts if your team works from multiple accounts.
Merge duplicate contributor accounts
After all relevant repos have been added to LinearB, LinearB will list all repo contributors it finds in the Teams tab. By default, each unique email address is treated as an individual contributor, which can lead to duplicate users if a user is contributing from different accounts, machines, etc.
Click on the three dot icon to the right of a user to merge these duplicates.
You can read more about merging users here: How do I merge contributor accounts?
Build your development teams
Now that your contributor list is duplicate free, create teams in LinearB in order to sort your contributors into their relevant specializations. There is no limit on teams, and individual contributors can be added into multiple teams. Recommended teams would include a frontend and backend team, data team, and even a support team. Learn more about building teams here: How do I create, edit, and delete teams?
Once created, the below tabs can be filtered to focus on specific team-member activity.
- Dashboard
- Pulse (PM connection required)
- Teams
- Activity
- Metrics reports
Connect PM boards to your teams
Once created, you can link a team's Jira/Shortcut board to each individual team. This allows your team to receive a custom Pulse reports on their activity linked to PM issues.
To connect a team to a PM board, go to Team Settings -> Projects. Select the appropriate board(s) for your team, and click Save.
Click here to learn about connecting PM boards.
Connect to Slack/MS Teams
Your team can receive real-time updates, either in team channels or via personal alerts about potential bottlenecks such as hanging PRs or long code reviews, or quality issues such as PRs merged without review, or PRs with a high factor of reworked code. Individual users can receive personal updates when they are assigned to review a PR, when their PR passes CI tests, or when their PR has been approved.
Connecting Slack
How do I connect and manage WorkerB Team Alerts?
How do I set up WorkerB Personal Alerts and Commands?
Connecting MS Teams
Contact support@linearb.io or your CSM to connect MS Teams. Instructions on how to connect can be found here: How to Connect WorkerB to Microsoft Teams
Set up team alerts
Once connected, teams can be notified of potential bottlenecks or code issues by enabling WorkerB alerts via their Teams or Slack settings page.
Connect Jira/Shortcut
LinearB unifies analytics from engineering and project management sources. To realize the full value of LinearB, connect your project management instance. Instructions on connecting both on-prem and cloud-based Jira and Shortcut apps can be found here: Connect your project management tools.
In the top right of the LinearB dashboard, click the settings gear, select Company Settings, click on the Projects tab, and select your project management tool.
Connect PM boards to your teams
Once created, you can link a team's Jira/Shortcut board to each individual team. This allows your team to receive a custom Pulse reports on their activity linked to PM issues.
To connect a team to a PM board, go to Team Settings -> Projects. Select the appropriate board(s) for your team, and click Save.
Click here to learn about connecting PM boards.
Configure MTTR
LinearB uses project management issues in order to determine our MTTR calculation. Once project management is connected, click on the MTTR tab next to your boards list, and customize how your team identifies bugs that need to be repaired.
Configure Your Release Detection
In order to surface accurate numbers for metrics like Deploy Time, we need to know how your team releases code to production. Go to Account Settings -> Advanced in order to set your release detection method to listen for tags (default) or PRs or merges to a dedicated branch. Learn more about configuring release detection here.
You can also configure LinearB to include and exclude specific branches and/or pull requests, even specific file extensions.
Invite users to LinearB
Invite the team of users who you would like to have access to your LinearB Metrics using instructions found here: How to invite new users
What is the difference between Users and Contributors?
Users | Contributors |
Individuals who will have access to LinearB's metrics and reports. | Developers who are contributing code to your repos and whose activity you would like to include in your metrics reporting (you'll learn more about contributors below) |
Your team is now observable and orchestrate-able
Congrats! Your LinearB setup is now complete. Be sure to check back frequently to track your progress.
Questions? Comments? Let’s Connect. Reach out to support@linearb.io and we’ll set up a time to talk.