This blog gives you a high-level idea about different terminologies used in Jira and GitLab and how we can use the free GitLab features to manage the project.

Below is the mapping of Agile Artifacts to GitLab features –

Process for creating a new project in GitLab

1] Go to Projects -> New Project

Create the Project. E.g. ‘Project1’

2] Go to Boards-> option under Issues.

1. Click on the ‘Switch Boards’ dropdown
2. Click on “Create New Board”
3. Create Issue Board (Release) E.g. ‘Project1 Rel 1.1 Board’

3] Create 2-week Milestone (Sprint)  E.g. ‘Sprint 1’

4] Add current User Stories into this Sprint and start the sprint

5] Configure the Issue Board Columnsto ‘TO DO’, ‘IN DEV’, ‘IN QA’ and ‘DONE’

HOW TO ARRANGE ITEMS ON BOARD (RELEASE WISE)?

1] Go to Boards under Issues

2] Select the Release from the dropdown on Boards

3] In “Search or filter results” text area, you need to type Milestone,

click on =  option.

4] Click on the appropriate Milestone (Sprint) of your project

E.g. Sprint 12

5] Hit enter key – It will filter out the Issues (User Stories) with respect to the Milestone (Sprint)

HOW TO ARRANGE ITEMS ON BOARD MILESTONE (SPRINT WISE)?

1] Go to Labels under Issues -> New Label

2] Go to eachIssue (User Story) and add the Label. 

     E.g. Rel 1.1

3] Go to Boards-> Select the Release from Switch Board drop-down

4] In “Search or filter results” text area, you need to type Label, click on

label:~label option.

5] Press enter – It will filter out the Issues (User Stories) based on the Label

NAVIGATION TO SEE THE BURNDOWN CHART IN GITLAB – 

1] Click on Milestone under Issues- It will show all the Milestones (Sprints) be it Open or Closed.

2] Click on the Milestone (Sprint) you will see the Burndown chart.

Note – If your project is Private then you will land on the page below – 

Workaround – Just make your project as PUBLIC for a few minutes and then again follow step 1, it will load the Burndown chart for you.

NAVIGATION TO MAKE THE PROJECT AS PUBLIC / PRIVATE – 

1] Go to Settings -> General

2] Scroll down, you will see the option “Visibility, project features, permissions”

3] Select the Project visibility drop-down to select the visibility option

E.g. Public, Private, Internal

CREATE THE WIKI PAGE

Just like Confluence, you can create the Wiki pages in GitLab. 

1] Go to Wiki option in the left-hand side pane

2] Click on Create your first page

HOW TO KEEP A TRACK OF PROJECT ACTIVITIES? 

1] Go to Project Overview -> Activity

It gives you the option to see ALL activities, Push Events, Merge Events, Issue events, Comments, etc

Conclusion

This is a quick walkthrough of Gitlab. This is the best solution for companies who want to save the additional cost on the tools to manage the project.