Installation

Owned by Anna Ciepłota
Last updated: Jan 17, 2024 by Piotr Koszela
5 min read

Installation for Jira Cloud

It's only a few clicks. First, go to Jira Administration > Manage apps > "Find new apps" and type "BigTemplate" in the search box. Then, click "Install," accept the terms, and you are almost there. 

The plugin installation may take a while. The "Installed and ready to go!" pop-up on your screen means that the license has been detected and you are all set. However, if it's the first time you use BigTemplate, you may be required to click and navigate to My Atlassian in order to generate an evaluation license.

Installation for Jira on-prem

NodeJS installation is necessary for BigTemplate to work properly. Installation steps can be found below. 

Features unlocked with Headless Chrome

A quick comparison of image export engines: 



Headless Chrome (Starting from BigTemplate 2.7.0)



Headless Chrome (Starting from BigTemplate 2.7.0)

Image export formats

PDF (exact export of browser as seen on PC/MAC)

Exportables

Gantt, Roadmap, Resources, Risks

NodeJS Installation

Installation may be different on your OS. We recommend following the official NodeJS installation guide.

Please install NodeJS (version 16.16.0 or higher) using instructions from https://docs.npmjs.com/downloading-and-installing-node-js-and-npm

NodeJS installation guide suggests NVM installation. With BigTemplate, you cannot use it. We recommend https://www.npmjs.com/package/n if you need a version manager. Using a version manager is optional, and you can also use official NodeJS installers.

Installation check:
Command "node -v" should return the version of the installed NodeJS.
Command "npm -v" should return the version of the installed NPM.

You can also provide a path to your npm executable in BigTemplate > Technical configuration. In such a case, the provided npm will be used instead of the global one.

If you have any further questions regarding setting up NodeJS or if, by any chance, the image export fails afterward, do not hesitate to contact our Support Team via our Service Desk.

Font requirements

Exports require TrueType fonts installed on the server. Ask your Jira system administrator to install True Type fonts on the system.

For CentOS/RHEL distributions, it can be done using:

sudo yum install -y which fontconfig gnu*fonts

For Ubuntu/Debian distributions, it can be done using:

sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

or alternatively

sudo apt-get install ttf-liberation

After the installation, restart your Jira server.

Troubleshooting

Q. There is an error "InvalidOperationException: Cannot find any fonts installed on the system." in the logs despite the fonts installed in the system.
A. It seems like an environmental problem. To fix the issue, symlinks to shared fonts should be created in the JRE fonts directory. e.g.:

ln -s /usr/share/fonts/* /opt/atlassian/jira/jre/lib/fonts/

Q: After exporting my Gantt view to PDF/PNG, all labels are missing.
A: This means you probably don't have any fonts installed. Check if there are TrueType fonts in the fonts directory:

  • for Ubuntu, openSUSE: /usr/share/fonts

  • for Fedora: /usr/local/share/fonts

  • for RHEL: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts

  • for CentOS: /usr/share/X11/fonts

If you have the fonts installed, check if fontconfig () is installed and execute fc-cache -v to update font caches.

Quick troubleshooting

Export diagnostics

Please start the troubleshooting by running export diagnostics. 

Go to App configuration > BigTemplate configuration > Technical Info and click the "Export diagnostics" button.

Method 1: "." (dot) context

If BigGantt is a Jira add-on, you can use the Jira "." shortcut to access the BigGantt configuration.

  1. Press the "." (dot) key shortcut. Jira to open Operations Dialogue.

  2. Type in "BigTemplate" to narrow down the results:

    image2021-5-19_12-30-42.png

     

  3. Click on "BigTemplate configuration" to go directly to app settings in Jira.

Method 2: Jira administration drop-down

  1. Click the Jira cog at the top right and select "Manage apps" from the list:

  2. Select "BigTemplate configuration" on the left:

 

If everything is correctly set up, green checkmarks appear:

Failures are marked with a red "X":

Internet connection check - npm status page

Check if the connection to the https://status.npmjs.org/ site is not blocked from the network where the instance is located (sometimes the problem is caused by the instance being unable to connect to the https://status.npmjs.org/ site).

Node.js or NPM installation failure

If Node.js or NPM installation and version are incorrect, follow the above steps.

Temp directory read/write permissions failure

If the Temp directory read/write permissions are incorrect, move Temp directory read permission. 

Linux

Linux

Temp directory write permission:

  1. Go to your Jira Temp dir (if you don't know the path, go to Getting the path of Jira temp directory section below).

  2. Ensure that the user who runs Jira (by default, a user named Jira) has permission to create files in this directory.

  3. Execute the following command: chmod +w path/to/temp/dir

Temp directory read permission:

  1. Go to your Jira Temp dir (if you don't know the path, go to Getting the path of Jira temp directory section below)

  2. Ensure that the user who runs Jira (by default, a user named Jira) has permission to create files in this directory.

  3. Execute the following command: chmod +r path/to/temp/dir

Getting the path of Jira temp directory:

  1. Go to Jira → System → System Info

  2. Search for the following text: java.io.tmpdir

  3. The value of this property is the temp directory path, e.g., /opt/atlassian/jira/temp

Export library installation failure

If the last point is incorrect, click the "Re-install pdf export" button.

Using NVM as node manager

NVM can't be installed. If you are currently using NVM, you need to uninstall it. 

If you are using NVM as a node manager, even after installing node.js, the application logs will still show that node.js does not exist (can't be found). 

  1. Please check if you use NVM as a node version manager - run this command:

     

    to

     

    If it returns anything, that means that NVM is installed.

      2. Uninstall NVM

      3. Install Node.js and NPM