Connecting MS Project to GitHub and Beyond

Switchboard is a project management toolkit designed to fetch data from external sources such as GitHub and import it into a Microsoft Project file. It is made of three major components: a VBA macro, a Python script, and a configuration file.

The VBA macro is responsible for the exectuion of the workflow. It reads in the configuraion file, launches the scripts necessary to fetch new data and merges this data into the Microsoft Project file.

The Python script, called a cord, fetches data from the external data source and process it, and produces a CSV file for consumption by the VBA macro.

The configuration file provides the VBA macro with the following information:

• System Information
  • The Python path
  • The path to the Switchboard installation
• Repository Information
  • The path to the Jira instance
• Project Information
  • The name of the Microsoft Project file
  • The GitHub Repository
  • Length of a sprint (Number of Days)
  • Pattern of the sprint name (default, "", or regular expression)
  • GitHub Filter - Only return issues marked with all of the provided, comma separated labels.

Switchboard automatically uses the following custom fields:

• Text 1 - Jira Issue -> The Jira Issue Number
• Text 2 - GitHub Issue -> The GitHub Issue Number
• Text 3 -
• Text 4 -
• Text 5 - Target Release -> Jira field
• Text 6 - Labels
• Text 7 -
• Text 8 - Jira Project -> Defined in the configuration file
• Text 9 - GitHub Milestone
• Text 10 - Reports To -> Jira tickets related to the current ticket