Links
How a feature links to your tools, and how doc sections, tickets and pull requests get linked to each other.
Links tell SeamTrail what belongs together. There are two kinds:
- Feature links: the docs, tickets, channels, repos and boards you add to a feature.
- Work links: which ticket does the work of which doc section, and which pull request does which ticket. SeamTrail makes most of these itself.
Feature links
A feature's Admin or Manager adds them with + Add. You can paste a link, pick from a list, or create a new item: a Confluence page, a Jira epic, a Slack channel or a Miro board.
You can link only what you can open. SeamTrail checks this with your own login:
- Jira and Confluence: your own Atlassian login must be able to open the item.
- Slack: you must be a member of the channel.
- GitHub, Bitbucket, Figma, Miro, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Notion and Google: SeamTrail cannot check your access there yet. So only an org Admin or Manager can link these.
Linking shares. Everyone on the feature sees what SeamTrail learns from a linked item. When you link a private Slack channel, SeamTrail warns you first.
Removing a link takes the item off the feature. The item stays in its tool.
Suggestions
When a linked doc, chat or pull request mentions Jira tickets that are not on the feature, SeamTrail suggests them in the Suggestions tab.
- Suggestions are grouped by team, read from Jira.
- Each one proposes a stage and a team folder. You can change them.
- Tick the ones you want and click Add all ticked.
- Not now hides a suggestion. You can bring it back later.
SeamTrail never adds a ticket on its own. It waits for your click.
Meeting suggestions
With Zoom connected, SeamTrail looks at recent meetings. It suggests the ones that look related to a feature: the feature's people were in it, or its title or summary names one of the feature's tickets. The feature's Admins and Managers see these suggestions. A meeting feeds memory only after someone links it.
Doc sections and tickets
SeamTrail splits each linked Confluence page into sections, by its headings. (A Miro board is split by its frames.) It then links tickets to sections in three ways.
| How | When | Label on the link |
|---|---|---|
| Named in the doc | A section mentions the ticket number. The link lasts as long as the doc says it. | named in the doc |
| Likely | The doc does not name the ticket, but its description clearly matches a section. SeamTrail links it by itself, a few minutes after a change. | likely |
| Confirmed | You confirm a match in the Plan tab. | (no label) |
A link you confirmed is never removed by SeamTrail.
Fix a wrong link
Open the ticket's brief (the ⓘ on the ticket). Under Comes from, each section shows how it was linked. Click Not this section. SeamTrail removes the link and never adds that pair again.
The Plan tab
- Match tickets to the PRD: SeamTrail reads the spec and your tickets, and proposes which ticket does the work of which section. You tick the right ones and save. Tickets it cannot match are listed too.
- Propose new tickets: SeamTrail proposes tickets for parts of the spec that no ticket covers. You can edit them or untick them. Nothing is created until you click Create (number) in Jira.
Tickets you create this way are made with your own Jira login. Each one links back to its spec section.
Pull requests and tickets
A pull request is linked to a ticket when the ticket number is in its branch name, title or description. For example, the branch feature/PAY-4-refunds links to PAY-4.
A pull request without a ticket number stays unlinked. SeamTrail never blocks it for that.
Why links matter
Drift travels along these links. A ticket that is not linked to a doc section is missed when that section changes. See Drift.