GitLab is a DevOps platform that combines the ability to develop, secure, and operate software in a single application.

Authenticating

GitLab uses OAuth, a developer-friendly delegated access protocol. Quolum has already connected the necessary wires with GitLab. Using a sequence of click-throughs, your organization's administrator allows Quolum to make API calls to GitLab without getting access to passwords.

Step 1: Initiate a connection to GitLab

Click the Connect button from the Connections card. If you are not an admin, you can invite the GitLab admin to make a connection to your GitLab organization account. When you click on the Connect button, the web-browser will navigate to the GitLab Login page.

Step 2: Log in to GitLab

Log in to GitLab using your organization's credentials. The exact login mechanism may depend on your GitLab plan, and the sign-in mechanism used. You may have corporate SSO such as Azure AD, GSuite, Okta, etc. along with multi-factor authentication. Once you have successfully logged-in, GitLab is going to ask you to grant access to Quolum.

Step 3: Provide consent to Quolum

The next screen after login into GitLab is the consent screen. On this screen, GitLab confirms whether you authorize Quolum to access your organization's data.

Step 4: Back to Quolum

Once you have granted access to Quolum on GitLab's website, GitLab is going to send you back to Quolum's page in Step 1, where you started. The Connect button on the Connections card would now say Reconnect. Reconnect is used to reauthenticate under circumstances where the access has expired.

Under the hood

Using the OAuth protocol, Quolum now has delegated access to your GitLab Workspace. The Quolum server, running on Amazon AWS VPC, will be able to make API calls and retrieve feature-level utilization of projects, stories, and tasks. Later, this data is crunched and available for visualization on the Quolum dashboard.