Chapter 6: Issue Management

• Issues
• Issue Details
• Progress
• History
• Attachments

Issues

Issues are classified into four types:

• A defect is a documentation of an error in a project artifact. This may relate to the product that is the end result of the project or its related documentation. Most defects capture a mismatch between the behavior of the product and its business requirements.
• An enhancement is a request to improve the behavior of the product in a manner consistent with its business requirements.
• A change request is a request to make a change to the business requirements underlying the product. These often occur because they were overlooked during the analysis phase or because there has been a genuine change in the business that necessitates it.
• An action item is a documentation of a project-related action to be undertaken by an individual. Tasks that comprise the project plan should not be recorded as action items.

Use of the Assigned state is controlled via System Options. If the Assigning an issue should push it to Assigned state option is ticked then this state will be used. Otherwise, it will not be used (issues can still be assigned but will not cause a state change).

The meaning of each state is as follows:

• New means that the issue has just been created, but is not ready for anyone to work on.
• Submitted means that the issue has been submitted to the system, so that it can be worked on.
• Assigned means that the issue has been assigned to a user to work on.
• Opened means that a user has opened the issue to indicate that s/he is working on it, so that others will leave it alone.
• Resolved means that a user has resolved the issue.
• Rejected means that a user has reviewed the issue and considers it a non-issue.
• Failed means that a resolved/rejected issue has failed to pass quality check.
• Closed means that a resolved/rejected issue has passed quality check.

When you select the Issue Management node, a search screen is displayed. You can search for an issue either by its ID, or a set of other search criteria. To search by ID, choose 'By ID' from the Search drop-down list and enter the issue ID in the ID field. Alternatively, select 'By Criteria' from the Search drop-down list. In this case, you can search using Business Unit, Stage, Title, Description, Project, Module, Build, Type, Severity, Raised By, State, Priority, or Assigned To fields.

If you leave these blank, a wild-card search is performed, which will return all issues. Press Find to perform your search. The search result is displayed in the table below the search criteria.

Provided that you have the relevant permissions, you can:

• Clear your search criteria and result by pressing the Clear button.
• Create a new issue by pressing the New button.
• View the details of an issue by selecting its row in the table and pressing the Details button, or simply double-clicking the row.
• Delete an issue by selecting its row and pressing the Delete button. You will be asked to confirm this operation.

The Graphical View tab displays the search result as a pie chart.

The pie chart can be organized in terms of issue Type, Severity, Priority, or State, as denoted by the View By drop-list. You can view the issues represented by each pie chart segment by clicking on that segment. You will be asked if you want those issues to be added to the navigation tree.

Issue Details

The Issue tab displays issue summary information. If you have issue edit permission, you can modify some of these fields. Fields specified as read-only are managed by the system.

• The Title field displays a descriptive summary for the issue.
• The Archived check box indicates whether the issue has been archived.
• The BU field displays the issue's business unit. When you create a new issue, this is automatically set to the business unit you're in. This field is read-only, unless you're a user in the SysAdmin group and the Project field is set to blank.
• The Project field displays the project to which the issue applies. When you choose another project from the project drop-down list, the BU field is automatically set to the selected project's BU.
• The Module field displays the project module to which the issue applies.
• The Build field displays the build to which the issue applies.
• The Type field displays the type of an issue as one of: Defect, Enhancement, Change Request, or Action Item.
• The Severity field displays the issue severity as one of: Low, Medium, High, or Critical.
• The State displays the current state of the issue, as defined by its life-cycle (read-only).
• The Priority field displays the issue priority as one of: Low, Medium, High, or Critical.
• The Raised By field is automatically set to the user who originally created the issue (read-only).
• The Raised On field is automatically set to when the issue was created (read-only).
• The Assigned To field is automatically set to the user to whom the issue is assigned (read-only).
• The Assigned On field is automatically set to when the issue was last assigned (read-only).
• The Description field is used to enter a full description of the issue.

After creating a new issue (and filling in the details), the only operation you can perform on it is to submit it. To do this, press the Submit button. The issue changes state to Submitted.

To assign the issue to a user, press the Assign button. The following dialog is displayed.

Choose a user from the Assign To drop-list and press the Assign button. Assigning an issue may or may not cause it to change state, depending on your specified preferences in System Options.

To open the issue, press the Open button. The issue changes state to Opened.

To resolve, reject, fail, or close the issue, press the corresponding button. A dialog is displayed for you to enter remarks. For example, when you press the Resolve button, the following dialog is displayed.

Enter a description of the resolution and either press OK or OK and Assign. The latter also displays the Assign dialog so that the issue can be assigned to another user.

A closed issue can be reopened by pressing the Reopen button. The issue changes state to Opened. This should be done only in cases where the issue has been closed inadvertently. Both Close and Reopen buttons are enabled only for users with issue Close permission.

Progress

History

For each state change, the date, the user who actioned the change, the old state, the action, and the new state, as well as any notes entered by the user are displayed. For long notes, select the history row to see the full note in the text area below the table.

Whether a state change is recorded in this table or not, depends on your specified preferences in System Options.

Attachments

The most typical type of issue attachment is a screen dump that proves the existence of a defect.

For each attachment, its File Name and file Size (in bytes) are listed in the table. When an attachment is opened for editing by a user, the username appears in the Locked By column. When an attachment is opened for editing or viewing, the file is retrieved from the database and written to the local disk. The local file's path is displayed in the Local Path column.

You can do the following operations:

• To attach a new document, press the Attach button. A file navigation dialog is displayed. Navigate to the desired file and open it. The file is permanently attached to the project.
• To view an attachment, select its row and press the View button. A read-only copy of the file is written to the disk and opened for viewing using the application associated with the file.
• To modify the contents of an attachment, select its row and press the Edit button. A writable-copy of the file is written to the local disk and opened for editing using the application associated with the file. After you've edited the file, close it, and press the Save button to save your changes to the database, or press the Unlock button to ignore your changed.
• To detach an attachment, select its row and press the Detach button. The file is removed from the database. However, any local copies are left untouched.