Overview

ProblemTracker allows you to customize the workflow to match your desired development process. Any number of states may be defined as well as multiple transitions for records to proceed through various paths to and from each state.

To define the workflow, click on the "Define Workflow" button from the ProblemTracker Administration page.

Adding a State

To add a new state, click on the "Add State" button. The following options are presented:

State Name
Name of the state.

Order
The order of the state. This will determine the order in which it appears in the Workflow Administration table. You may wish to order the states according to their place in the workflow process. For example, if Reported is the first state for all records, you may want to specify "0" as the order for this state. States which have the same value specified in the order field will be listed alphabetically.

Transition Label Style
The style of the labels that will be displayed when a transition is displayed in the Task operation. You can choose from three types of label styles:

• Radio
  Transition options will be displayed as a radio button selection (listed vertically).

• Buttons
  Transition options will be displayed as clickable buttons (listed horizontally).

• Pulldown
  Transition options will be listed in a single pulldown menu.

After making selections for each of the options, click OK to add the new state. A message confirming the creation of the state will appear on the next screen. You can click on the Transitions button to define a set of transitions for this state. Or, click OK to return to the Define Workflow page.

Editing a State

To edit a state, click on the Edit button listed to the left of the state on the Workflow State table on the Define Workflow page.

Removing a State

To delete a state, click on the Delete button listed to left of the state on the Workflow State table on the Define Workflow page.

Defining Transitions for a State

To define the transitions for a state, click on the Transitions button to the left of the state on the Workflow State table in the Define Workflow page.

To add a new transition, click on the Add button. The following options will be presented:

Label
The name of the transition. This label will be used as the name of the transition during the Task operation as well.

Order
The order of the transition. This will determine the order in which it appears in the transitions table as well as the list displayed during the Task operation. States which have the same value specified in the order field will be listed alphabetically.

New State
The state to which the problem record will be routed when this transition is selected in the Task operation. For this option, you may select one of the following:

• A specific state
  Any state configured on the Workflow State table can be selected as the new state for a transition.

• Same State
  This option can be used for transitions where a problem record does not need to move to a new state. For example, if a record will be re-assigned to another assignee, but stay in the same state, this option can be used. Another example where this options can be used is if an assignee simply needs to update a problem record without changing the state.

• Prompt with <State Group>
  Selecting this option will allow the user performing the Task operation to choose from a list of all states within a particular state group as the new state for the problem record. When selecting this option, please select a state group from the second pulldown listed after "New State". Skip to the Defining State Groups section below for information on creating a state group.

• Previous State
  This option will send the problem record to the most recent state the problem record was in prior to the current state. ProblemTracker will examine the Record History to determine the previous state.

New Assignee
The user to whom the problem record will be routed when this transition is selected in the Task operation. For this option, you may select one of the following choices listed below. For each of the choices listed, you also have the option to include or exclude the user "TBD" as part of your selection.:

• State Manager
  The problem record will be routed to the State Manager based on the new state of this transition and the content of the product field.

• Same Assignee
  This option can be used for transitions where a problem record does not need to be assigned to a different user. For example, if a record simply needs to be updated by the assignee.

• Prompt with a specific User Group
  This option enables you to restrict the list of possible assignees to the members of a user group. The user performing the Task operation will select the assignee from a list of users within the User Group that you specify for this option. When selecting this option, please select a user group in the second pulldown next to "New Assignee". In the third pulldown next to "New Assignee", select whether the user "TBD" should be included or excluded from this user group when presented during the task operation. Please review the User Groups Help section for information on creating a user group.

• Last Assignee for New State
  When selecting this option, ProblemTracker will examine the Record History to find the last user who was assigned to this record when it was in the state specified in the field "New State" for this transition. For instance, if the New State is "Scheduled", ProblemTracker will look in the record history for the problem record and find the last entry where this record was in the Scheduled state. The assignee listed in this entry will become the new assignee for this problem record.

• Reporter
  This will assign the problem record to the original user who reported the problem according to the Reported By field.

• A specific user
  Any user with ProblemTracker can be selected as the new assignee for a transition.

History Comment Requirement

• Selecting Required for this option will require the user to enter a history comment when selecting this transition in the Task operation.
• Selecting Optional will allow the user to leave this field blank when this transition is chosen during the task operation.
• When Do Not Display is selected here, the history comment field will not be presented to the user when this transition is chosen during the task operation. In addition, if Do Not Display is selected and there are no task fields configured for the transition, once a transition is chosen and the user clicks OK, the record will immediately be updated.

After making selections to define the transition, click OK to create the transition. The transition will now be displayed on the transition table.

To edit a transition, click on the Edit button to the left of the transition. After making changes to the transition, click OK to save your modifications.

To delete a transition, click on the Delete button to the left of the transition. Click OK to confirm, then OK to complete the operation. The transition will be removed from the transition list.

Defining Fields For the Task Operation

For each transition within a particular state, you can specify which fields should be presented to the user for the Task operation. By only presenting the user with the necessary fields, you can ensure each user will correctly adhere to the development process. To do this, click on the Transitions button to the left of the desired state on the Workflow State table. Then, click on the Task Fields button to the left of the desired transition.

To add or remove a task field from the transition, use the Add and Remove buttons to move fields from the right list (fields "Not In Use") to the left list (fields "In Use") and vice versa.

When a Task Field is moved to the "In Use" column, there are several properties of these fields that can be configured. To edit the properties of a task field, click on the Task field, then click on the Edit button. The following properties will be displayed at the bottom of the screen. After making your changes to the attributes of the task field, click Update to save your changes:

• Field
  The name of the field. The name cannot be modified. If you wish to re-name the field, this can be done in the Define Schema section. Please refer to the section Customizing the Data Record for details.

• Order
  The order in which the Task Field will appear on the page during the Task operation relative to the other task fields selected for the same transition. By default, the order will be the order value as listed in the Define Schema section. Select an integer value. If multiple task fields have the same value for the order field, the task fields will be listed in alphabetical order.

• Required
  Specifies whether the field is required to be entered by the user when it appears on the Task page. For Integer, Float, Text, TextArea, or Date types this means that a blank value will not be allowed. For pulldown fields, this means that the user must select a value other than the initial value displayed on the form.

• Initialize
  Only valid for fields of Date type. Specifies that the field should be automatically initialized to the current date/time when it appears on the Task page.

Defining State Groups

Often when formulating queries, you may wish to query for any of a group of states. ProblemTracker allows you to do this by defining State Groups. A State group is a collection of workflow states that appears as a choice on the Query page.

To define a group of workflow states, press the "State Groups" button. On the page displayed, you can add a new group, or edit an existing group. To edit an existing group, press the Edit button, and then set or clear the check mark in the column labeled Include.

Workflow Properties

ProblemTracker allows you to define a default set of workflow properties. These workflow properties include specifying a user that is treated as the manager for a state and defining a default add state. In addition to the defaults, these properties can be defined on a per-product basis.

State Managers

The manager of a state can receive notification email when certain events occur related to records in the database when they either enter or leave the state. They can also have records automatically assigned to them by the Task operation.

A state manager can be specified for each product, allowing you to assign different managers for the same state on a per product basis.

To assign the state managers for a product, select the desired product from the pulldown labeled Product: and click on the Workflow Properties button. The value *(Default) indicates that these are the default settings. The default settings are used as the template for each new product as it is added to the system.

Default Add State

The Default Add State indicates the state a problem record will be routed to when it is first added to the database. A Default Add State can be defined for each product, allowing you to configure different states for problem records that are added to the system on a per-product basis.

To specify a default add state for a product, select the desired product from the pulldown labeled Product: and click on the Workflow Properties button. The value *(Default) indicates that these are the default settings. The default settings are used as the template for each new product as it is added to the system.