Defining State Groups

Often when formulating criteria for queries and charts or setting up the workflow, you may wish to limit the criteria or the workflow options to a particular 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, Metrics, and Workflow sections.

To add a State Group:

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin.
2. Click on the Admin icon.
3. Click on the Define Workflow button in the Admin section.
4. Click on the State Groups button.
5. Click on the Add New Group button.
6. Enter a name for the State Group, then click on the OK button.
7. Click on the Edit State Group button to add states to the new group.
8. Click on a state in the Not In Use column, then click on the Add button to move it to the In Use column. Repeat this until all states you wish to add are in the In Use column.
9. Click OK to return to the State Groups page.

To edit a State Group:

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin.
2. Click on the Admin icon.
3. Click on the Define Workflow button in the Admin section.
4. Click on the State Groups button.
5. Click on the Edit button to the right of the state group you wish to modify.
6. To remove a state from the state group, click on the state in the In Use column, then click on the Remove button to move the state to the Not In Use column. To add a state to the state group, click on the state in the Not In Use column, then click on the Add button to move the state to the In Use column.
7. Click on the OK button to return to the State Groups page.

To delete a State Group:

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin.
2. Click on the Admin icon.
3. Click on the Define Workflow button in the Admin section.
4. Click on the State Groups button.
5. Click on the Delete button to the right of the state group you wish to modify, then select OK to confirm the action.

Workflow Properties

ProblemTracker allows you to define workflow properties for each product. These workflow properties include specifying a user that is treated as the person (manager) with overall responsibility for issues in a given state (the State Manager which is used for automated assignment during the Add and Task operations) as well as the set of states which can be selected during the Add operation (Allowed Add States) and the default state (initially selected state) used in the Add operation (Default Add State).

A set of default workflow properties are defined in ProblemTracker. These default workflow properties are applied to each new product added to ProblemTracker via the Option Menus section. You can update the workflow properties of some (or all) existing products to match the default workflow properties. And, you can update (customize) the workflow properties for each product individually.

To customize the default workflow properties:

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin.
2. Click on the Admin icon.
3. Click on the Define Workflow button in the Admin section.
4. In the Product Pulldown field at the top of the page, select "*(Default)", then click on the Workflow Properties button.
5. Modify the properties described below, then click OK to save your changes.

To customize the workflow properties for a specific product:

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin.
2. Click on the Admin icon.
3. Click on the Define Workflow button in the Admin section.
4. In the Product Pulldown field at the top of the page, select the product you wish to modify, then click on the Workflow Properties button.
5. Modify the properties described below. If you wish to apply the default workflow properties to a product, click on the Load Default Values button.
6. Click Update to save your changes.

To push the default workflow properties to some (or all) products:

1. Login to the workgroup as Admin.
2. Click on the Admin icon.
3. Click on the Define Workflow button in the Admin section.
4. In the Product Pulldown field at the top of the page, select "*(Default)", then click on the Workflow Properties button.
5. If you would like to update the default workflow properties before updating the product workflow properties, you can make modifications to the properties now.
6. Click on the Update & Push to Selected Products button. This will save any changes you've made to the default workflow properties and display a page with a list of products.
7. Click the All button to select all products if you want all products to have the same workflow properties (all product workflow properties will be set to the default workflow properties). Or, select individual products you wish to update with the default workflow properties.
8. Click the OK button to update the selected products with the default workflow properties.

Properties

The following properties can be set for the default workflow properties or for a specific product.

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 Add or Task operations.

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

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

Allowed Add States (state group)
Select a state group to limit the states available for selection when Status is visible on the Add page. The state group "All" is selected by default, indicating that all states will be displayed in the Status field when it is visible on the Add page. When another state group is selected for this property, only the states that are included in the state group can be selected for the Status field when a record is created using the Add page. Details on adding or editing state groups can be found in the Defining State Groups section above.

Each product can have a different workflow in ProblemTracker by configuring the Workflow Properties and available transitions. For example, Product A and Product B have different workflows as shown below:

Product A Workflow
Reported -> Scheduled -> In Test

Product B Workflow
Scheduled -> In Development -> In Test

To set up Product A's workflow:

1. Configure the Workflow Properties for Product A to set the Default Add State to be "Reported"
2. Create a transition in the Reported state to move records to the Scheduled state. This transition should have New State set to "Scheduled".
3. Create a transition in the Scheduled state to move records to the In Test state. This transition should have New State set to "In Test".

To set Product B's workflow:

1. Configure the Workflow Properties for Product B to set the Default Add State to be "Scheduled"
2. Create a transition in the Scheduled state to move records to the In Development state. This transition should have New State set to "In Development".
3. Create a transition in the In Development state to move records to the In Test state. This transition should have New State set to "In Test".

The Workflow Properties can be used to automatically assign records to particular users and states. Because Workflow Properties can be set per Product, it is possible to assign records to different states and / or users for each product.

The Workflow Properties can determine the Status and Assignee automatically when records are created using the Add form or processed using the Task operation. Automatic assignment functions for the Add operation are based on whether the Product, Status, and, Assigned To fields are visible on the Add page. Automatic assignment functions for the Task operation depend on the settings for the transition selected and the value of the Product field for the record being processed.

Automatic Assignment Guidelines for Add Page

When a field is visible on the Add page, this indicates that the field's visibility settings are configured such that the field is displayed on the Add page when a user creates a new record. Please review the Field Visibility section of the Customizing the Data Record Help section.

ProblemTracker's automatic assignment for a new record is a combination of the values selected for the Product, Status, and Assigned To fields on the Add page. These fields can either be selected by the user on the Add page or selected automatically based on the guidelines described below:

• The Product field of a record determines which Workflow Properties are used to route a new record to a particular state and user

• When the Product field is not visible on the Add page, the user cannot select a Product for the new record. When a new record is saved, the Product field is set to the default value.

• When the Status field is visible on the Add page, the user can accept the default for the Status field (by not making a selection), which will route the record to the state listed in the field Default State in the Workflow Properties for the Product of this new record. If the user chooses to make a selection for the Status field, when the new record is saved, it will be routed to the state selected by the user.

• When the Status field is not visible on the Add page, the user cannot select a state. When the new record is saved, it is routed to the state configured as the Default State in the Workflow Properties for the Product of this new record.

• When the Assigned To field is visible on the Add page, the user can accept the default for the Assigned To field (by not making a selection), which will assign the new record to the State Manager in the Workflow Properties for the Product and State of this new record. If the user chooses to make a selection for the Assigned To field, when the new record is saved, it will be assigned to the user selected in the Assigned To field.

• The value State Manager can be listed as the default for the Assigned To field when the General Preference Include State Manager in the Assignee List on Add operation is enabled. When a new record is saved with "State Manager" selected, the record will be assigned to the State Manager in the Workflow Properties for the Product and State of this new record.

• When the Assigned To field is not visible on the Add page, the user cannot select an assignee. When the new record is saved, it is assigned to the State Manager in the Workflow Properties for the Product and State of this new record.

• If all three fields (Product, Status, Assigned To) are not visible on the Add page, the newly added record will be saved with Product set to its default value, Status set to the Default State for the default Product, and Assigned To set to the State Manager for the Default State.

Automatic Assignment Guidelines for the Task Operation

When a record is processed using the Task Operation, the settings in the transition selected determine whether automatic assignment is used.

• The value of the Product field in a record is used to determine the State Manager for each state according to the Workflow Properties set for the Product.
• If a transition has New Assignee set to "<State Manager>", the record will be routed to the State Manager for the New State that corresponds to the transition.

Alerts are email notification messages that can be sent automatically by ProblemTracker at a later date and time to remind a user or group about a record. Alert settings can be configured for each product. The alert settings defined for each product will be used when a new record is created using the Add page with a particular product selected. It is also possible to allow users to be prompted to configure the Alert settings during the Add operation. Information on configuring default Alert settings for a product can be found in the Administration section for the Alerts feature.