Concepts in Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere

• Issue
• Project 
• Issue Type 
• Workflow 
• State 
• Transition
• Event
• Notification
• Form
• Field Rule

1. Issue

Issue is a fundamental object in Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere. An issue can be a problem, a bug, a defect or a task, etc. that will affect the progress of the project or the quality of products, so it needs someone's attention and action to be fixed. Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere tracks issues through their lifecycle until these issues are resolved. According to various kinds of issues, the types of issues available in any project can be customized to suit your working requirements. However, all issues contain common elements as follows:

• Fields which contain information about the issue.
• Rules for each field. For instance, the value of the state field is required.
• A form which determines how the issue fields are displayed.
• A workflow which defines the paths to solve the issue during its lifecycle by using a state-transition model.

All issues have common attributes as follows:

• Issue ID: The unique identifier used to identify the issue. It is automatically designated by the system when the issue is created. For example: 101. Issue ID is unique and will not be reused even after the issue is deleted.
• Issue type: The category of the issue. An issue can be a bug, a feature, a request, a task or any other type defined by users.
• State: The state of the issue during its lifecycle. For example, when an issue is just created, its state is new, and when an issue is finally fixed, its state is fixed or closed.
• Priority: The subjective importance and urgency rating of the issue. For example, if an issue is extremely important and urgent, you may set the highest priority for it.
• Project: The project which the issue belongs to.
• Title: The concise summary of the issue.
• Description: The detailed information of the issue.
• Created By: The user who finds and reports the issue to the system.
• Date & Time Created: The date and time when the issue is created.
• Assigned To: The user who is assigned to work on the issue.
• Attachment: The supplement or accessory of the issue.
• History: A history log of any field changes that have already occurred.
• Comment: A comment log made by issue creator, assignee or any other users.
• Links: The links to other issues that related to the current issue.

An issue can also have its special attributes, which you can configure in custom fields.

2. Project

A project is an undertaking that encompasses a set of tasks or activities, having a definable starting points and well defined objectives. In Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere, projects usually equate to products or 'development projects' which you want to track issues on. A project contains a collection of interrelated issues that you store in Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere. You can add, delete, edit issues within projects. With its own permissions and configurations, providing functions for issue tracking, a project has much in common with an operating system folder.

3. Issue Type

Issue type defines the category of an issue.

For example: bug, defect, feature request, task and so on.

4. Workflow

The behavior of any issue in Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere is defined through its workflow.

A workflow represents a business process, or in other words a collection of steps and data that define the paths to solve the issue.

A workflow step represents a state in a workflow, and each step corresponds to a state in the issue's lifecycle. When an issue progresses from one step to another, i.e. from one state to another, an action is performed to connect the two steps. In Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere, each action corresponds to a transition. You are able to change issue states by performing a transition in the workflow.

For example:

Bug Workflow

Reporting the bug --> assigning the bug --> working on the bug --> testing the bug --> fixing the bug --> closing the bug

A workflow is especially useful when the process is implemented repeatedly with no or little reconfiguration. Proper workflow is determined based on the specific project being undertaken.

Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere allows you to customize workflows to match your company's procedure to process  issues.

5. State

States represent the position of an issue in its workflow. Each workflow step is associated with an issue state.

When an issue is in a certain state, there is an assignee who is responsible for the solution to it. When the work is done, this issue will be converted into next state and reassigned to another user.

6. Transition

Each workflow state can have transitions which allow an issue to move from one state to another. For an issue to be able to progress from one state to another, a transition must exist that links these two states. A transition is a unidirectional link between two workflow states. This means that if an issue needs to move back and forth between two states, two transitions need to be created.

7. Event

Events represent any change or operation on an issue during its lifecycle. Each event will trigger an email notification. In Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere, there are totally four default events as listed below:

• Issue created
• Issue changed
• Issue state changed
• Issue commented

8. Notification

Email notification is the process of sending an email to a related party for the purpose of keeping them up to date on a current issue. Automated notification of events is useful in issue tracking. It is an important aid to timely and smooth processing of issue tracking process.

Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere can automatically generate email notifications for various events that occur during the lifecycle of each issue.

When an event occurs, the following related parties may need to be notified:

• Issue creator
• Issue assignee
• Other users & groups in your system
• Certain special Email addresses

You can set up a notification to define who will be notified when certain events occur.

In Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere, there is a default notification available in any given project.

9. Form

Form is used for issue operations in Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere. When you create a new issue, view or modify an existing issue, there would be an interface for you to fill in or select values. This interface is called form.

Form determines which fields will be displayed to the user and the layout of the fields.

Each issue type in each project is associated with a form configuration.

10. Field Rule

Field rules define the behavior and constraints on fields. You can use the following field rules to change the behavior of a field:

• Allowed Values: defines a list of allowed values for the field. The field contains a list of options.
• Copy: specifies a value to be copied into the current field.
• Default: defines a default value for the field.
• Empty: defines the field as empty. The field value is cleared.
• Readonly: defines the field as read-only. The field can not be modified.
• Required: defines the field as a required field. The field can not be empty.
• Server default: specifies a server component that will provide the field value.
• When: specifies one or more rules to apply to the current field when another field has a specific value.
• When not: specifies one or more rules to apply to the current  field when another field hasn't a specific value.

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Using Dynamsoft Issue Tracking Anywhere > Get Started > Concepts