Creating and Customizing TrackersTable of Contents
This document is intended for project administrators, or those who need to change and extend the Tracker functionality. Tracker customization functions allow optimization of your work environment, whether in development, marketing, sales or people. Project Administrators or users with sufficient permissions can create, customize and delete Trackers. Trackers can be customized to add, remove or change issue workflows, permissions, views, and the stored and displayed fields or attributes of the issues. Permission to Customize TrackersTo give the entire set of users in the Project Admin role the permission required to customize a tracker, the Project Administrator can select the Member tab, then the Accounts and Roles Tab, then under the Project Admin role, select the tool-tip edit function. In the resulting chart, click the check-box for the Tracker-Admin function. This enables all users in the Project Admin role to customize the tracker. For information on issue submission, editing and other user functions, please see Create a TrackerAdding trackers into projects can be manual, or can use other trackers as templates. Often the same or similar trackers are used in different projects. Template-based tracker creation allows easy creation of new trackers while reducing or eliminating manual tracker customizations. Tracker creation by template copies all settings from the original tracker: permissions, layout, default values, approval and notifications settings. When the new tracker has been created, you can use copy/paste to copy tasks, bugs or requirements from the original tacker. To add a new tracker:
When a new tracker is created, it can:
The difference between copied and linked new trackers is:
To link to a template tracker simply select a tracker from the pull-down menu beside the Template Tracker menu item, in the New Tracker Add dialog. To select a non-linked copy of a template tracker, click on the checkbox that has the text: Do not inherit template configuration: Make a copy. If the tracker is copied, not linked, then the template setting on the newly created tracker will be None, as shown under the General tab. To create a tracker with no template, and no copy, select None for the template tracker field in the Add New Tracker dialog box. Tracker customization allows configuration differences for specific Trackers to locally supersede the template's default configuration, a local delta for the tracker configuration. For example, Tracker CS-1000 Bugs could use Tracker CS-100 Bugs as a template, and inherit all its characteristics, except that the OP-SYS field in one would be replaced by 'Platform' in the other.. Inheritance and local deltas are available for the following tracker customization settings:
Delete a TrackerDeleting a tracker will result in the loss of all tracker data. To delete a tracker:
Customize a TrackerEdit field labels, types, their appearance, permissions, default values and sequences, or show/hide a field. Customize trackers using the following steps:
To customize a tracker:
or, from the main Trackers list page, use the tool-tip customize on the particular Tracker of interest. The tracker customization is stored in addition to the link to the inherited template, for each Tracker, so that fields can be individualized for each particular tracker. Figure: Customizing a Tracker General - Edit Tracker Name and DescriptionThe General tab is used for editing the tracker's name, description, key and template attributes. You can also optionally associate an email address/inbox (see Permissions - for Trackers and IssuesClick on the Permissionstab to edit permissions, by role, for
Figure: Tracker permissions State TransitionsWhen the issue is important, and must be carefully tracked, workflows enable process management. A simple and flexible process engine workflow is integrated into the Trackers to allow modeling of business process workflows. Trackers can be used with or without workflows. Trackers can "inherit" a workflow from other trackers or use their own workflows. Workflows can be customized. See Define the workflow state diagram roles' transition permissions under the State Transitions tab. The Workflow Transitions define the transitions between states, and which roles have permission to enact each transition-type. Figure: State Transitions Field Access - PermissionsEdit the field access permissions for project members in the Fields tab in tracker customization. There is a permission column in the fields table, the permission can be edited by clicking on the field's permission cell content. Access permissions are a 3-dimensional matrix of permissions, with the axes of Roles, Issue Fields and Status. For every Status, there is table showing Field-Access permissions for each Role. Figure: Tracker Customize -Field Access Permissions
Each member's view or edit access to a field is defined for each status of the issue. Define a default value for a field, or make the field required, in the Field Access definitions. Table: Field Access Defaults and Required Fields
Issue Details Children and AssociationsIssue hierarchies can be as deep as desired, using the child definitions in trackers. In issue lists, the children of an issue can be seen in the Summary column. The folder icon represents the set of children in one tracker, with a child-issue number and summary shown beside the folder, in the parent issue's Summary column. Navigate directly to the Children tab of the current (parent) issue by clicking on the directory icon, or navigate to the child issue, by clicking on its link. Similarly, navigate directly to associated issue(s) using the chain-link icon. Figure: Issue List Issues with Associated or Child Issues
Anyone with edit permission on the Tracker can change the children and associations details of an issue. Figure: Issues Details Screen Captures with Visible Children Tab
Figure: Issue Details Screen Capture with Visible Associations Tab
There can be different edit or view permissions tables for each status. The status is selected at the top of the table under the Field Access Tab. When issues are copied or moved (using the Cut, Copy and Paste and Copy or Move to ... functions), the descendants (children) of the issues are also recursively copied or moved. Issues can not only be moved between trackers but can also be copied or moved within the issue's hierarchy. It is possible to copy or move descendants of an issue to another tracker or to another issue within the same tracker. In the source issue list:
Fields - Custom FieldsYou can configure an arbitrary number of custom fields for a tracker. To add custom fields use the underlined commands at the bottom of the page to add a new custom choice or reference or data fields. To add Custom Fields use the underlined commands at the bottom of the page Add_custom_choice or Add_custom_field to add a new custom choice or reference field or custom data field. Before saving, renumber the fields, using the blue button at the top left, to allow each field to have a different sequence number. If you use a lot of custom defined fields, tables/lists of items/issues can become very wide. With Tracker Customization, you can exclude Fields from Table/List Views. The List checkbox is used to configure which fields should be displayed (as table/list columns), and which should only appear on the details/editor screen. Figure: Tracker Actions Customize Fields Tab
Using the Title field you can specify the column title to be displayed for the Label column. The column will resize based on the width of the column's title. For a field to appear as table/list column, the field must be check-marked under the List column and the user must have at least “Read” permission for this field for the default status, specified under Field Access.
In per status configuration for custom fields, Default permissions are affecting the visibility in Report composer and in new item creation.
The Fields tab is used to define certain properties of a field. Under Field Properties the following are defined: field layout, sequence, type, label, title, minimums and maximums, whether it is listed, and hierarchical field dependencies (aggregation and distribution). Other properties of the field, such as default value, or the choice list, are defined under the Field Access and Choice Lists tabs. Table: Customize the Field Properties
Aggregate/Distribute: If you have parent/child hierarchies of configuration items or issues, you can now define dependencies between parent field values and the appropriate child field values (recursively). If, for example, you wish to ensure that a parent issue is not closed until all the child-issues (children) are closed, then this dependency can be managed using one of the distribution rules defined in this document. Similarly if you wish to define the parent issue's "Spent Hours" as the sum of the children's "Spent Hours" you can define this aggregation rule, too. For more information please see Figure: A Customized Tracker Layout Example Table fieldsUsing tracker configuration (fields tab) it is possible to create table fields.
4. Fill in all the necessary information.
5. Add a new column by clicking on ‘more’ icon.
6. Go to the tracker where you added the table field and add new rows to the table by clicking on 'add new row...'.
The table field is ready to be further edited .
Choice Fields and Multiple Choice FieldsUsing Choice Lists, tracker attributes or fields can be configured to allow selection from a list of choices. The list's items, order and default value can be defined. To edit choice fields:
Figure: Choice List option dialog
Figure: Edit Choice option
The ID of each choice option must be unique only within this particular choice list. The ID will remain constant, even if choice values are copied between trackers/categories, or even if the label changes. Using an unmodifiable constant ID eases programmatic handling of items/issues, e.g. via the Remote API. Reference FieldsTracker issues can contain reference fields, which are lookup and selection fields. Please see Field Access screen shot above, in the Field Access section.
User Reference FieldsTo define a reference field referring to active users, choose Users in the reference field configuration popup. Project Reference FieldsTo define a reference field referring to projects (of specific Categories, where the users has specific permissions), choose Projects in the reference field configuration popup.
Trackers Reference FieldsTo define a reference field referring to Issue trackers, choose Trackers in the reference field configuration popup.
Work/Config itemsTo define a reference field referring to Issues, choose Work/Config items in the reference field configuration popup.
Repository Reference FieldsTo define a reference field referring to Source Code Repositories, choose Repositories in the reference field configuration popup. You must at least select one project, to refer to all SCM Repositories in these projects. E.g. Reference to all Subversion Repositories in the Demo project, where the current user has "Commit/Push" permission:
If you do not specify a repository type, then all repositories in the specified projects will match. If you do not select any repository permissions, then all repositories visible to the current user will match. If you are creating a new Tracker item or editing an existing one, e.g. Create a new Bug
then editable reference fields like "Detected Version" and "Target Version" will allow you to select possible fields values in two ways:
If multiple selection is allowed, you can select any number of items, otherwise at most one. Combined choice fieldsStarting with release 7.1, codeBeamer also supports to combine static and dynamic choice fields, language and country fields and also member fields, via the new Depends On selector in the Layout and Content column on the Field Properties customization screen, in order to represent possible/allowed combinations (N-tuples, permutations) of values. Example 2: Contact language depending on country Subscribe Tracker NotificationsSubscribe notifications to the whole tracker result in e-mail notification when a new item is submitted to or modified in the tracker. Subscribe notifications can also be made on just a specific issue. See To configure whole-Tracker notifications:
Figure: E-mail notification subscriptions on a tracker. Figure: Subscriber chooser dialog Adding time tracking to existing projectsSince release 6.0, CodeBeamer supports issue working time recording/tracking. Issue trackers are associated with Time Recording trackers through Subject field (property name: subjects). It is defined in the field configuration of the Time Recording tracker which trackers are logging entries to that tracker. When creating a Time Recording tracker there are already a number of tracker types added to the Subject field. This scope can be limited or extended in the Work/Config items configuration.
Audit TrailThe Audit Trail tab is available in tracker customization since CB-9.0.0. It displays the configuration change history of the customized tracker. Tracked changes include general tracker changes, field related changes and state transition changes. The following audit information is available in the Audit Trail:
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