Create new Upstream/Downstream referring items

This workflow action is the equivalent of the (Create Downstream Reference) menu on the Tracker Item Details page, with the extension, that you can also create Upstream references, not only Downstream references.

When you select this action from the action selector, you also have to select

• the Relation between the tracker item, that is source/subject of the triggering event, and the new items to create
• the Project where to create new items (only if there are possible target Trackers in other projects, than the current one)
• the Tracker where to create new items

from the upcoming cascading menu.

In our example from Forking sub-processes from processes (work items), we choose to create Issues for Subject in the Tracker Approvals (of the current project Workflow Demo):

Create new referring items has four parameters:

• Field values (required)
• Distribution (optional)
• Association (optional)
• Propagation (optional, CB-9.0 and newer)
• Editor options (optional CB-9.5 and newer)

Field values

These are the initial field values of the new items to create.

The field selector will show all fields of the selected target tracker items, that can be initialized.

All mandatory fields are automatically pre-selected and cannot be removed. More... fields to initialize can be added, if necessary.

You can only Set fields to initial values. Either:

• (a constant) Value, that you can enter/select via the appropriate value editor, or
• the Content of an assignment compatible field from the tracker item, that is source/subject of the triggering event, or
• the Result of evaluating an expression (on the tracker item, that is source/subject of the triggering event), that computes/calculates the value (see Computed Fields).

For example:

• Set the Priority of the new items to the Priority of the tracker item, that is source/subject of the triggering event
• Set Assigned to of the new items to the Owner of the tracker item, that is source/subject of the triggering event
• Compute Summary and Description of the new items from the first name of the designated assignee (see Distribution below) and the original Summary and Description of the tracker item, that is source/subject of the triggering event

To Edit a field to update, you can:

• Click the field value you want to change/edit.
• Click on the small pencil behind the field value you want to change/edit.

To Remove a field to update:

• Click on the x icon after the name of the field you want to remove.

For example:

• Assign the item to all Owners, except those having role Tester
  • Assigned to: Content of Owner, Remove Tester
• Assign the item to all Owners, plus user bond
  • Assigned to: Content of Owner, Add bond

There can be also constellations with three or more operations, e.g.

• Assign the item to all Owners, that have the role Administrator, except members of group System Admin
  • Assigned to: Content of Owner, Retain Administrator, Remove System Admin

To add additional field value update operations, click on the More... button of the field update editor.




To Remove additional field value update operations:

• Click on the x icon of the field value update operation, you want to remove.

Distribution

This parameter controls, how many new items will be created.

The possible parameter values are multiple choice/reference fields of the tracker item, that is source/subject of the triggering event.

• If no fields are selected (default), a single item will be created with the configured field values.
• If one or more fields are selected, multiple items will created, one item per field value combination

For each selected Distribution field, there must also be an appropriate Field values entry, that copies this field value to a target field.


In our example above:

• Distribution is set to Owner (of the tracker item, that is source/subject of the triggering event)
• Owner is mapped to Assigned to of the new items

This means:

• A new item will be created for each user, that is referenced in the Owner field of the tracker item, that is source/subject of the triggering event.
  This can also mean: No items at all, if the Owner field is empty, or Owner refers to a role, that has no members !
• Each of the new items will be exclusively Assigned to one of the original item owners.

Please note:

In the formula/expression, to compute Summary and Description of the new items, we refer to supervisors[0] (Owner[0]) and not to assignedTo[0], as one would expect.

• This is, because the formula/expression is evaluated on the tracker item, that is source/subject of the triggering event, and not on the new item to create.
• When accessing a Distributionfield (which is a multiple choice/reference field) in a field value formula/expression, it is guaranteed
  • that the field will yield exactly one value, and
  • that value will be different for each of the new items to create.

Association

This parameter controls, whether to create additional Associations between the newly created items and the tracker item, that is source/subject of the triggering event.

For example: Create additional associations of type depends, that should support suspected link propagation:




The default is, to not create any additional associations.

In CB-9.0 and newer, Association should not be used any more, so the value should always be None.

Propagation ()

This is the replacement for the obsolete Associations in CB-9.0 and newer.

Editor options

This section of the workflow action configuration is available only for Create and Update referring item actions. The two options:

• Open Editor: by default the workflow action creates or updates a referring item and then updates the status of the original item. If this option is checked then the referring item is not updated/created automatically. Instead codeBeamer shows the editor page prepopulated with all the field values that the user specified in the workflow action definition. If the user clicks on save on this editor page then the referring item is created/updated and the status of the original item is updated. If the user clicks on cancel on the editor then the transition is not executed, meaning that the referring item is not created/updated and the status of the original item is not updated.
• Switch to Referring Item: if this option is checked then after the referring item was created/updated by the action the new item page is loaded in the browser.