Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of TracWorkflow


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Timestamp:
06/10/10 13:36:19 (14 years ago)
Author:
trac
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  • TracWorkflow

    v1 v1  
     1= The Trac Ticket Workflow System =
     2[[TracGuideToc]]
     3
     4The Trac issue database provides a configurable workflow.
     5
     6== The Default Ticket Workflow ==
     7=== Environments upgraded from 0.10 ===
     8When you run `trac-admin <env> upgrade`, your `trac.ini` will be modified to include a `[ticket-workflow]` section.
     9The workflow configured in this case is the original workflow, so that ticket actions will behave like they did in 0.10.
     10
     11Graphically, that looks like this:
     12
     13[[Image(htdocs:../common/guide/original-workflow.png)]]
     14
     15There are some significant "warts" in this; such as accepting a ticket sets it to 'assigned' state, and assigning a ticket sets it to 'new' state.  Perfectly obvious, right?
     16So you will probably want to migrate to "basic" workflow; [trac:source:trunk/contrib/workflow/migrate_original_to_basic.py contrib/workflow/migrate_original_to_basic.py] may be helpful.
     17
     18=== Environments created with 0.11 ===
     19When a new environment is created, a default workflow is configured in your trac.ini.  This workflow is the basic workflow (described in `basic-workflow.ini`), which is somewhat different from the workflow of the 0.10 releases.
     20
     21Graphically, it looks like this:
     22
     23[[Image(htdocs:../common/guide/basic-workflow.png)]]
     24
     25== Additional Ticket Workflows ==
     26
     27There are several example workflows provided in the Trac source tree; look in [trac:source:trunk/contrib/workflow contrib/workflow] for `.ini` config sections.  One of those may be a good match for what you want. They can be pasted into the `[ticket-workflow]` section of your `trac.ini` file. However if you have existing tickets then there may be issues if those tickets have states that are not in the new workflow.
     28
     29Here are some [http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/WorkFlow/Examples diagrams] of the above examples.
     30
     31== Basic Ticket Workflow Customization ==
     32
     33Note: Ticket "statuses" or "states" are not separately defined. The states a ticket can be in are automatically generated by the transitions defined in a workflow. Therefore, creating a new ticket state simply requires defining a state transition in the workflow that starts or ends with that state.
     34
     35Create a `[ticket-workflow]` section in `trac.ini`.
     36Within this section, each entry is an action that may be taken on a ticket.
     37For example, consider the `accept` action from `simple-workflow.ini`:
     38{{{
     39accept = new,accepted -> accepted
     40accept.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     41accept.operations = set_owner_to_self
     42}}}
     43The first line in this example defines the `accept` action, along with the states the action is valid in (`new` and `accepted`), and the new state of the ticket when the action is taken (`accepted`).
     44The `accept.permissions` line specifies what permissions the user must have to use this action.
     45The `accept.operations` line specifies changes that will be made to the ticket in addition to the status change when this action is taken.  In this case, when a user clicks on `accept`, the ticket owner field is updated to the logged in user.  Multiple operations may be specified in a comma separated list.
     46
     47The available operations are:
     48 - del_owner -- Clear the owner field.
     49 - set_owner -- Sets the owner to the selected or entered owner.
     50   - ''actionname''`.set_owner` may optionally be set to a comma delimited list or a single value.
     51 - set_owner_to_self -- Sets the owner to the logged in user.
     52 - del_resolution -- Clears the resolution field
     53 - set_resolution -- Sets the resolution to the selected value.
     54   - ''actionname''`.set_resolution` may optionally be set to a comma delimited list or a single value.
     55{{{
     56Example:
     57
     58resolve_new = new -> closed
     59resolve_new.name = resolve
     60resolve_new.operations = set_resolution
     61resolve_new.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     62resolve_new.set_resolution = invalid,wontfix
     63}}}
     64 - leave_status -- Displays "leave as <current status>" and makes no change to the ticket.
     65'''Note:''' Specifying conflicting operations (such as `set_owner` and `del_owner`) has unspecified results.
     66
     67{{{
     68resolve_accepted = accepted -> closed
     69resolve_accepted.name = resolve
     70resolve_accepted.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     71resolve_accepted.operations = set_resolution
     72}}}
     73
     74In this example, we see the `.name` attribute used.  The action here is `resolve_accepted`, but it will be presented to the user as `resolve`.
     75
     76For actions that should be available in all states, `*` may be used in place of the state.  The obvious example is the `leave` action:
     77{{{
     78leave = * -> *
     79leave.operations = leave_status
     80leave.default = 1
     81}}}
     82This also shows the use of the `.default` attribute.  This value is expected to be an integer, and the order in which the actions are displayed is determined by this value.  The action with the highest `.default` value is listed first, and is selected by default.  The rest of the actions are listed in order of decreasing `.default` values.
     83If not specified for an action, `.default` is 0.  The value may be negative.
     84
     85There are a couple of hard-coded constraints to the workflow.  In particular, tickets are created with status `new`, and tickets are expected to have a `closed` state.  Further, the default reports/queries treat any state other than `closed` as an open state.
     86
     87While creating or modifying a ticket workfow, `contrib/workflow/workflow_parser.py` may be useful.  It can create `.dot` files that [http://www.graphviz.org GraphViz] understands to provide a visual description of the workflow.
     88
     89This can be done as follows (your install path may be different).
     90{{{
     91cd /var/local/trac_devel/contrib/workflow/
     92sudo ./showworkflow /srv/trac/PlannerSuite/conf/trac.ini
     93}}}
     94And then open up the resulting `trac.pdf` file created by the script (it will be in the same directory as the `trac.ini` file).
     95
     96An online copy of the workflow parser is available at http://foss.wush.net/cgi-bin/visual-workflow.pl
     97
     98After you have changed a workflow, you need to restart apache for the changes to take effect. This is important, because the changes will still show up when you run your script, but all the old workflow steps will still be there until the server is restarted.
     99
     100== Example: Adding optional Testing with Workflow ==
     101
     102By adding the following to your [ticket-workflow] section of trac.ini you get optional testing.  When the ticket is in new, accepted or needs_work status you can choose to submit it for testing.  When it's in the testing status the user gets the option to reject it and send it back to needs_work, or pass the testing and send it along to closed.  If they accept it then it gets automatically marked as closed and the resolution is set to fixed.  Since all the old work flow remains, a ticket can skip this entire section.
     103
     104{{{
     105testing = new,accepted,needs_work,assigned,reopened -> testing
     106testing.name = Submit to reporter for testing
     107testing.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     108
     109reject = testing -> needs_work
     110reject.name = Failed testing, return to developer
     111
     112pass = testing -> closed
     113pass.name = Passes Testing
     114pass.operations = set_resolution
     115pass.set_resolution = fixed
     116}}}
     117
     118== Example: Add simple optional generic review state ==
     119
     120Sometimes Trac is used in situations where "testing" can mean different things to different people so you may want to create an optional workflow state that is between the default workflow's `assigned` and `closed` states, but does not impose implementation-specific details. The only new state you need to add for this is a `reviewing` state. A ticket may then be "submitted for review" from any state that it can be reassigned. If a review passes, you can re-use the `resolve` action to close the ticket, and if it fails you can re-use the `reassign` action to push it back into the normal workflow.
     121
     122The new `reviewing` state along with its associated `review` action looks like this:
     123
     124{{{
     125review = new,assigned,reopened -> reviewing
     126review.operations = set_owner
     127review.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     128}}}
     129
     130Then, to integrate this with the default Trac 0.11 workflow, you also need to add the `reviewing` state to the `accept` and `resolve` actions, like so:
     131
     132{{{
     133accept = new,reviewing -> assigned
     134[…]
     135resolve = new,assigned,reopened,reviewing -> closed
     136}}}
     137
     138Optionally, you can also add a new action that allows you to change the ticket's owner without moving the ticket out of the `reviewing` state. This enables you to reassign review work without pushing the ticket back to the `new` status.
     139
     140{{{
     141reassign_reviewing = reviewing -> *
     142reassign_reviewing.name = reassign review
     143reassign_reviewing.operations = set_owner
     144reassign_reviewing.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     145}}}
     146
     147The full `[ticket-workflow]` configuration will thus look like this:
     148
     149{{{
     150[ticket-workflow]
     151accept = new,reviewing -> assigned
     152accept.operations = set_owner_to_self
     153accept.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     154leave = * -> *
     155leave.default = 1
     156leave.operations = leave_status
     157reassign = new,assigned,reopened -> new
     158reassign.operations = set_owner
     159reassign.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     160reopen = closed -> reopened
     161reopen.operations = del_resolution
     162reopen.permissions = TICKET_CREATE
     163resolve = new,assigned,reopened,reviewing -> closed
     164resolve.operations = set_resolution
     165resolve.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     166review = new,assigned,reopened -> reviewing
     167review.operations = set_owner
     168review.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     169reassign_reviewing = reviewing -> *
     170reassign_reviewing.operations = set_owner
     171reassign_reviewing.name = reassign review
     172reassign_reviewing.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     173}}}
     174
     175== Example: Limit the resolution options for a new ticket ==
     176
     177The above resolve_new operation allows you to set the possible resolutions for a new ticket.  By modifying the existing resolve action and removing the new status from before the `->` we then get two resolve actions.  One with limited resolutions for new tickets, and then the regular one once a ticket is accepted.
     178
     179{{{
     180resolve_new = new -> closed
     181resolve_new.name = resolve
     182resolve_new.operations = set_resolution
     183resolve_new.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     184resolve_new.set_resolution = invalid,wontfix,duplicate
     185
     186resolve = assigned,accepted,reopened -> closed
     187resolve.operations = set_resolution
     188resolve.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
     189}}}
     190
     191== Advanced Ticket Workflow Customization ==
     192
     193If the customization above is not extensive enough for your needs, you can extend the workflow using plugins.  These plugins can provide additional operations for the workflow (like code_review), or implement side-effects for an action (such as triggering a build) that may not be merely simple state changes.  Look at [trac:source:trunk/sample-plugins/workflow sample-plugins/workflow] for a few simple examples to get started.
     194
     195But if even that is not enough, you can disable the !ConfigurableTicketWorkflow component and create a plugin that completely replaces it.
     196
     197== Adding Workflow States to Milestone Progress Bars ==
     198
     199If you add additional states to your workflow, you may want to customize your milestone progress bars as well.  See [TracIni#milestone-groups-section TracIni].
     200
     201== some ideas for next steps ==
     202
     203New enhancement ideas for the workflow system should be filed as enhancement tickets against the `ticket system` component.  If desired, add a single-line link to that ticket here.  Also look at the [th:wiki:AdvancedTicketWorkflowPlugin] as it provides experimental operations.
     204
     205If you have a response to the comments below, create an enhancement ticket, and replace the description below with a link to the ticket.
     206
     207 * the "operation" could be on the nodes, possible operations are:
     208   * '''preops''': automatic, before entering the state/activity
     209   * '''postops''': automatic, when leaving the state/activity
     210   * '''actions''': can be chosen by the owner in the list at the bottom, and/or drop-down/pop-up together with the default actions of leaving the node on one of the arrows.
     211''This appears to add complexity without adding functionality; please provide a detailed example where these additions allow something currently impossible to implement.''
     212
     213 * operations could be anything: sum up the time used for the activity, or just write some statistical fields like
     214''A workflow plugin can add an arbitrary workflow operation, so this is already possible.''
     215
     216 * set_actor should be an operation allowing to set the owner, e.g. as a "preop":
     217   * either to a role, a person
     218   * entered fix at define time, or at run time, e.g. out of a field, or select.
     219''This is either duplicating the existing `set_owner` operation, or needs to be clarified.''
     220
     221 * Actions should be selectable based on the ticket type (different Workflows for different tickets)
     222''Look into the [th:wiki:AdvancedTicketWorkflowPlugin]'s `triage` operation.''