Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of TracWorkflow

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06/07/11 07:03:50 (13 years ago)
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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.''