Managing project-level elements

Project owners configure projects to meet the needs of their members. For example, as a project owner, you can add artifact types such as Defects, Requests for Enhancements, and Requirements to a project to enable project members to do their work. You can modify artifact types to suit particular project requirements. The basic tasks for a project owner are to:

• Manage artifact types
• Manage attributes that are associated with the artifact types used in a project
• Activate duplication checking

Managing artifact types at the project level

A domain administrator creates global artifact types that project owners can add to a project. As a project owner, you can create project-specific modifications to these artifact types, add global artifact types to a project, and delete artifact types from a project.

The following summarizes the changes that you can make to an artifact type:

• Name and Description - Project Tracker can maintain separate instances of an artifact even if the local instance has a different name from the global instance (the artifact type defined by the administrator).
• Attribute groups - These are sets of non-people-related attributes, such as Summary, Description, and so on, collected under a single heading.
• User attributes - User attributes are used to create a relationship between a user and an artifact, for example to establish the artifact owner. User attributes can determine who is notified when modifications are made to instances of this artifact type. For example, if a project member edits a Defect, the person assigned to the CC attribute receives email notification.
• Dependency rules - These are rules that determine relationships between attributes. See Configuring attribute dependencies for details.

To add a new global artifact type to a project:

1. Click Project Tracker > Manage Artifact Types in the left navigation pane.
   The Manage artifact types screen appears.
   This page allows you to add artifact types to a project and to modify the artifact types.
2. Click the Add new button.
3. In the Select Artifact Type page, the list of global artifact types is segregated in the Namespace it is associated to. Select an artifact type you want to associate to the project.
4. Click Add.

Notes:

• In the Select Artifact Type page, you can choose only one global artifact type at a time.
• In a project, if you associate a global artifact type, that has two attributes with the same title name, but each attribute belongs to a different Namespace; then both these attributes appear as a field name when you enter an artifact for that artifact type. But, these field names appear with the Namespace associated to that attribute.
  For example, if the "Defect" artifact type has an attribute "Advantage" associated to both the "Default" and "IT to PT conversion" Namespace; then while entering an artifact, the fieldnames will be: "Advantage" and "Advantage (IT to PT conversion)."

To make a project-level modification to an existing artifact type:

1. Click Project Tracker > Manage Artifact Types in the left navigation pane.
   The Manage artifact types page appears.
2. Click the link for an artifact type that you want to edit.
3. You can optionally edit the local name and description for the artifact type, the attribute groups and user attributes that are associated with the artifact type, and other characteristics of the artifact type.
4. When you have finished editing a section (for example, a user attribute), click Save.
5. When you are done working with this artifact type, click Done.

Managing attributes at the project level

Every artifact type consists of a set of attributes. A domain administrator creates global attributes and associates them with artifact types. As a project owner, you can add and remove attributes from an artifact type at the project level. You can also edit characteristics of these attributes. For example, you can determine if your users are required to enter a Reason for Change when they edit the value of a particular attribute type. You can also change groupings of attributes at the project level.

When creating groups of attributes, you can mark one of the attributes as the identifier. The artifact number and the identifier value become the Subject line of email messages that are sent when an artifact instance is created, modified, or a comment is added. For example, selecting a Summary attribute as an identifier may produce the following email subject line, "Subject: Project artifact #SC34: Application set my house on fire." The identifier value also becomes the text link to the full artifact in query results pages. When users view an artifact instance, the page header also displays the artifact number and the identifier value.

Only the following types of attributes may be identifiers:

• Text, short
• Text, long
• Email address

To modify user attributes and attribute groups at the project-level:

1. Click the Projects tab and click the link for a project that uses Project Tracker.
2. Click Project Tracker > Manage Artifact Types in the left navigation pane.
   The Manage Artifact Types page appears.
3. Click the link for an artifact type that you want to edit.
   The Edit Artifact Type page is displayed.
4. On this page, you can edit the following user attribute settings:
   Display Name - Changes the label for a user attribute as it is displayed to a user.
   Active - Checking this checkbox makes this attribute available to the user.
   Requires Reason for Change - If checked, the user must supply a reason when editing the value for this user attribute.
   Sequence # - Pick a different number from this list to change the order in which the user attribute is displayed.
5. You can also edit the following attribute group characteristics:
   Active - Checking this checkbox makes this attribute group available to the user.
   Sequence # - Pick a different number from this list to change the order in which the attribute group is displayed
6. To remove an attribute group, a user attribute, or a dependency rule, click the checkbox in the Select column, then click Delete Selected.
7. Click Save to save changes made to a particular section.
8. Click Done when you are finished making all of your changes.

To modify an attribute in an attribute group at the project level:

1. Click Project Tracker > Manage Artifact Types in the left navigation pane.
   The Manage Artifact Types page appears.
2. Click the link for an artifact type that you want to edit.
   The Edit Artifact Type page is displayed.
3. Click the link for an attribute group that contains an attribute that you want to edit.
4. On the Edit Attribute Group page, in the section labeled Attributes in This Group, you can edit the following:
   Active - If checked, this attribute is available to users.
   Required - If checked, the user must supply a value for this attribute when entering an artifact.
   Included in Custom Query - If checked, this attribute is provided in queries that users create.
   Requires Reason for Change - If checked, the user must supply a reason when editing the value for this user attribute.
   Use as Identifier- If checked, this attribute value is used as the link to view the artifact contents, and this value used in email notifications that are sent when the associated artifact is edited.
   Sequence # - Pick a different number from this list to change the order in which the attribute group or user attribute is displayed.
5. To save the modifications to the attribute group, click the Save button at the bottom of the Attributes in This Group section.
6. To remove an attribute from this group, click the checkbox in the Select column, then click Delete Selected.
7. To add an attribute group or user attribute, click Add New.
8. Click Save to save changes made to a particular section.
9. Click Done when you are finished making all of your changes.

Note: It is now not possible to rename an attribute with a duplicate name in a project artifact type. For example, if you do the following:

Case 1:

1. Click Project Tracker > Manage Artifact Types in the left navigation pane, and be sure the Defect artifact type is associated with the project.
2. Click Project Tracker > Enter artifacts in the left navigation pane, and enter a new defect.
3. Click Project Tracker > Manage Artifact types in the left navigation pane.
4. Click the link for the Defect artifact type.
5. Click the link for the Tracking Info attribute group.
6. Change the display name of the attribute named Status to Resolution. This previously resulted in two attributes with the name Resolution in the artifact type.

The system should not allow the display name of "Status" be changed to "Resolution", since an attribute by the name "Resolution" already exists in the project artifact type. This has been fixed in this release. You will now receive the alert message, "The display name is already used. Please choose a different name."

Case 2:

1. Log in as a Domain User and click the Projects tab.
2. Click the Start New Project link and create a project using Project Tracker.
3. Associate the Defect artifact type to the project.
4. Click the Manage Artifact Types > Defect > Duplicate Check Info links, change the display name of Summary attribute to "Customer" and save the changes.
5. Click the Add New button and add the "Customer" attribute to the Duplicate Check Info group.

The Summary and Customer attributes are added to the attribute group with same display name. You will receive an alert message, "The following attribute(s) cannot be added since it will result in duplicate attribute names in the artifact type: Customer."

Duplication checking

Duplicate checking, when turned on, enables Project Tracker to check the database for artifact instances whose attribute values match the values that a user is currently entering. Duplicate checking occurs when a user enters a new artifact instance. If Project Tracker finds duplicates it displays a report instead of the next artifact entry page. The user can comment on a duplicate artifact or complete the artifact entry process.

When a domain administrator creates a new artifact type, an entry called Duplicate Check is automatically added to the list of attribute groups associated with the artifact type. When creating an instance of an artifact of this type, users are first presented with a data entry page containing the attribute groups that precede the Duplicate Check entry. Those attribute groups that appear in sequence before the duplicate check step are activated for duplicate checking. Project owners can modify the behavior of duplicate checking to suit the needs of the project.

Some attributes are better than others for duplicate checking. For instance, checking an attribute that tracks the operating system version may be ineffective on its own. It may be more effective if a description of the observed behavior is also checked. The duplication check feature supports up to nine attributes.

To configure duplication checking:

1. Click Project Tracker > Manage Artifact Types in the left navigation pane.
   The Manage artifact types page appears.
2. To enable duplicate checking, in the Attribute Groups section ensure that the Active checkbox is selected for the Duplicate Check entry.
3. Unchecking the Active checkbox for Duplicate Check will turn off duplicate checking for this artifact type.
4. Use the Sequence # drop-down lists to modify when duplication checking occurs.