TrackStudio Overview

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TrackStudio Overview
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Presentation overview

• Overview of Task Management and TrackStudio
• Walk through the as-installed TrackStudio
  environment
• Question and Answer session

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The true nature of Task Management

• Many different people with different roles
• Roles on each project may not be the same
• Many top-level tasks each of which may spawn
  sub-tasks
• Different tasks have different workflows
• The same workflows may need to be shared between
  different projects
• Priorities and dependencies

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The nature of Tasks

• Big bugs have little bugs
• Upon their backs to bite them.
• Little bugs have littler bugs.
• And so, ad infinitum.
• Jonathan Swift1667 - 1745

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The nature of Plans

• Therefore no plan of operations extends with any
  certainty beyond the first contact with the main
  hostile force.
• Helmuth von MoltkePrussian field
  marshalmid-nineteenth century

no plan survives first contact with the enemy
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Project complexity
Department Manager
Project Manager
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Project complexity 2
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Project complexity 3

• Not only different users work on different
  projects but also different projects may require
  different configurations.
• If, as a Company you might have several large
  customers, each with different workflows, and be
  required to integrate your own workflows with
  their workflows.
• This is possible with TrackStudio

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The ingredients for success

• Communication and control
• What needs to be done by whom and by when
• Impossible for the project manager to have
  complete picture
• Polling of task executors to ascertain status
  becomes impractical and unrealistic
• Everyone needs to be able to have an overview
• Project Manager
• Programme Manager
• Department Manager
• Task Executor
• Everyone needs to be able to have their own view
• Only tasks that are relevant to them

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What will help you deliver success?

• Enterprise-strength task-tracking solution

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Essential concepts

• Tasks and users
• A task can be though of an an object
• Hierarchies, objects and inheritance
• Domain model
• Who you are and where you are
• Soft labels
• Delegated control
• Single interface
• Messages

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Tasks and users
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Hierarchies

• Hierarchical organization is a very important for
  project management tool
• Very few task-tracking packages support it

"Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a fundamental
project management technique for defining and
organizing the total scope of a project, using a
hierarchical tree structure." Wikipedia
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User and Task tree connections
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Single interface different views
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Messages

• A message encapsulates a number of separate
  elements into a single action
• State-change, assignment and comment are all
  handled in one step
• For example, if a support team member were to
  receive a reply from customer, he needs to
• reopen the task.
• assign it to developer
• write comment and attach file from the customer
• submit his own task time
• Within TrackStudio this is handled as a message
• This allows for a powerful search of task history

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How TrackStudio meets your needs

• Connectivity
• Configurability
• Integration
• Extensibility

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Connectivity - TrackStudio e-mail

• Inbound
• E-mail submission
• Filters configured by header or content to direct
  inbound e-mail to particular tasks.
• Attachments are imported into the system
  automatically
• Outbound
• E-mail notification
• The creating a task or task-related message can
  be configured to send an e-mail according to the
  criteria of the associated filter.
• It is possible to easily to configure who gets
  what when messages are created.
• Different templates can be specified for
  different tasks/rules
• High level of detail for developers, low level
  for customers

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Connectivity - TrackStudio e-mail - 2

• Outbound - continued
• E-mail digests
• Filter subscription rules can be defined that
  will generate for any particular user or user
  group a periodic summary
• Rules are defined per task
• Interval is definable per rule
• Standard filter mechanism used to determine what
  type of summary gets sent
• Example List of high priority bugs, not touched
  in the last 3 days managers can receive this
  report every morning
• E-mails sent by triggers
• If it is not possible to define exactly what
  e-mail you want to be sent using the interface it
  is possible to define it using a script
• Such e-mails may be sent to other systems/data
  repositories

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Configurability Workflows
Issue Tracking Issue workflow
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Configurability Workflows - 2

• Workflows consist of 4 main components
• Priorities an in-built list field. Definable
  per workflow.
• States the state in which a task is at any time
• Messages move task from one state to another
• Custom fields 10 field types available

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Configurability - Workflows - 3

• Workflows may be as simple or complex as you wish
• For each Message type it is possible to define
  who is able to
• View
• Process
• Be assigned as Handler
• Each Message type may have any number of
  resolutions associated with it
• A resolution is a supplementary to the message
  ie
• Message Resolution
• Reviewed bug replicated

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Configurability - Workflows - 4

• Categories are containers that connect
  workflows to tasks
• The same workflow may be used in many categories
• Categories define who can view, create, modify,
  delete or be initial handler for a task of that
  category
• Categories also allow you to define a template
  headings that will appear in the Task description
  box
• Categories have Create task and Edit task
  triggers
• Relations are defined within categories and
  determine what sub-tasks can be created as
  children of a task of that category
• Its easy to miss the step of creating relations!

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Configurability permissions model

• Who is connected to what
• What rights does own/base status provide to user
• Ability to supplement or override own/base status
  within the context of a task
• Categories define who is able to view, create,
  modify, delete or be initial handler for a task
  of that category
• Within workflows it is possible to define who is
  able to view, process or be assigned as handler
  for any message type

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Statuses

• Three types of status might be usefully
  considered
• Statuses with rights that are to be assigned to
  users as an own/base status
• Statuses with no rights - merely to be used as
  "labels" that can be identified in the context of
  workflows and categories.
• Statuses with rights that are to be assigned to
  users depending on their role within the context
  of a task. These statuses are also used to
  identify who may do what in the context of
  workflows and categories.

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Status-task permissions
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Status-user permissions
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State-Message-Status map
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Extensibility

• SOAP API
• very powerful, just thin wrap over the kernel
• Source Code
• anything is possible here!
• Eclipse plugin
• very simple, just a browser opened in Eclipse
  window

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Integration

• E-mail messaging
• back-end database connectivity
• Scripts and triggers
• SVNKit library used for SVN repository interaction

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Scripts and Triggers

• For each message type it is possible to specify a
  script that will run for each of up to three
  events.
• Each event is called a trigger.
• BEFORE Trigger - action which is executed before
  the message is created.
• INSTEAD OF Trigger - action which is executed
  instead of message being created.
• AFTER Trigger - action which is executed after an
  the message has been created.
• Scripts are small pieces of code that use the API
  to modify the applications behaviour.

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What do you want from TrackStudio?
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What more might you want?

• The only limit is your imagination!

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Time tracking

• Built-in task duration field
• Each time a message is created the user is able
  to enter the time spent working on the task on
  that occasion
• All the individually entered times are summed
  both within the task and the in the parent task
  and so on up the task hierarchy

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Reporting

• Report creation
• Permission to create reports can be granted in a
  context-sensitive way to either users or user
  groups
• Reports are defined per task
• Standard filter mechanism used to determine what
  the report will contain
• Four different in-built report types available
• List - displays the list of tasks as a table.
  Configure the columns and the sort order by
  specify filtering conditions.
• Detailed - displays all task fields that have
  values.
• Distribution - groups tasks and allows the use of
  aggregate functions (Avg, Min, Max, Sum) for each
  group.
• UserWorkload - displays information about the
  time (actual time) your subordinates worked on
  subtasks of a task.
• All reports can be exported as CSV/XML for use by
  third-party applications

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Summary - key differentiators

• Hierarchical work breakdown
• Support for matrix management
• Project-specific customisation
• Highly granular permissions model
• Massive extensibility
• Delegated authorities and responsibilities

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Commercial offering

• All product packages, except starter pack, have
  unlimited user licences
• Excellent bang per buck ratio
• Competitively priced support and upgrade package
• Source code available
• Single application can be configured to service
  many different task tracking needs
• Consolidation of differing task tracking
  requirements within a single application reduces
  training and maintenance over head

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Corporate offering

• Established but leading-edge product since 2001
• Open user forum
• Small and dedicated team
• Privately held and debt free
• Quality and sophistication of the product should
  outweigh any concern about the company

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Thank you for listening

• Any questions?