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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{{{#!Workflow width=500 height=240
14leave = * -> *
15leave.operations = leave_status
16leave.default = 1
17accept = new -> assigned
18accept.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
19accept.operations = set_owner_to_self
20resolve = new,assigned,reopened -> closed
21resolve.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
22resolve.operations = set_resolution
23reassign = new,assigned,reopened -> new
24reassign.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
25reassign.operations = set_owner
26reopen = closed -> reopened
27reopen.permissions = TICKET_CREATE
28reopen.operations = del_resolution
29}}}
30
31There 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?
32So 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.
33
34=== Environments created with 0.11 ===
35When 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.
36
37Graphically, it looks like this:
38
39{{{#!Workflow width=700 height=300
40leave = * -> *
41leave.operations = leave_status
42leave.default = 1
43accept = new,assigned,accepted,reopened -> accepted
44accept.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
45accept.operations = set_owner_to_self
46resolve = new,assigned,accepted,reopened -> closed
47resolve.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
48resolve.operations = set_resolution
49reassign = new,assigned,accepted,reopened -> assigned
50reassign.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
51reassign.operations = set_owner
52reopen = closed -> reopened
53reopen.permissions = TICKET_CREATE
54reopen.operations = del_resolution
55}}}
56
57== Additional Ticket Workflows ==
58
59There 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.
60
61Here are some [http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/WorkFlow/Examples diagrams] of the above examples.
62
63== Basic Ticket Workflow Customization ==
64
65Note: 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.
66
67Create a `[ticket-workflow]` section in `trac.ini`.
68Within this section, each entry is an action that may be taken on a ticket.
69For example, consider the `accept` action from `simple-workflow.ini`:
70{{{
71accept = new,accepted -> accepted
72accept.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
73accept.operations = set_owner_to_self
74}}}
75The 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`).
76The `accept.permissions` line specifies what permissions the user must have to use this action.
77The `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.
78
79The available operations are:
80 - del_owner -- Clear the owner field.
81 - set_owner -- Sets the owner to the selected or entered owner.
82   - ''actionname''`.set_owner` may optionally be set to a comma delimited list or a single value.
83 - set_owner_to_self -- Sets the owner to the logged in user.
84 - del_resolution -- Clears the resolution field
85 - set_resolution -- Sets the resolution to the selected value.
86   - ''actionname''`.set_resolution` may optionally be set to a comma delimited list or a single value. Example:
87     {{{
88resolve_new = new -> closed
89resolve_new.name = resolve
90resolve_new.operations = set_resolution
91resolve_new.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
92resolve_new.set_resolution = invalid,wontfix
93     }}}
94 - leave_status -- Displays "leave as <current status>" and makes no change to the ticket.
95'''Note:''' Specifying conflicting operations (such as `set_owner` and `del_owner`) has unspecified results.
96
97{{{
98resolve_accepted = accepted -> closed
99resolve_accepted.name = resolve
100resolve_accepted.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
101resolve_accepted.operations = set_resolution
102}}}
103
104In this example, we see the `.name` attribute used.  The action here is `resolve_accepted`, but it will be presented to the user as `resolve`.
105
106For actions that should be available in all states, `*` may be used in place of the state.  The obvious example is the `leave` action:
107{{{
108leave = * -> *
109leave.operations = leave_status
110leave.default = 1
111}}}
112This 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.
113If not specified for an action, `.default` is 0.  The value may be negative.
114
115There 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.
116
117While creating or modifying a ticket workflow, `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.
118
119This can be done as follows (your install path may be different).
120{{{
121cd /var/local/trac_devel/contrib/workflow/
122sudo ./showworkflow /srv/trac/PlannerSuite/conf/trac.ini
123}}}
124And then open up the resulting `trac.pdf` file created by the script (it will be in the same directory as the `trac.ini` file).
125
126An online copy of the workflow parser is available at http://foss.wush.net/cgi-bin/visual-workflow.pl
127
128After 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.
129
130== Example: Adding optional Testing with Workflow ==
131
132By 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.
133
134{{{
135testing = new,accepted,needs_work,assigned,reopened -> testing
136testing.name = Submit to reporter for testing
137testing.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
138
139reject = testing -> needs_work
140reject.name = Failed testing, return to developer
141
142pass = testing -> closed
143pass.name = Passes Testing
144pass.operations = set_resolution
145pass.set_resolution = fixed
146}}}
147
148=== How to combine the `tracopt.ticket.commit_updater` with the testing workflow ===
149
150The [[trac:source:trunk/tracopt/ticket/commit_updater.py|tracopt.ticket.commit_updater]] is the optional component that [[TracRepositoryAdmin#trac-post-commit-hook|replaces the old trac-post-commit-hook]], in Trac 0.12.
151
152By default it reacts on some keywords found in changeset message logs like ''close'', ''fix'' etc. and performs the corresponding workflow action.
153
154If you have a more complex workflow, like the testing stage described above and you want the ''closes'' keyword to move the ticket to the ''testing'' status instead of the ''closed'' status, you need to adapt the code a bit.
155
156Have a look at the [[trac:wiki:0.11/TracWorkflow#How-ToCombineSVNtrac-post-commit-hookWithTestWorkflow|Trac 0.11 recipe]] for the `trac-post-commit-hook`, this will give you some ideas about how to modify the component.
157
158== Example: Add simple optional generic review state ==
159
160Sometimes 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.
161
162The new `reviewing` state along with its associated `review` action looks like this:
163
164{{{
165review = new,assigned,reopened -> reviewing
166review.operations = set_owner
167review.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
168}}}
169
170Then, 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:
171
172{{{
173accept = new,reviewing -> assigned
174[…]
175resolve = new,assigned,reopened,reviewing -> closed
176}}}
177
178Optionally, 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.
179
180{{{
181reassign_reviewing = reviewing -> *
182reassign_reviewing.name = reassign review
183reassign_reviewing.operations = set_owner
184reassign_reviewing.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
185}}}
186
187The full `[ticket-workflow]` configuration will thus look like this:
188
189{{{
190[ticket-workflow]
191accept = new,reviewing -> assigned
192accept.operations = set_owner_to_self
193accept.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
194leave = * -> *
195leave.default = 1
196leave.operations = leave_status
197reassign = new,assigned,accepted,reopened -> assigned
198reassign.operations = set_owner
199reassign.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
200reopen = closed -> reopened
201reopen.operations = del_resolution
202reopen.permissions = TICKET_CREATE
203resolve = new,assigned,reopened,reviewing -> closed
204resolve.operations = set_resolution
205resolve.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
206review = new,assigned,reopened -> reviewing
207review.operations = set_owner
208review.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
209reassign_reviewing = reviewing -> *
210reassign_reviewing.operations = set_owner
211reassign_reviewing.name = reassign review
212reassign_reviewing.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
213}}}
214
215== Example: Limit the resolution options for a new ticket ==
216
217The 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.
218
219{{{
220resolve_new = new -> closed
221resolve_new.name = resolve
222resolve_new.operations = set_resolution
223resolve_new.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
224resolve_new.set_resolution = invalid,wontfix,duplicate
225
226resolve = assigned,accepted,reopened -> closed
227resolve.operations = set_resolution
228resolve.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY
229}}}
230
231== Advanced Ticket Workflow Customization ==
232
233If 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.
234
235But if even that is not enough, you can disable the !ConfigurableTicketWorkflow component and create a plugin that completely replaces it.
236
237== Adding Workflow States to Milestone Progress Bars ==
238
239If you add additional states to your workflow, you may want to customize your milestone progress bars as well.  See [TracIni#milestone-groups-section TracIni].
240
241== some ideas for next steps ==
242
243New 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 [http://trac-hacks.org/wiki/AdvancedTicketWorkflowPlugin AdvancedTicketWorkflowPlugin] as it provides experimental operations.
244
245If you have a response to the comments below, create an enhancement ticket, and replace the description below with a link to the ticket.
246
247 * the "operation" could be on the nodes, possible operations are:
248   * '''preops''': automatic, before entering the state/activity
249   * '''postops''': automatic, when leaving the state/activity
250   * '''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.
251''This appears to add complexity without adding functionality; please provide a detailed example where these additions allow something currently impossible to implement.''
252
253 * operations could be anything: sum up the time used for the activity, or just write some statistical fields like
254''A workflow plugin can add an arbitrary workflow operation, so this is already possible.''
255
256 * set_actor should be an operation allowing to set the owner, e.g. as a "preop":
257   * either to a role, a person
258   * entered fix at define time, or at run time, e.g. out of a field, or select.
259''This is either duplicating the existing `set_owner` operation, or needs to be clarified.''
260
261 * Actions should be selectable based on the ticket type (different Workflows for different tickets)
262''Look into the [http://trac-hacks.org/wiki/AdvancedTicketWorkflowPlugin AdvancedTicketWorkflowPlugin]'s `triage` operation.''
263
264 * I'd wish to have an option to perform automatic status changes. In my case, I do not want to start with "new", but with "assigned". So tickets in state "new" should automatically go into state "assigned". Or is there already a way to do this and I just missed it?
265''Have a look at [http://trac-hacks.org/wiki/TicketCreationStatusPlugin TicketCreationStatusPlugin] and [http://trac-hacks.org/wiki/TicketConditionalCreationStatusPlugin TicketConditionalCreationStatusPlugin]''
266
267 * I added a 'testing' state. A tester can close the ticket or reject it. I'd like the transition from testing to rejected to set the owner to the person that put the ticket in 'testing'. The [http://trac-hacks.org/wiki/AdvancedTicketWorkflowPlugin AdvancedTicketWorkflowPlugin] is close with set_owner_to_field, but we need something like set_field_to_owner.
268
269 * I'd like to track the time a ticket is in each state, adding up 'disjoints' intervals in the same state.
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