Help:- Managing issuesindexpreviousnextside index

During every development activity, problems that need to be resolved are identified. This could be either during initial development, or during a review of existing developed content. These identified problems are regarded as issues. An issue may be reported by anyone.

The PLCSlib Sourceforge project uses a "Tracker", which supports both the creation of an issue, as well as the documentation of the actions taken to resolve them and their current numbers and respective status. In order to have access to the tracker, the developer must be a registered Sourceforge user.

images/sf_tracker_browse_issues.png
Figure 1 -  The Sourceforge.net tracker window for "PLCSlib infrastructure" filtered to display open issues of the category "Help" assigned to the user "matsn".

The following trackers, with categories, are available:

NOTE    The tracker for "Bugs" should only be used by non-developers without an SF account, e.g. implementers of PLCS.

The governance of issues is managed by the PLCS Change Control Board. Its relation to the OASIS PLCS TC is shown in Figure 2.

images/issue_governance.png
Figure 2 -  Issue governance
Issue Status Used to track status of Issue
Open Issue raised
Closed Issue resolved
Pending Issue addressed but solution not signed off
Deleted Issue deleted
#160; #160;
Issue Resolution Used to track issues resolution
Accepted CCB accepted issue, assigned to a resource and set Group to a release so will be addressed
Rejected CCB rejected issue
Later CCB accepted issue , but no resource available, Group set to none
Fixed Issue addressed, change reviewed and accepted
#160; #160;
Issue Group Used to track releases issues assigned to
None Issue not assigned to a release
R1 CCB accepted issue and assigned to a release R1

Table 1 -Issue record

The process for raising and processing issues is shown in Figure 3.

images/IssueResolution.png
Figure 3 -  Issue resolution process

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When an issue has been identified, it needs to be properly reported in order for the other members of the PLCS organisation to be able to track the actions taken to resolve the issue.

NOTE    An identified problem should never be resolved without first reporting it as an issue. No changes, including additions, should be made without providing traceability through a reported issue, to who, when and why this change occurred.
NOTE    When resolving issues against RD or PLCSlib Terms, besides following the guidelines in this document, which describes how to document the changes made to the corresponding OWL file when checking it in to the SVN, the changes made to each RD class or Term should be documented as described in the RD development section of PLCSlib.

Before adding an issue to any of the trackers, it is useful to look through the existing issues. This reduces the chance of the same problem being described as more than one issue.

images/sf_tracker_add_issue.png
Figure 4 -  The Sourceforge.net tracker window showing an issue being added to the "Help" category of the "PLCSlib infrastructure" tracker.

These steps are needed in order to add an issue to a tracker:

  1. chose the appropriate tracker from the "Tracker" drop down menu
  2. click on the link "Add new"
  3. chose the correct category (if available)
  4. chose who to assign the issue to, if unsure, leave it as it was
  5. indicate priority 1-9, where 9 is the highest priority, i.e. most important
  6. write a descriptive title for the issue
  7. further describe the problem that needs to be addressed, possibly with suggestions, guidance or directives concerning how this need to be done
  8. if relevant, upload a file that could support the understanding or resolving of the identified problem
  9. click the "Add Artefact" button to commit the issue

The trackers should be the place where technical discussions concerning issues take place. Discussions in e-mail are much harder to go back to when trying to understand what led to a particular solution to a specific problem and should therefore be avoided. The following steps are needed to comment on an open issue:

  1. locate the issue to comment
  2. type in the comment in the "Comment" text field
  3. click the "Update" button to commit your comment

When actions has taken to resolve the problem being registered as an issue that includes modifying any of the PLCSlib files, the following steps should be taken.

(while committing the changed file)

  1. make the change of the file or files that rectify the problem
  2. copy the url of the web page of the issue
  3. commit the file(s) to which change has been made and post the link to the issue along with it
  4. copy the message presented by your CVS or SVN tool as a result of the commit process showing what files of what versions were modified

(at the Sourceforge tracker)

  1. describe the actions taken to resolve the issue in the "Comment" text field
  2. paste the CVS or SVN tool message in the same text field
  3. change status to "pending" if the actions taken completely solved the problem and it is ready for CCB review
  4. click the "Update" button to commit your changes
Issue reporting