| 1 | = The Trac Ticket Workflow System = |
| 2 | [[TracGuideToc]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | The Trac issue database provides a configurable workflow. |
| 5 | |
| 6 | == The Default Ticket Workflow == |
| 7 | === Environments upgraded from 0.10 === |
| 8 | When you run `trac-admin <env> upgrade`, your `trac.ini` will be modified to include a `[ticket-workflow]` section. |
| 9 | The workflow configured in this case is the original workflow, so that ticket actions will behave like they did in 0.10. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | Graphically, that looks like this: |
| 12 | |
| 13 | [[Image(htdocs:../common/original-workflow.png)]] |
| 14 | |
| 15 | There 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? |
| 16 | So you will probably want to migrate to "basic" workflow; `contrib/workflow/migrate_original_to_basic.py` may be helpful. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | === Environments created with 0.11 === |
| 19 | When 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 | |
| 21 | Graphically, it looks like this: |
| 22 | |
| 23 | [[Image(htdocs:../common/basic-workflow.png)]] |
| 24 | |
| 25 | == Additional Ticket Workflows == |
| 26 | |
| 27 | There are several example workflows provided in the Trac source tree; look in `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. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | == Basic Ticket Workflow Customization == |
| 30 | |
| 31 | Create a `[ticket-workflow]` section in `trac.ini`. |
| 32 | Within this section, each entry is an action that may be taken on a ticket. |
| 33 | For example, consider the `accept` action from `simple-workflow.ini`: |
| 34 | {{{ |
| 35 | accept = new,accepted -> accepted |
| 36 | accept.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY |
| 37 | accept.operations = set_owner_to_self |
| 38 | }}} |
| 39 | The 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`). |
| 40 | The `accept.permissions` line specifies what permissions the user must have to use this action. |
| 41 | The `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. |
| 42 | |
| 43 | The available operations are: |
| 44 | - del_owner -- Clear the owner field. |
| 45 | - set_owner -- Sets the owner to the selected or entered owner. |
| 46 | - ''actionname''`.set_owner` may optionally be set to a comma delimited list or a single value. |
| 47 | - set_owner_to_self -- Sets the owner to the logged in user. |
| 48 | - del_resolution -- Clears the resolution field |
| 49 | - set_resolution -- Sets the resolution to the selected value. |
| 50 | - ''actionname''`.set_resolution` may optionally be set to a comma delimited list or a single value. |
| 51 | {{{ |
| 52 | Example: |
| 53 | |
| 54 | resolve_new = new -> closed |
| 55 | resolve_new.name = resolve |
| 56 | resolve_new.operations = set_resolution |
| 57 | resolve_new.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY |
| 58 | resolve_new.set_resolution = invalid,wontfix |
| 59 | }}} |
| 60 | - leave_status -- Displays "leave as <current status>" and makes no change to the ticket. |
| 61 | '''Note:''' Specifying conflicting operations (such as `set_owner` and `del_owner`) has unspecified results. |
| 62 | |
| 63 | {{{ |
| 64 | resolve_accepted = accepted -> closed |
| 65 | resolve_accepted.name = resolve |
| 66 | resolve_accepted.permissions = TICKET_MODIFY |
| 67 | resolve_accepted.operations = set_resolution |
| 68 | }}} |
| 69 | |
| 70 | In this example, we see the `.name` attribute used. The action here is `resolve_accepted`, but it will be presented to the user as `resolve`. |
| 71 | |
| 72 | For actions that should be available in all states, `*` may be used in place of the state. The obvious example is the `leave` action: |
| 73 | {{{ |
| 74 | leave = * -> * |
| 75 | leave.operations = leave_status |
| 76 | leave.default = 1 |
| 77 | }}} |
| 78 | This 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. |
| 79 | If not specified for an action, `.default` is 0. The value may be negative. |
| 80 | |
| 81 | There 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. |
| 82 | |
| 83 | While 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. |
| 84 | |
| 85 | This can be done as follows (your install path may be different). |
| 86 | {{{ |
| 87 | cd /var/local/trac_devel/contrib/workflow/ |
| 88 | sudo ./showworkflow /srv/trac/PlannerSuite/conf/trac.ini |
| 89 | }}} |
| 90 | And then open up the resulting `trac.pdf` file created by the script (it will be in the same directory as the `trac.ini` file). |
| 91 | |
| 92 | After 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. |
| 93 | |
| 94 | == Advanced Ticket Workflow Customization == |
| 95 | |
| 96 | If 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 `sample-plugins/workflow` for a few simple examples to get started. |
| 97 | |
| 98 | But if even that is not enough, you can disable the !ConfigurableTicketWorkflow component and create a plugin that completely replaces it. |
| 99 | |