Can someone assist us in a process use of Mantis as a issue communication tool similar to FogBugz? We love Mantis and have occasion where a software issue, submitted by a reporter, needs clarification. We move the status of the issue to FEEDBACK and enter some questions/comments.
Can the reporter get an email notification with the comments in there?
Can we add a direct link to the issue so the reporter can go directly to the issue and respond as notes right in the issue.
Is it possible to use Mantis in this way? Tracking conversations of issues, between reporters and developers?
Thanks!
Using Mantis to track issue conversations
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sologroupmc
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There is, of course, the Note field (whcih you should set to prohibit editing). However, the Assigned field can change too easily, and it's especially tempting to use it for conversations.
A different bugbase I used (homegrown, based on Apple's excellent internal bugbase) had three sets of fields which rarely changed: Reported by, Fixed By, Confirmed By. The Reporter was automatically set when the bug was created. A dev manager would then assign the bug to an engineer. Those two people could send notes and questions back and forth using the bugbase's note field. When the bug was Asserted Fixed, the QAE would then regress it, and his approval would set the Confirmed By field. Sometimes (rarely) that would be done by a different QAE than the reporter.
To make Mantis work this way would require some strict policies and special ways to search for bugs. It's possible to do, but not directly supported.
You would have to make the rule that t he reporter and the Assigned To fields never change. Let the developer use Freedback to request feedback and let the QAE use Acknowledged to signal an answer. Other engineers could add notes of their own, but must not change those fields. I think you can enforce those policies in the Management pages.
A different bugbase I used (homegrown, based on Apple's excellent internal bugbase) had three sets of fields which rarely changed: Reported by, Fixed By, Confirmed By. The Reporter was automatically set when the bug was created. A dev manager would then assign the bug to an engineer. Those two people could send notes and questions back and forth using the bugbase's note field. When the bug was Asserted Fixed, the QAE would then regress it, and his approval would set the Confirmed By field. Sometimes (rarely) that would be done by a different QAE than the reporter.
To make Mantis work this way would require some strict policies and special ways to search for bugs. It's possible to do, but not directly supported.
You would have to make the rule that t he reporter and the Assigned To fields never change. Let the developer use Freedback to request feedback and let the QAE use Acknowledged to signal an answer. Other engineers could add notes of their own, but must not change those fields. I think you can enforce those policies in the Management pages.
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sologroupmc
- Posts: 9
- Joined: 24 Jul 2006, 22:07
- Location: Chicago, IL, US
- Contact:
Re: Using Mantis to track issue conversations
I guess I should have experimented a little more. This seems to be an ability of Mantis when you have mail enabled. The trick is to get the users to respond to the notification by clicking on the issue link so they can add a note right in the tracker.sologroupmc wrote:Can the reporter get an email notification with the comments in there? Can we add a direct link to the issue so the reporter can go directly to the issue and respond as notes right in the issue.
Is it possible to use Mantis in this way? Tracking conversations of issues, between reporters and developers?
I think email templates will help with this. And smarty templates: we could layout a page that was designed to specifically accept a reponse from the users, making it obvious what they need to do.
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sologroupmc
- Posts: 9
- Joined: 24 Jul 2006, 22:07
- Location: Chicago, IL, US
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I didn't really _do_ anything. :) It is just the way that Mantis works. We have email notifications turned on so that persons involved in the issues are part of the email cycle. So when the developer turns an issue to Feedback, adds a comment, the message is sent to the Reporter. They can then click on the link in the message and add a note directly to the issue, responding to the Developer. All notes are added to the issue which provides a trackback of the events on the issue.
I was saying that the email templates and smarty might help because you could better direct your reporters and updaters to doing the right thing when they receive a notice of update, testing, etc.
One thing that could be better in the process is to allow others to be included as members for notification. This works when other users/developers are monitoring the issues, but it would be nice to be able to choose who receives notifcations on each upadate of the issues.
I was saying that the email templates and smarty might help because you could better direct your reporters and updaters to doing the right thing when they receive a notice of update, testing, etc.
One thing that could be better in the process is to allow others to be included as members for notification. This works when other users/developers are monitoring the issues, but it would be nice to be able to choose who receives notifcations on each upadate of the issues.