.. doctest docs/specs/tickets.rst
.. _xl.specs.tickets:
===============================
``tickets`` (Ticket management)
===============================
The :mod:`lino_xl.lib.tickets` plugin adds functionality for managing tickets.
.. contents::
:local:
.. currentmodule:: lino_xl.lib.tickets
.. include:: /../docs/shared/include/tested.rst
>>> from lino import startup
>>> startup('lino_book.projects.noi1e.settings.demo')
>>> from lino.api.doctest import *
Overview
========
A `ticket <Tickets>`_ is a question, issue or problem reported by a human who
asks us for help. It is the smallest unit for organizing our work.
This plugin also installs :doc:`comments`. Users can comment on a ticket.
Tickets are grouped into sites_. Users must be **subscribed** to a *site* in
order to report tickets on a site. All the subscribers of a site will get
notified about new tickets, changes and new comments to a ticket. The site* of
a *ticket* indicates who is going to watch changes on that ticket.
Tickets
=======
A **ticket** is a concrete question or problem formulated by a human who asks
our team to work on it and find an answer or solution.
The **author** of a ticket is the user who created it. The author can
optionally specify an **end user**, which means that they created the ticket in
behalf* of that external person.
A ticket can be **assigned** to a given user who is "responsible" for working
on it. It can be reassigned to another user. Users can "take" an unassigned
ticket.
.. class:: Ticket
The Django model used to represent a *ticket*.
A ticket has the following database fields.
Different relations to users:
.. attribute:: user
The author or reporter of this ticket. The user who reported this
ticket to the database and is responsible for managing it.
.. attribute:: end_user
The end user who is asking for help. This may be an external person
who is not registered as a system user.
.. attribute:: assigned_to
The user who has been assigned to work on this ticket.
Descriptive fields:
.. attribute:: description
A complete and concise description of the ticket. This should
describe in more detail what this ticket is about. If the
ticket has evolved during time, it should reflect the latest
version.
The description can contain *memo commands* defined by the
application.
.. attribute:: site
The site this ticket belongs to.
You can select only sites you are subscribed to.
.. attribute:: ticket_type
The type of this ticket. The site administrator can configure the list
of available ticket types.
.. attribute:: upgrade_notes
A formatted text field meant for writing instructions for the
hoster's site administrator when doing an upgrade where this
ticket is being deployed.
.. attribute:: waiting_for
What to do next. An unformatted one-line text which describes
what this ticket is waiting for.
.. attribute:: state
The workflow state of this ticket.
The list of available states (:class:`TicketStates`) is defined by the
:term:`application developer` but may have :doc:`local modifications
</admin/choicelists>`.
Relations to other tickets:
.. attribute:: duplicate_of
A pointer to another ticket which is regarded as the first occurence of
the same problem.
A ticket with a non-empty :attr:`duplicate_of` field can be called a
"duplicate". The number (primary key) of a duplicate is theoretically
higher than the number of the ticket it duplicates.
The :attr:`state` of a duplicate does not automatically become
that of the duplicated ticket. Each ticket continues to have
its own state. Example: Some long time ago, with Mathieu, we
agreed that ticket #100 can go to *Sleeping*. Now Aurélie
reported the same problem again as #904. This means that we
should talk about it. And even before talking with her, I'd
like to have a look at the code in order to estimate whether
it is difficult or not, so I set the state of #904 to ToDo.
.. attribute:: deadline
Specify that the ticket must be done for a given date.
TODO: Triagers should have a table of tickets having this
field non-empty and are still in an active state.
.. attribute:: priority
How urgent this ticket is.
Choicelist field pointing to :class:`lino_xl.lib.xl.Priorities`.
.. attribute:: rating
How the author rates the work which has been done on this ticket.
.. attribute:: reporting_type
An indication about who is going to pay for work on this
site. See :class:`ReportingTypes`.
Ticket state
============
The **state** of a ticket expresses in which phase of its life cycle this
ticket is.
You can see which ticket states are defined on your site
using :menuselection:`Explorer --> Tickets --> Ticket states`.
.. >>> show_menu_path(tickets.TicketStates)
Explorer --> Tickets --> Ticket states
See :class:`lino_noi.lib.tickets.TicketStates` for a real world example.
>>> rt.show(tickets.TicketStates)
======= =========== ========== ============= ========
value name text Button text Active
------- ----------- ---------- ------------- --------
10 new New ⚹ Yes
15 talk Talk ☎ Yes
20 opened Open ☉ Yes
22 working Working ⚒ Yes
30 sleeping Sleeping ☾ No
40 ready Ready ☐ Yes
50 closed Closed ☑ No
60 cancelled Refused ☒ No
======= =========== ========== ============= ========
<BLANKLINE>
.. class:: TicketStates
The choicelist for the :attr:`state <Ticket.state>` of a ticket.
.. attribute:: new
Somebody reported this ticket, but there was no response yet. The
ticket needs to be triaged.
.. attribute:: talk
Some worker needs discussion with the author. We don't yet
know exactly what to do with it.
.. attribute:: todo
The ticket is confirmed and we are working on it.
It appears in the todo list of somebody (either the assigned
worker, or our general todo list)
.. attribute:: testing
The ticket is theoretically done, but we want to confirm this
somehow, and it is not clear who should do the next step. If
it is clear that the author should do the testing, then you
should rather set the ticket to :attr:`talk`. If it is clear
that you (the assignee) must test it, then leave the ticket at
:attr:`todo`.
.. attribute:: sleeping
Waiting for some external event. We didn't decide what to do
with it.
.. attribute:: ready
The ticket is basically :attr:`done`, but some detail still
needs to be done by the :attr:`user` (e.g. testing,
confirmation, documentation,..)
.. attribute:: done
The ticket has been done.
.. attribute:: cancelled
It has been decided that we won't fix this ticket.
There is also a "modern" series of symbols, which can be enabled
site-wide in :attr:`lino.core.site.Site.use_new_unicode_symbols`.
If :attr:`use_new_unicode_symbols
<lino.core.site.Site.use_new_unicode_symbols>` is True, ticket states
are represented using symbols from the `Miscellaneous Symbols and
Pictographs
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscellaneous_Symbols_and_Pictographs>`__
block, otherwise we use the more widely supported symbols from
`Miscellaneous Symbols
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscellaneous_Symbols>`
`fileformat.info
<http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/block/miscellaneous_symbols/list.htm>`__.
Sites
=====
A **site** is a place where work is being done. Sites can be anything your
team uses for grouping their tickets into more long-term "tasks" or "projects".
Zulip calls them "streams", Slack calls them "Channels".
.. class:: Site
The Django model representing a *site*.
.. attribute:: description
.. attribute:: reporting_type
.. attribute:: state
.. attribute:: ref
.. attribute:: name
.. attribute:: company
.. attribute:: contact_person
.. attribute:: deadline
.. class:: Sites
Base class for all Sites tables.
.. attribute:: watcher
.. attribute:: show_exposed
.. attribute:: state
.. class:: MySites
Shows the sites for which I have a subscription.
Sleeping and closed sites are not shown by default.
.. class:: AllSites
Shows all sites in explorer menu.
Ticket types
============
A **ticket type**, or the type of a *ticket*, is a way to classify that ticket.
This information may be used in service reports or statistics defined by the
application.
You can configure the list of ticket types via :menuselection:`Configure -->
Tickets --> Ticket types`.
.. >>> show_menu_path(tickets.TicketTypes)
Configure --> Tickets --> Ticket types
.. class:: TicketType
The Django model used to represent a *ticket type*.
.. attribute:: name
.. attribute:: reporting_type
Which *reporting type* to use in a service report.
See :class:ReportingTypes`.
.. class:: TicketTypes
The list of all ticket types.
The state of a site
===================
>>> rt.show(tickets.SiteStates)
... #doctest: +REPORT_UDIFF +ELLIPSIS
======= ========== ========== ============= =========
value name text Button text Exposed
------- ---------- ---------- ------------- ---------
10 draft Draft ⚹ Yes
20 active Active ⚒ Yes
30 stable Stable ☉ Yes
40 sleeping Sleeping ☾ No
50 closed Closed ☑ No
======= ========== ========== ============= =========
<BLANKLINE>
Links between tickets
=====================
.. class:: Link
.. class:: LinkType
.. class:: Links
.. class:: LinksByTicket
.. class:: LinkTypes
A choicelist with the possible link types.
.. attribute:: requires
The parent ticket requires the child ticket.
.. attribute:: triggers
The parent ticket triggers the child ticket.
.. attribute:: deploys
The parent ticket is a deployment which deploys the child ticket.
Release notes are a printout of a deployment ticket which
lists the deployed tickets.
>>> rt.show(tickets.LinkTypes)
... #doctest: +REPORT_UDIFF
======= ============ ============
value name text
------- ------------ ------------
10 requires Requires
20 triggers Triggers
30 suggests Suggests
40 obsoletes Obsoletes
50 duplicates Duplicates
======= ============ ============
<BLANKLINE>
Plugin configuration
====================
See :class:`lino_xl.lib.tickets.Plugin`.
Discussions
===========
Should we replace the :attr:`Ticket.duplicate_of` field by a link type (an
additional choice in :class:`LinkTypes`) called "Duplicated/Duplicated by"? No.
We had this before and preferred the field, because a field is at least one
click less, and because we *want* users to define a clear hierarchy with a
clear root ticket. You can have a group of tickets which are all direct or
indirect duplicates of this "root of all other problems".
Sometimes there is nothing to do for a ticket, but it is not "sleeping" because
it might become active at any moment when some kind of event happens. (e.g. a
customer answers a callback, a server error occurs again). Should we introduce
a new state "Waiting" to differentiate such tickets from those who went asleep
due to lack of attention? Rather not. That's what "Sleeping" (also) means. A
sleeping ticket can wake up any time. We just don't want to be reminded about
it all the time. One challenge is that when the "trigger" occurs which would
wake up the sleeping ticket. At that moment we don't want to create a new
ticket just because we forgot about the sleeping one. To avoid this we must
currently simply search in "All tickets" before creating a new one.
Other languages
===============
The ticket states in German:
>>> rt.show(tickets.TicketStates, language="de")
====== =========== ================ ============= =======
Wert name Text Button text Aktiv
------ ----------- ---------------- ------------- -------
10 new Neu ⚹ Ja
15 talk Besprechen ☎ Ja
20 opened Offen ☉ Ja
22 working In Bearbeitung ⚒ Ja
30 sleeping Schläft ☾ Nein
40 ready Bereit ☐ Ja
50 closed Abgeschlossen ☑ Nein
60 cancelled Abgelehnt ☒ Nein
====== =========== ================ ============= =======
<BLANKLINE>
Views reference
===============
There are many tables used to show lists of tickets.
.. class:: Tickets
Base class for all tables of tickets.
.. attribute:: site
Select a site if you want to see only tickets for this site.
.. attribute:: show_private
Show only (or hide) tickets that are marked private.
.. attribute:: show_todo
Show only (or hide) tickets which are todo (i.e. state is New
or ToDo).
.. attribute:: show_active
Show only (or hide) tickets which are active (i.e. state is Talk
or ToDo).
.. attribute:: show_assigned
Show only (or hide) tickets that are assigned to somebody.
.. attribute:: has_site
Show only (or hide) tickets which have a site assigned.
.. attribute:: feasable_by
Show only tickets for which the given supplier is competent.
.. class:: AllTickets
Shows all tickets.
.. class:: RefTickets
Shows all tickets that have a reference.
.. class:: PublicTickets
Shows all public tickets.
.. class:: TicketsToTriage
Shows tickets that need to be triaged. Currently this is
equivalent to those having their state set to :attr:`new
<TicketStates.new>`.
.. class:: TicketsToTalk
.. class:: TicketsNeedingMyFeedback
Shows tickets that are waiting for my feedback.
These are tickets in state Talk where you are not the last commenter.
Only tickets on sites that you are subscribed to.
Includes tickets with no comments.
.. class:: MyTicketsNeedingFeedback
Shows tickets assigned to me and waiting for feedback from others.
Shows tickets of sites that you are subscribed to which are in state Talk
where you are the last commenter.
.. class:: UnassignedTickets
.. class:: ActiveTickets
Show all tickets that are in an active state.
.. class:: MyTickets
Show all active tickets reported by me.
.. class:: TicketsByEndUser
.. class:: TicketsByType
.. class:: DuplicatesByTicket
Shows the tickets which are marked as duplicates of this
(i.e. whose `duplicate_of` field points to this ticket.
.. class:: TicketsSummary
Abstract base class for ticket tables with a summary.
.. class:: MyTicketsToWork
Show all active tickets assigned to me.
.. class:: TicketsBySite