Once you feel comfortable using Issue Manager, you’ll need to enter information about your organization into a custom database. The data must be entered via the configuration options in Issue Manager Configuration unit.
Your first step should be to gather information about your organization’s work processes. Take the time to plan carefully.
Information gathering
Introducing Issue Manager into your organization involves completing information-gathering activities in three major areas:
• People
• Products
• Suitability of Issue Manager’s Issue Details page, action dialogs, and workflows
Complete these activities in the following order. Refer to the relevant chapters in this guide for further details.
Gather information about people in your organization
1 Draw up a list of groups (for more information, see “Setting Up Groups”). Decide which security privileges and initial issue states are appropriate for all members in each group.
2 Draw up a list of accounts. Each user who logs into Issue Manager is required to have an account. For more information, see “Setting Up User Accounts”.
Decide on a naming scheme for your accounts. Include the assigned group, and, if necessary, one or more inboxes. Which accounts need extra security privileges that are not covered by the group’s privileges? Should the initial issue states for this account differ from those of the group? Do you want login to require passwords?
3 While reviewing the list of user accounts, note which users need inboxes. Do groups need inboxes, too? Decide on an inbox naming scheme. See “Setting Up Inboxes”.
4 All users have the same default view of inboxes. The view contains eight columns of information. You may customize the default view for all users. For more information on the systemwide default view, see “Setting Up System Default Inbox View”.
Gather information about products
1 Draw up a list of products, releases for each product, and platforms for each release. See “Defining Product Settings”. Compare your platform list with the list of Platforms (SilkCentral Administration/Configuration/Platforms).
2 Draw up a list of software and documentation components of each product. Components (functional areas) are not required; however, they allow you to track issues based on four variables (product, release, platform, and component) and gain finer control over the routing of issues. See the SilkCentral Administration Guide.
3 Draw up a list of issue severities. The values on this list will appear in the Severity field on the Issue Details page. This list can be categorized by product or issue type, or you can come up with a generic list for all products and issue types. Compare your list with the List of Values (SilkCentral Administration/Configuration/List of Values). See the SilkCentral Administration Guide.
4 Decide which inbox should receive an issue pertaining to a given product, component, release, and platform. These are routing rules.
Assess the interface and workflows
(These tasks are optional) Issue Manager provides typical defaults for the Issue Details page, action dialogs, and workflow.
1 Assess the appearance and behavior of the Issue Details page to determine whether or not you want to:
• Modify the default field labels
• Add fields to the custom tab to capture additional information
• Modify the fields on the action dialog, or add your own
Keep a list of your modifications. It’s your responsibility to inform the users in your organization about any modifications you make.
2 Assess the default workflows to determine whether or not they model your organization’s needs. Look at each state and the valid actions for that state. Are the default group permissions for that action satisfactory?
Create your own database
Create your own custom database and populate it with the setup data. Information on creating your own custom database is provided in the SilkCentral Administration Guide.
Customizing the Issue Details page, action dialogs, severities list, and workflow are accomplished via the Issue Manager Configuration unit.
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To learn about customizing |
See |
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Issue Details pages |
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Action dialogs |
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Severities list |
See the SilkCentral Administration Guide |
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Workflow |
Importing Issue Manager 3.x (aka “SilkRadar”) data
The client/server version of Issue Manager, SilkRadar Administrative Console, has been discontinued. SilkRadar 3.x databases are no longer compatible with Issue Manager. The full administrative functionality that was previously available with SilkRadar Administrative Console is now available in Issue Manager's Web GUI.
Issue Manager 3.x issue data can be imported into new projects during the project initialization process. See the SilkCentral Issue Manager User Guide for details.
This process must be performed before repository initialization.