Hello. My name is Fernando Kramer. I am with Perforce (formerly Seapine Software), and on this video, I'd like to show you how to analyze an item's workflow history.
Let's pick a defect here with some history, and open it up.
The Overview tab contains workflow information and provides you with a quick view of the workflow events. The tab one is the last one to be performed. So, as you go down, you're going back in history. You can view more details on each event by clicking on it.
Now, keep in mind that the Overview tab will also show your emails. If you want to focus on the workflow events, then go to the Workflow tab. This provides you with three ways to analyze the item's workflow history. Under Events, you can see all of the workflow events. Here, the tab event in the list is the oldest one. So, as you go down, you're going forward chronologically.
You can expand a column so that, from a single view, you can see all of the events when they happen, comments that are for each event, and other useful information relating to these events. You can also enable system events, and these are optional comments entered when the system performs an automation rule, like an auto assignment, or an automatic email notification.
If you want to focus on time tracking, go to Work Items. Here, you will only see time tracking events, and these are workflow events where estimates have been made, hours have been entered for work performed, and work that remains.
Note that there's also a running total that allows you to better gauge where the item is in the process.
On the diagram, you can view the item's workflow history graphically. Using the same diagram that is available to the administrator, you can see which states the item has already visited, the current state, and which states are available. So, in this case we can see that this item is currently in the Released to Testing state, and it has been in the Open and Open (Verify Failed) states.
Hovering a mouse over an event allows you to see data about that event. To view more information, click on the event. So, here I can see more detail why the verification of this defect failed. If an event is performed multiple times, you will see the number in parentheses. You can also choose which instance to open up to view more information by clicking on-view details.
Now, if you pay close attention to this diagram, you can see that this defect has been in the Released to Testing state more than once. For items that might have visited the same state more than once, try the timeline version of the diagram. This is especially helpful for items that appear to be taking longer to reach a certain point in the workflow. For example, we may be wondering why this item is not making it into the Ready to Release state. Well this diagram allows us to see that the reason is because the item had to be fixed a second time.
The third option is to view the item within the context of the entire workflow. Now, keep in mind that there is security around the workflow history diagram. So, the name of events that a user is not allowed to perform will not show up, and the administrator can choose to not make available the entire workflow diagram. The administrator can also choose not to make the workflow history diagram an option at all.
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