TargetProcess v.2.8 New Features

All the features described below appeared in TargetProcess v.2.8 (March-14)

• Plugins Framework and C# API
• Bugzilla Integration Plugin
• Custom Fields per Process
• Custom Fields in Report Engine
• Visibility Modes in Help Desk Portal and Votes
• Inner Links (id:123)
• Other Improvements

Plugins Framework and C# API

Problem: TargetProcess users needs additional system extensibility.

Solution: Implement plugins framework that allows developers to create own plugins.

Plugins framework provides powerful C# API that allows to extract almost any data from TargetProcess and react to different events it the system.

IBugService bugService = (IBugService) _serviceProvider.GetService(typeof (IBugService));
BugDTO bug = bugService.GetByID(5);
bug.EntityStateName = "Fixed";
bugService.Update(bug);

As a plugin developer you will be able to:

• Subscribe to different events in TargetProcess and do some actions.
• Schedule plugin execution (for example, each 10 minutes).
• Create different settings for plugins for different projects and different processes.
• Create plugin validation rules.
• Create plugins logs.

Some examples of useful plugins that can be created:

• Change Request state to Closed when correspondent Bug or User Story closed.
• Create a report and email it to a team lead each Friday.
• Integrate TargetProcess with any bug tracking tool.
• Integrate TargetProcess with any test cases management tool.

Bugzilla Integration Plugin

Problem: "We have adopted and used Bugzilla as main bug tracking system and do not want to switch to TargetProcess built-in bug tracker".

Solution: Provide Bugzilla integration plugin that allows to have bugs in Bugzilla in sync with TargetProcess bugs.

Bugzilla plugin imports bugs from Bugzilla in real time thus separating two concepts:

• You still use Bugzilla as bug tracking application
• You use TargetProcess for planning bugs to iterations and releases and generating various reports

Such separation give you best of two worlds. Bugzilla is popular and powerful bug tracking tool with almost no planning capabilities. That is why TargetProcess nicely integrates with Bugzilla to fill the gap and provides powerful planning features.

Custom Fields per Process

Problem: We have different departments in our company that follow different processes. They have different fields for user stories, for example. We want to use TargetProcess for all departments, but it is not flexible enough to make this possible.

Solution: Replace global custom fields with process-based custom fields to eliminate such obstacle and make TargetProcess more flexible.

In v.2.8 you may define custom fields inside process. It means you may have different fields for user stories, bugs, test cases, etc. in different processes. Works like a charm!

Custom Fields in Report Engine

Problems: "We define custom field and want to filter information in reports bu this field, but there are no custom fields in report engine".

Solutions: Fully support custom fields in Report Engine.

In v.2.8 there is no difference between original fields and custom fields. You may see custom fields column, filter and group by custom fields.

Visibility Modes in Help Desk Portal and Votes

Problem: "We have many customers with different projects. We want to restrict customers access to Help Desk Portal by company, otherwise we just can't use Help Desk Portal for requests".

Solution: Provide three visibility modes in Help Desk Portal (Global/Company/Private).

There are 3 modes for Help Desk Portal that defines requests visibility and people access:

• Private: Customer will see only his requests.
• Company: Customer will see all requests posted by people from his company. In this mode each requester should be bind to Company and each product should be bind to Company as well. In this case, when adding new request, only products for related company will be available. This mode is useful for service development companies that have many customer groups.
• Global: Customer will see all requests without restrictions, except requests marked as Private. This mode is useful for product development companies, how have many end users.

Inner Links (id:123)

Problem: "It is hard to add quick link to another entity. I'd like to be able to make links in comments/posts/text-fields to entities by typing things like id:123".

Solution: Implement quick linkage.

You may quickly reference entities like bugs, user stories, features, etc. when creating comment or description. For example, you are adding a comment to user story and want to add a link to bug with id = 85. You may just type id:85 in comment field and TargetProcess will automatically render this as a link to required bug.

Other Improvements