ontime user guide

OnTime 2008 for Windows User's Guide

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Table Of Contents What's Covered in the User's Guide ............................................................................................................... 1

OnTime 2008 Overview .................................................................................................................................. 3

Introduction to OnTime................................................................................................................................ 3

Features and Benefits.............................................................................................................................. 3

Typical Installation ................................................................................................................................... 5

OnTime in the Enterprise......................................................................................................................... 5

What's New in OnTime 2008....................................................................................................................... 5

Project Wiki.............................................................................................................................................. 6

Custom Fields for Projects....................................................................................................................... 6

Custom Customer and Customer Contact Fields..................................................................................... 6

Import Customers and Customer Contacts.............................................................................................. 6

Enhanced Email Templates ..................................................................................................................... 6

Item Locking ............................................................................................................................................ 6

New Custom Field Type - Hyperlink......................................................................................................... 6

Alerts on Workflow Steps......................................................................................................................... 7

Customers Can Add Themselves to Notification Lists ............................................................................. 7

Reschedule Features............................................................................................................................... 7

Drag and Drop Attachments .................................................................................................................... 7

Multi-Edit Fields User Option ................................................................................................................... 7

The OnTime Product Line ........................................................................................................................... 7

OnTime for Windows ............................................................................................................................... 8

OnTime Web Edition................................................................................................................................ 8

OnTime for VS.NET................................................................................................................................. 9

OnTime Customer Portal ....................................................................................................................... 10

OnTime Remote Server ......................................................................................................................... 11

How database authentication works.......................................................................................................... 11

OnTime to SQL: Windows Integrated Authentication............................................................................. 11

OnTime to SQL: SQL Authentication ..................................................................................................... 12

How do the OnTime Products Fit Together? ............................................................................................. 12


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Microsoft SQL Server Database ............................................................................................................ 12

OnTime Remote Server ......................................................................................................................... 12

OnTime for Windows and OnTime for VS.Net ....................................................................................... 12

OnTime Web Edition.............................................................................................................................. 13

OnTime Customer Portal ....................................................................................................................... 13

OnTime SDK.......................................................................................................................................... 13

User's Guide ................................................................................................................................................. 15

Accessing OnTime .................................................................................................................................... 15

Connecting to an OnTime Database...................................................................................................... 15

Connecting to OnTime 2008 Remote Server ......................................................................................... 17

Logging Into OnTime ............................................................................................................................. 18

Customizing What You See....................................................................................................................... 19

Customizing Column Views ................................................................................................................... 19

Sorting ................................................................................................................................................... 21

Filters ..................................................................................................................................................... 21

Applying and Removing Filters .............................................................................................................. 22

Creating a New Filter ............................................................................................................................. 22

Customized View Example .................................................................................................................... 25

Editing or Deleting an Existing Filter ...................................................................................................... 26

Grouping................................................................................................................................................ 27

Searching............................................................................................................................................... 28

Working With Views............................................................................................................................... 29

User Dashboard..................................................................................................................................... 31

Working With Users................................................................................................................................... 35

Managing Security Roles....................................................................................................................... 35

Defining Security Roles.......................................................................................................................... 40

Managing Users..................................................................................................................................... 42

Choosing an Authentication Type for Users........................................................................................... 43

New User Defaults................................................................................................................................. 43

Creating New Users............................................................................................................................... 45

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Editing or Deleting Existing Users.......................................................................................................... 48

User Options and Settings..................................................................................................................... 49

Working With Field Templates................................................................................................................... 54

Adding Field Templates ......................................................................................................................... 55

Editing Field Templates ......................................................................................................................... 57

Deleting Field Templates ....................................................................................................................... 57

Copying Field Templates ....................................................................................................................... 58

Working With Workflows............................................................................................................................ 58

Adding Workflows .................................................................................................................................. 59

Editing Workflows .................................................................................................................................. 59

Deleting Workflows ................................................................................................................................ 60

Copying Workflows ................................................................................................................................ 60

Adding Workflow Steps.......................................................................................................................... 60

Editing Workflow Steps.......................................................................................................................... 64

Deleting Workflow Steps........................................................................................................................ 65

Working With Projects ............................................................................................................................... 65

What is a Project?.................................................................................................................................. 65

The OnTime Project Tree ...................................................................................................................... 66

Understanding Project Hierarchy ........................................................................................................... 67

Adding Projects...................................................................................................................................... 68

Editing Projects...................................................................................................................................... 71

Deleting Projects.................................................................................................................................... 71

Copying Projects.................................................................................................................................... 72

Working With Project Wiki ......................................................................................................................... 72

Adding Wiki Pages................................................................................................................................. 72

Deleting Wiki Pages............................................................................................................................... 72

Editing Wiki Pages................................................................................................................................. 73

Viewing Project Wiki History .................................................................................................................. 74

Working With Project Attachments ........................................................................................................ 74

Working With Project Wiki...................................................................................................................... 75


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Working With Defects................................................................................................................................ 75

Adding a Defect ..................................................................................................................................... 76

Viewing a Defect.................................................................................................................................... 78

Deleting a Defect ................................................................................................................................... 78

Moving a Defect..................................................................................................................................... 79

Working With Features.............................................................................................................................. 79

Adding or Editing a Feature ................................................................................................................... 80

Viewing a Feature.................................................................................................................................. 82

Deleting a Feature ................................................................................................................................. 82

Moving a Feature................................................................................................................................... 83

Moving a Defect..................................................................................................................................... 83

Working With Tasks .................................................................................................................................. 83

Adding or Editing a Task........................................................................................................................ 84

Quick Add .............................................................................................................................................. 85

Viewing a Task ...................................................................................................................................... 86

Deleting a Task...................................................................................................................................... 86

Moving a Task ....................................................................................................................................... 87

Working With Incidents.............................................................................................................................. 87

Adding an Incident ................................................................................................................................. 87

Deleting an Incident ............................................................................................................................... 89

Moving an Incident................................................................................................................................. 89

Viewing an Incident................................................................................................................................ 90

Working with Incidents ........................................................................................................................... 91

Working With OnTime ............................................................................................................................... 91

Duplicating Items ................................................................................................................................... 91

Attaching Files to Items.......................................................................................................................... 92

Formatting Text Fields ........................................................................................................................... 96

Item History............................................................................................................................................ 98

Audit Trails............................................................................................................................................. 99

Multi-Select for Multi-Edit ..................................................................................................................... 102

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Printing Items....................................................................................................................................... 102

Copying and Moving Items .................................................................................................................. 103

Keyboard Shortcuts ............................................................................................................................. 104

Exporting OnTime Data ....................................................................................................................... 106

Archiving Items .................................................................................................................................... 107

Working With Related Items.................................................................................................................... 110

Adding Item Relations.......................................................................................................................... 111

Editing Item Relations.......................................................................................................................... 113

Deleting Item Relations........................................................................................................................ 114

Managing Item Relation Types ............................................................................................................ 114

Adding Item Relation Types................................................................................................................. 114

Editing Item Relation Types ................................................................................................................. 115

Deleting Item Relation Types............................................................................................................... 115

Working With Work Logs......................................................................................................................... 116

Adding Work Logs ............................................................................................................................... 116

Editing Work Logs................................................................................................................................ 117

Deleting Work Logs ............................................................................................................................. 117

Updating Actual Time........................................................................................................................... 117

Working With Notifications....................................................................................................................... 118

Adding Users to Notification Lists ........................................................................................................ 118

Working with Alerts .............................................................................................................................. 120

Working With Emails ............................................................................................................................... 126

Reading Emails.................................................................................................................................... 126

Sending Emails.................................................................................................................................... 127

Deleting Emails.................................................................................................................................... 132

Working With List Types.......................................................................................................................... 133

Working With List Types ...................................................................................................................... 133

Adding List Type Values ...................................................................................................................... 133

Editing List Type Values ...................................................................................................................... 134

Deleting List Type Values .................................................................................................................... 134


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Working With Pick Lists........................................................................................................................... 134

Working with Pick Lists ........................................................................................................................ 134

Adding Pick Lists ................................................................................................................................. 135

Adding Dependent Pick Lists ............................................................................................................... 136

Editing Pick Lists or Pick List Values ................................................................................................... 137

Deleting Pick Lists or Pick List Values ................................................................................................. 138

Working With Custom Fields ................................................................................................................... 138

Working with Custom Fields ................................................................................................................ 138

Adding Custom Fields.......................................................................................................................... 139

Adding Dependent Custom Fields ....................................................................................................... 141

Editing Custom Fields.......................................................................................................................... 142

Deleting Custom Fields........................................................................................................................ 142

Working With Manage Fields Layout ................................................................................................... 143

SCM Integration ...................................................................................................................................... 144

Working With SCM Files ...................................................................................................................... 146

Adding Links to Files............................................................................................................................ 147

Deleting Links to Files.......................................................................................................................... 149

Viewing Files and History..................................................................................................................... 149

Checking Files In and Out.................................................................................................................... 151

Reports.................................................................................................................................................... 152

List of Built-In Reports.......................................................................................................................... 152

The Report Interface............................................................................................................................ 154

Report Samples ................................................................................................................................... 155

Managing Reports ............................................................................................................................... 155

Creating Custom Reports .................................................................................................................... 157

Editing Custom Reports ....................................................................................................................... 158

Deleting Custom Reports..................................................................................................................... 159

Managing Report Shortcuts ................................................................................................................. 159

Adding Report Shortcuts...................................................................................................................... 159

Editing Report Shortcuts ...................................................................................................................... 160

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Deleting Report Shortcuts.................................................................................................................... 161

Active Reports Concepts ..................................................................................................................... 161

Scripting............................................................................................................................................... 166

Index ........................................................................................................................................................... 175

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What's Covered in the User's Guide

This User's Guide covers the core functionality of the OnTime product for every user type. Whether you are an OnTime Administrator, Project Manager, Developer or Tester, you will find the information you need to perform your day-to-day OnTime operations in this User's Guide.

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OnTime 2008 Overview

Introduction to OnTime

OnTime is a multi-user Defect, Feature, Incident and Task Management system designed to allow teams of software developers and testers to manage and track all aspects of a software project. The system tracks all user information, settings, projects, defects, features and tasks through a centrally shared database hosted by Microsoft SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2000 MSDE, SQL Server 2005 Standard, or SQL Server 2005 Express.

Features and Benefits

A brief summary of OnTime's unique functionality is provided in the table below:

Feature Benefit

Project Hierarchy Tree

OnTime allows for defects, features, incidents and tasks to be tracked and organized by project using a hierarchical tree, much like the Windows file system. This powerful feature allows for work items related to a project to be grouped together and found easily with just the click of a button.

Project Wiki OnTime allows you to create Wiki pages associated to your projects to track or present information vital to your project. You can create and collaborate on project specifications, coding guidelines or any other information that you'd like. You can also view an automatically generated table of contents, see recent changes to your wiki pages, or search through wiki pages to easy find the information needed.

Multi-User Support

OnTime allows for any number of users to simultaneously access the OnTime database and work with the same data from multiple platforms. It automatically tracks all user settings for each user and prevents data loss by locking items that are currently in use. Locks can be configured to automatically refresh and timeout after a period of time has pass as well as manually managed through the Lock Manager. OnTime installations have been tested with as many as 1,000 users.

Full Customization

OnTime allows for administrators to create custom fields, modify the look of add/edit screens, modify the view windows, create custom filters and much more to impliment your development or support processes into OnTime. Nearly all aspects of OnTime's functionality can be customized and Axosoft provides a Web Services SDK for integrating defect reporting and feature request capabilities into existing or new applications.

File and OnTime's unlimited file attachment capabilities allows for


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Image Attachments

related screenshots, specifications and other documents to be attached to any defect, feature, task, incident or even project. OnTime even allows for this information to be stored inside the OnTime database so that any user can access attachments from any client type - even over the Internet.

Role & Project Security

OnTime's powerful security features allow information to be locked and secured based on definable user roles. Any number of security roles can be defined to provide the exact set of privileges and limit project access. Each user can in turn have any number of assigned roles, so a user can act as a tester on some projects, while he or she might have developer privileges on another set of projects.

Full Audit Trails & History

OnTime tracks all user changes to defects, features, and incidents creating a detailed set of audit information that includes the person who made the change, the date and time of change as well as the details of each change.

Powerful Import/Export

If you're currently tracking defects, features or tasks in a spreadsheet or some other tool, no worries. You can import all your existing items using OnTime's powerful import capabilities, which include the ability to map your existing fields to the appropriate OnTime field, set default values for new fields and even save your templates for future reuse.

Email Notifications

Email Notifications allow every team member to stay informed about changes to items tracked in the system. OnTime's powerful email notification includes the ability to subscribe to changes of defects and features by item, by project or globally. You can even subscribe customers to receive email notification of changes. Email notifications can also be configured extensively to include the desired information and format.

Powerful Reporting

OnTime includes more than 15 built-in reports that provide an extensive view on you projects. Applicable reports automatically pick up current filter and search criteria so that there is no need to "setup" the report before looking at a preview. Reports can also be exported to PDF format so you can easily share reports with colleagues who don't necessarily have access to OnTime. OnTime also provides an end-user report designer, allowing you to create powerful custom reports.

Customer Portal

The optional OnTime Customer Portal allows you to setup a brandable customer-facing web site that provides a means for your customers to self-register to report and view defects and feature requests. Using the Customer Portal Admin, you can easily define the specific access level for your customers, down to the fields and projects that customers are allowed to see.

Enterprise Connectivity

Users who access the OnTime system from outside the corporate network or within environments that are not able to access the database directly are no longer limited to just


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a Web interface. Using the OnTime Remote Server, remote Windows Client or VS .Net Plugin users can now connect to an OnTime database through a web service using an SSL secured HTTPS connection, even from behind a firewall and proxy.

Choice of Clients

OnTime provides users with the choice of 3 different clients: Windows Desktop application, a Web client accessed through a web browser (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Netscape and Safari are supported) or through an integrated client inside the Visual Studio.NET environment. Users can optionally choose to access the system using all 3 clients depending on which client meets their needs at any given time.

State-of-the-Art Technology

OnTime was designed from the ground up using state-of-the-art technologies including 100% managed .NET Code and Microsoft SQL Server backend. This emphasis on design and technology has allowed OnTime to have incredible application performance, reliability and scalability.

Typical Installation

A typical OnTime 2008 installation consists of multiple users, each with a different role. For example, most installations will include users who are project managers, developers and testers. Each user type or individual user might prefer a different client type.

OnTime Windows Client - This type of client is usually preferred by software testers and project managers and provides a rich desktop application to access the OnTime system.

OnTime Web Client - This browser-based client is usually preferred by remote users, or users who are away from their desk and need access to the OnTime system.

OnTime VS.NET Client - This integrated Visual Studio.NET client is usually preferred by software developers who don't want to leave the VS.NET IDE to access the OnTime system.

Although OnTime supports multiple databases, most teams will find a single database is sufficient for tracking all projects and related information.

OnTime in the Enterprise

Larger organizations might choose to install the entire line of OnTime solutions, including the OnTime Customer Portal, Remote Server and Web Services SDK. In such scenarios, the installation of OnTime might become more complex. OnTime can easily scale from a single-user application to an enterprise-ready solution handling hundreds or even thousands of users and projects.

What's New in OnTime 2008

OnTime 2008 delivers over 60 new features that help software development teams collaborate and ship software on time better than ever before. Major highlights include a new project wiki that inherits much of OnTime’s trademark usability, including the project hierarchy. Extreme customization has been added at the project and customer levels. And, now OnTime allows users to configure a number of


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custom email templates to ensure all of the appropriate information is conveyed via user and customer notifications. Here are some of our favorite new features.

Project Wiki

OnTime 2008 has been energized with a new Project Wiki. This new feature acts as a collaboration point for your projects where requirements, processes, attachments and knowledge can be shared. It’s the perfect starting point for any new project, it continues to be useful throughout the project life cycle, and permanently captures information that would otherwise be lost in personal email conversations. Now, each folder in your project hierarchy acts as a unified information repository. You can easily create new pages within the tree structure, add links to other relevant pages, and even include images from your OnTime database. Since your project wiki is right inside of OnTime, this eliminates the need for a separate application that requires duplicate user accounts and security roles. With OnTime, your team's wiki is self-managed and secure. Audit trails keep an historical archive of all changes, while the intuitive Table of Contents and Recently Changed Pages views help ensure your team can effortlessly stay up to date.

Custom Fields for Projects

The power of OnTime custom fields has now been extended to Projects. Easily control what specific project data you would like to track and how you would like it to be organized on the screen. The new Custom Fields Layout window, with its drag-and-drop interface, makes it easier than ever to tailor fit OnTime to your business needs.

Custom Customer and Customer Contact Fields

With OnTime 2008 tracking your important Customers and Customer contacts information has never been easier. Now with the easy to use drag and drop based Custom Field Layout editor, you can easily create groups and organize your customer custom fields. Also, Customer and Customer Contact fields can now be added to the main data grid allowing the existing power of the data grid to be leveraged against Customer and Customer Contact custom fields.

Import Customers and Customer Contacts

The same ease of importing defects, features, tasks, and incidents has now been applied to Customers and Customer Contacts. Now you can import your clients and contacts from your existing contact management applications or use the import feature to update customers and contacts already in the OnTime system. Just like the existing item import, you can save all of your import configuration settings into a template to effortlessly import Customers and Customer Contacts.

Enhanced Email Templates

Notifications and alerts have always been an important mainstay of OnTime’s project visibility and team collaboration benefits by automatically keeping team members aware of changes to items in the database. This has been greatly enhanced in OnTime 2008 through the use of a number of 100% customizable e-mail templates. Create variable e-mail notifications that can be arranged and specialized for different actions of the OnTime process. Alert notifications, Customer notifications, and User notifications can be tailored to include the exact information you need.

Item Locking

This new feature allows hundreds of users to work with OnTime simultaneously without fear of losing data or editing an item currently open by another OnTime user. To make things easier than before, items receive a lock when they are edited and the lock is then released when the item is closed. Other users attempting to use the item will be informed that the item is locked. Administrators can also easily unlock items when needed using the Lock Manager utility.

New Custom Field Type - Hyperlink


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This new custom field type allows the creation of new custom fields that contain hyperlinks to web sites related to your defects, features, tasks, incidents, customers, customer contacts, and even projects. Links can be dynamically constructed using fields within the item and can be inserted as URL parameters to easily allow integration with existing web sites. Some examples include linking an incident to a forum post or

Alerts on Workflow Steps

With OnTime 2008, alerts can now include triggers based on workflow steps. This allows OnTime to send out notifications when a workflow step changes the same way alerts works for the rest of your data.

Customers Can Add Themselves to Notification Lists

When creating a new item in the OnTime Customer Portal, customers now have the ability to easily add themselves to the notification list for the created item. Customers can simply check a box at the bottom of the item submission form to stay updated about the status of the item they are submitting.

Reschedule Features

In OnTime 2008, changing the scheduling of your features is now easier than ever. The reschedule feature lets you easily change the dates associated with a feature with a few clicks. For example if a project is pushed back two weeks, we can use the reschedule feature to bump the due dates for our features up two weeks.

Drag and Drop Attachments

In the OnTime 2008 Windows client, attachments can now be easily placed in Defects, Features, Tasks, or Incidents by simply dragging and dropping the file from your desktop.

Multi-Edit Fields User Option

With OnTime 2008, you can now select with fields, including your custom fields, to be included with the Multi-Edit feature. Each user can independently specify which fields are displayed in the multi-edit drop down menu.

The OnTime Product Line

The OnTime 2008 product line consists of:

OnTime 2008 for Windows - provides a rich windows application for managing software development efforts. The rich Windows client provides a powerful and fast UI with drag-and-drop capabilities.

OnTime 2008 Web Server -allows users to access the OnTime system from anywhere in the world with just a web browser. Supported browsers include Internet Explorer, Netscape, FireFox and Safari.

OnTime 2008 for VS.NET - integrates the OnTime system inside the Visual Studio .NET 2005. Software developers never need to leave the VS.NET IDE to access the most commonly used functionality of the OnTime system.

OnTime 2008 Customer Portal - provides a brandable customer-facing web site for end-users. Visitors of the Customer Portal can self register to view and report defects and request features.


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OnTime 2008 Remote Server -allows remote connectivity to an OnTime database through Web Services even for OnTime Windows and VS.NET clients. Users can connect through firewalls and proxies.

OnTime 2008 SDK - provides a set of Web Services APIs for obtaining and modifying defects and features allowing defect reporting and feature request capabilities to be integrated into any existing application.

In each of the sections below, we'll cover these products in more detail.

OnTime for Windows

OnTime for Windows runs on any Windows desktop with the .Net Framework V2.0 installed. Each OnTime desktop connects to a database which resides on an MS SQL Server or optionally through the OnTime Remote Server. Access to OnTime is controlled by user accounts. User accounts can be configured to prompt for login information each time the program is started or to use Windows Authentication to determine the user logging in.

The main interface for OnTime for Windows looks like this:

The main benefit of the OnTime Windows client is the familiar and rich Desktop application user interface. However, each user wishing to run the OnTime Windows client needs to install the client on his or her machine.

OnTime Web Edition

OnTime Web Server runs on any Microsoft Windows 2000 or 2003 Server with IIS 5.0 or 6.0 and the .NET Framework Runtime V2.0 installed. As the name implies, the OnTime Web Server is a server-


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side installation and can be accessed by users with just a web browser. No additional software is needed on the client-side for using the OnTime Web Server.

The main user interface for OnTime Web Server looks like this:

The main benefit of the OnTime Web Server is the fact that the system can be accessed from anywhere in the world and users don't need any special software to access the system. A web browser such as Internet Explorer or FireFox is sufficient to access the OnTime system through an OnTime Web Server installation.

OnTime for VS.NET

OnTime for VS.NET is a miniature version of OnTime for Windows. This version of OnTime runs only as an embedded application within the Visual Studio .NET 2005 interface. Like the Windows edition, the VS.NET edition connects from a desktop to a database on an MS SQL Server or optionally through the OnTime Remote Server. When an OnTime user brings up the VS.NET interface, a tools window is embedded inside the VS.NET interface to access the information in the OnTime System.

The interface to OnTime for VS.Net looks like this:


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Notice that in the OnTime for VS.NET interface, all of the defects, features, and tasks are shown in one list. Project items can be differentiated by the icons to the left of the Item ID for each item. Additional information for the items do not show on the home page for the project. In order to see the additional information, the item must be viewed or edited.

OnTime Customer Portal

The OnTime Customer Portal allows your clients, customers or end users to work with OnTime by giving them the ability to easily create, view and edit defects, features and incidents. Administrators can limit where in the project tree a customer can view items, what actions a customer can perform, as well as which fields can be viewed or edited.

The main Customer Portal Interface looks like this:


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With the Customer Portal, your customers can work with defects, features and incidents. The OnTime administrator defines which fields are seen when the customer clicks the item name. This information is shown on a separate web page.

OnTime Remote Server

The OnTime Remote Server allows users of the Windows and VS.NET clients to connect to Ontime in situations and environments whwere connecting directly to the database is not possible. The Remote Server acts as a gateway between remote users and the OnTime Database by using a secured URL and acting as a web service. For security purposes, a GUID is setep within the Remote server to be used in configuration of remote clients.

How database authentication works

In order to access OnTime data, users must be authenticated to use the OnTime application. This authentication is set up on a per user basis can be done using either Windows Integrated Authentication or OnTime Authentication. In addition, OnTime needs to authenticate itself to the SQL server. This authentication is done using either Windows Integrated Authentication or an SQL Authentication.

The OnTime user to the OnTime authentication is described in the Creating New Users section of the User's Guide. Here, we will cover the authentication that occurs between the OnTime applications and the SQL server.

OnTime to SQL: Windows Integrated Authentication

When Windows Integrated authentication is used for the OnTime to SQL connections, one Id and password will need to be created for each machine which will be making a connection to the SQL server. Users are not required to provide a user ID and password when a database connection is initiated. Instead, their Windows ID and password will be used. While this method of authentication is easier for the users, as it does not require the memorization of a second set of log in information, it is much less secure than SQL Authentication.


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Users of OnTime Web Server and OnTime Customer Portal should not use Windows Integrated Authentication, as these sessions are not tied to any single machine.

OnTime to SQL: SQL Authentication

When SQL's built in authentication is used for the OnTime to SQL connections, a single user id and password is created for all instances of OnTime. Whenever a user connects to a database, they must know the specific SQL user id and password for the installation.

The SQL user id is required to be either the default SA user which is set up with every SQL installation, or another SQL user with the same level of privileges. Because this user is set up on an SQL installation by SQL installation basis, the password and user id are more secure than the WIndows Integrated setup.

Any user of OnTime can be set to connect to the SQL server using the SQL authentication method.

How do the OnTime Products Fit Together?

As can be seen from the diagram, the OnTime 2006 products allow users to access the database from within a single network or remotely via the internet.

Microsoft SQL Server Database

OnTime 2008 uses a SQL server database to store all information. Users access the data in the database by connecting to the SQL server either directly or via the OnTime Remote Server. Although multiple databases can be created using OnTime, most teams find that a single OnTime database is sufficient for their needs. Additionally, working with multiple databases can violate your licensing agreement as every OnTime user must be properly licensed. OnTime sets up a non-exclusive connection to the SQL server, either directly, or through OnTime Remote Server.

OnTime Remote Server

The OnTime Remote Server allows users of the Windows and VS.NET clients to connect to an OnTime database through a secured URL using Web Services. All users who access the data via the Remote Server must be provided with a security GUID and the URL for access.

OnTime for Windows and OnTime for VS.Net

OnTime for Windows and OnTime for VS.Net are the desktop based interfaces to the database. They reside within the same network as the SQL server or the Remote server. Users of these two products access the data by authentication with the appropriate server and passing data to, and receiving


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updates from the database via database refreshes. All desktop users of OnTime connect to a single SQL server, whether it be a direct connection or an indirect connection via an OnTime Remote Server.

OnTime Web Edition

The OnTime Web Edition allows OnTime users to access OnTime over the web. This can be great for users who work remotely or prefer using a web browser. Users can connect to this IIS based web application using either port 80 or port 443. Port 443 is the preferred port, as it is the most secure web access port available. If desired, the OnTime Web Edition can be set up to use Port 80. Port 80 is not as secure as Port 443.

The OnTime Web Edition will then in turn connect directly to the database. Configuration for the database connection is only needed on the server hosting the OnTime Web Edition and not for users accessing the OnTime Web Edition through a browser.

OnTime Customer Portal

OnTime Customer Portal is a way for OnTime users' customers to access limited data in the OnTime database. Customer Portal users use a browser based interface to access the database. Customer Portal users can access data from anywhere there is Internet access.

The OnTime administrator sets up what access Customer Portal users will have to the projects and items within the database. The administrator also controls which Customer Portal users have access and how they acquire access. Administration for the Customer Portal is done through the OnTime Windows Client or the OnTime Web Edition.

OnTime SDK

The OnTime SDK provides a structured interface for developers to utilize when created new applications or integrating OnTIme into existing applications. This web service connects directly to the database. Existing or new applciations can then connect to the SDK's web services to perform actions and retrieve data within OnTime.

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User's Guide

Accessing OnTime

In order to use the OnTime Windows or VS.NET clients, there must first be an OnTime database or OnTime Remote Server to connect to. To setup an OnTime database, or to setup an OnTime Remote Server, please see the Administrator's Guide.

Once an OnTime database is prepared by an OnTime Administrator, users need to perform the following actions:

1. Connect to an OnTime Database

2. Log in to OnTime

The first step is only done once when setting up OnTime or when switching databases.

Connecting to an OnTime Database

Using the OnTime Windows Client

Using the OnTime VS.NET Client

When the OnTime Windows client is first started, the OnTime Database Setup window appears:

After installing OnTime 2008 for VS.NET, log into Visual Studio and go to Tools. From the Tools menu, activate the OnTime 2008 VS.Net module. You will now be able to log into the database and view the OnTime Database Setup window:


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From the OnTime Database Setup window, each user must provide the database login information. This information should be obtained from the OnTime administrator. For more information, see the OnTime Administration Guide.

Logging Into OnTime

When the database connection is established, the login screen will appear:

User's Guide

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By default, this screen will appear ready to login the Admin user. Replace the id and the password with the information provided by the OnTime Administrator.

Note: If the active Windows user has been configured to use Windows Integrated Authentication, the user will never see the OnTime Login prompt. To force the OnTime login prompt to appear, the OnTime Windows client can be started with a login argument from the Windows command line: ontime.exe login

Switching Between OnTime Databases

If an OnTime user ever needs to change to another OnTime database, the Manage Database Window can be accessed from within OnTime by clicking the Manage Database button:

Connecting to OnTime 2008 Remote Server

The OnTime 2008 Remote Server allows OnTime Windows and VS.NET clients to access the OnTime system remotely through the use of web services. This section explains how to connect to an OnTime Enterprise Server.

Note: Before you attempt to connect to an OnTime Remote Server, the server must be prepared and ready to go. You must also have the appropriate URL and Security GUID information from your OnTime administrator. See the Administrator's Guide for information about setting up a new OnTime 2008 Remote Server.

To connect to an OnTime 2008 Remote Server, open the OnTime Database Setup window and click the Remote Connection tab. Complete the two fields using the URL and Security GUID you obtained from your OnTime administrator.


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Click the Open Database button. Before the database opens, an activation window for the database may appear. If it does, contact the OnTime administrator for information on how to activate the database.

Logging Into OnTime

When you first connect to OnTime using any of the Windows, Web or VS.NET Client, you might see a login prompt asking for a Login ID and Password. When prompted with this request, type in the login information provided to you by your OnTime Administrator.

If the OnTime Administrator has setup Integrated Windows Authentication for you, it's possible that you will never be prompted for a login ID. OnTime can use your Windows credentials to identify you and automatically log you into the OnTime system.

If you are the only user of the OnTime system and this is a new installation, you can login to the system using the built-in user account and password below:

Login ID: Admin

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Password: [BLANK]

Note: The built-in Admin account does not have a password. After logging in as the Admin user, you should change the Admin account's password to ensure proper security to your OnTime database.

Customizing What You See

When OnTime is opened, the default view for each of the three categories of items (defects, features, tasks, and incidents) is to see all items within the selected project. In addition, the visible columns are the same columns that were active the last time the items were viewed.

Changing what is seen can be done in a number of ways:

Changing the columns to be viewed

Filtering the items to be viewed

Sorting the items

Grouping the items

Searching for items that meet a certain criteria and only viewing those items

Working With Views

Customizing Column Views

One of the advantages of OnTime is the ability to customize the columns to be viewed for defects, features, tasks, and incidents independently. This section explains how to customize each of the Defect, Feature, Task and Incident views.

Customizing Defect Views

When viewing a defect from the sample database, the default view shows 7 columns: ID, project, defect name, assigned to, priority, status, and severity. The default view for a new, empty database is just the id and name of the defect. Customizing the viewed columns is done via the Edit Columns button on the toolbar. This will open the Columns drop down showing which columns can be added to the current view. Fields for the current item type (defects, features, tasks or incidents) can be added to the datagrid as well as Customer and Customer Contact fields. After selecting the column to be added, the new column will be added to the end of the column list.


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To change the order of the columns, return to the main defects view, click the column header and drag it right or left to its new location.

To save the new view, click the OK button. To retain the current view, click Cancel button. Changes to the view will be seen immediately.

Customizing Feature, Task, and Incident Views

The same process can be followed to customize the Feature, Task, and Incident views columns and order of each column.

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Sorting

Defects, features, tasks, and incidents in OnTime are by default sorted by ID and incidents are sorted by incident number. Knowing that there are many times when this isn't the best order for working with items, OnTime provides two different sorting mechanisms.

Sorting by a Single Column

To sort items by the values in a single column, click the header for that column. The first click will set the sort order to ascending. Clicking a second time will toggle the sort order to descending.

Removing Sorts

To remove sorting from the list of items being viewed and return the order to ID ascending, click the Sort button and slide down to the last choice: Clear Sort.

Filters

Filters allow the OnTime user to limit which items are being seen at any given time. Filters are applied to the current items (defects, features, tasks, or incidents), and narrow the scope of the view down to just the items that need to be seen or worked with at the moment. Filters do not remove data from the project, merely from the current view of the items in the project. Filtering can be performed on all fields of an item, regardless of whether the field column is visible or not on the data grid. If you get unexpected results with a filter, be sure to check the filter for fields used that may not currently be visible in the data grid.

For many OnTime users, the items available to view have already been narrowed by the projects they are allowed to view from a security standpoint. While this narrowing of the view is not technically a filter, it is a good example of the narrowed view a filter gives.

There are two sets of filters for OnTime items: Public Filters and Private Filters. Public filters are visible to all users while private filters are intended to be used by the creator of the filter. OnTime provides a number of built-in public filters. The following are some examples:

Defect Filters - All My Defects, All My Non-Closed Defects, and All Open Defects

Feature Filters - All My Features, All My Non-Closed Features, All Open Features, and My Features Due This Week


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Task Filters - All My Tasks

Incident Filters - All My Incidents

In addition, users with sufficient security rights can create new public filters for everyone to access.

Private filters are created by a user for only their own needs. No one else can access the filter or use it. If a user has the security rights to do so, filters can be changed from private to public or vice versa by editing them.

Applying and Removing Filters

To filter the items OnTime shows for a project, view the items and then select and apply the filter. Private filters show first in the list, followed by public filters. Within each set of filters, the filters are shown in alphabetical order.

Applying a Filter

To select a filter to apply, click the arrow next to the filter icon, then select the desired filter from the dropdown list. Private filters will appear at the top of the list while public filters will be listed below the separator.

The item list will immediately change to show only the items that meet the criteria defined by the filter. For example, if the list of all features for the sample data are shown, and the All Open Features filter is applied, the list will narrow to only show the sub-set of items that qualify for the conditions defined in the "All Open Features" filter.

Removing Filters

Once the user is done working with or viewing the filtered items and wishes to return to the full list of items, the filter can be removed by clicking the Toggle Filter On/Off Button.

Creating a New Filter

Creation of filters is done via the Edit Filters window from the appopriate item menu. This window contains four tabs: Defect Filters, Feature Filters, Task Filters, and Incident Filters. Filters for these items are created and used the same way, but each item has its own list of filters available for use.

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To create a filter, click the Add New button. This will bring up the Add Filter window.

Enter the new filter's name in the Name Field, then check the box if this is a private filter. (New filters are by default private filters.) If the user does not have security access to create public filters, the private Filter box will not be enabled for use.

When these two fields are completed, click the Save button to move to the next step of filter creation. If the filter is not going to be created, click the Cancel button to return to the Manage Filters window.


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When this screen appears the first time, no conditions will show. So, the process for adding conditions comes next.

The Conditions of a filter define the items to be filtered in or out by comparing the values of the fields for each item to the condition set in the filter. The conditions are created by clicking the Add New button.

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For each condition, it must be decided whether this is an "AND" condition or an "OR" condition. For "AND" conditions to be met, both the left condition and the right condition of the "AND" operator must be met. For "OR" conditions to be met, either condition could be true.

OnTime filters also allow parenthetical conditions. Parenthetical conditions allow conditions to be nested and grouped as desired. It is recommended that if complex conditions are being created, parenthetical conditions be used. It is also recommended that complex filters be written out before they are entered into the OnTime system to ensure that the filter conditions are created and ordered as desired.

For each condition, choose the field for the condition as well as what the condition is. For example, you may want to create a filter condition that shows only items not assigned to Cathy Oreily or David Rolf and any other condition already defined. In this case, the condition window would look like this:

Be careful when selecting columns for conditions. The column name list contains multiple entries for certain fields. In some cases, as in the Assigned To field chosen above (the first one on the list), the available items list will show all choices that can be selected from the list. In other cases, as in the Description field in the list, a space is provided for single entries to be typed in or for SQL commands to be entered for the condition. In these cases, there will be a note provided that offers suggestions on using SQL commands in the conditions.

Once the condition is created, click the Save button. If the condition is not going to be used in the filter, click the Cancel button. Repeat the condition creation process for each condition the filter needs, then close the Edit Filter window.

While filters can be used within any of the OnTime client applicaitons, filters cannot be created from the OnTime VS.NET plugin.

Customized View Example


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In addition to changing what columns are viewed at any given time, any of the views can be further customized by grouping, sorting, or filtering the data. When customizing the view of any item list, the customization settings are applied in the following order:

1. Items are shown or not shown based on the security level of the current user. This decision is invisible to the user, as the settings are determined by the role assigned to the user when the user is created.

2. The set of items to be shown is created as a union of the items visible by the currently selected project. Visible items are those in the project and any of its child projects.

3. If any filters have been applied to the item list, the set of items to be shown will be limited to the currently applied filters.

4. Finally, if a search has been run, the items found by the search will be the only results shown.

If the list of items shown has been limited by either a filter or a search (or both) and a multi-edit is executed, the result list is likely to change.

Editing or Deleting an Existing Filter

In addition to creating new filters, OnTime lets existing filters be edited or even deleted. To edit a filter, either double click the filter name or click the edit filter button. When an existing filter is shown in the edit filter, it looks like this version of the My Features Due This Week filter:

Deleting a Filter

To delete a filter, select it in the filter list and click the delete button. A confirmation message will be displayed and then the filter will be removed from the OnTime system immediately.

If users have the security rights to manage public filters, they will have access to edit and delete them. If the user does not have access to manage public filters, they will be able to apply the filter to the data,

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but not edit or delete it. If a public filter is edited or deleted, the change will affect all users with access to that filter.

Grouping

Grouping is the process of listing data by category within a certain field. The resulting view provides a block or paragraph of data for items with the same field value.

Grouping is done by using the Group button. Clicking this button brings up a list of the currently defined fields for the items being listed. Selecting a field changes the current view to the grouped view. In OnTime 2008, items can be grouped by Customer and Customer Contact custom fields, as well as the fields associated with the items (defects, features, tasks and incidents).

If the current view is all features for all projects and the information is grouped by status, the first page of the resulting view will look like this:

Notice that with the new view, it is easy to see which features are in which state. Items being viewed using grouping can also be sorted on various columns and filtered. You can also further refine this view by using First, Second, and Third column sorts.

Two reasons to use Group By instead of Sort

The first reason is that the grouped items are easier to view than the sorted items. Each group of results is visually set off from the next.

The other reason is that unlike sorting the items, when group by is used the field to be grouped by does not need to be visible in the current view. This allows users to set up a grouping based on columns that are not currently visible without adding the column to the current view.

As an example, change the group by from the above shots to the Critical to Success Custom Field and the new view looks like this:


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Notice that the displayed fields are still the same and that any of them can be sorted on, however, without using any additional screen real estate, an extra field is now able to be seen since the data is grouped by a field not in the current view.

Searching

OnTime allows users to search for any string needed within certain fields. This is done via the Search toolbar found at the top of each item list.

Executing and Clearing Searches

To start a search, type the text to be located in the Search For box and then select either all fields or a single field from the drop-down selection.

Once the search has been set up, click the binocular button. The resulting list will contain all items within the scope of the current view that match the current search request. To clear the search results and return to the item list in view before the search, click the Clear button. Searches can also be cleared by deleting the content from the Search For box or clicking the binoculars button.

Search Grammar

When searching for a phrase that contains multiple words separated by space, OnTime will search for each individual word anywhere in the search fields. If you want to search for an exact phrase you will need to place it inside double quotes (e.g. "defect fixed"). You may also use the 'AND' and 'OR' operators (without quotes) between words to form more complex searches (Note that a space between words is treated as an 'AND'). For example, if you wish to search for defects that contain the word 'defect' or the word 'bug' you would enter the following search phrase: defect OR bug.

Searchable Fields

In most cases, the text being searched for can be found in any field by leaving the In value set to (ALL). This will cause the provided string to be found only if it exists in the searchable fields. However, when the search needs to be limited to a certain field, a single field can be selected from the list of this item's searchable fields. The list of searchable fields depends on which item is currently being viewed.

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Searchable fields for defects

Defect ID Name Description Reproduce Resolution Notes Replication Procedures Plus any text based custom fields that have been added to defects Any text based fields for the Customer and Customer Contact associated with the defect

Searchable fields for features

Feature ID Name Description Notes Plus any text based custom fields that have been added to features Any text based fields for the Customer and Customer Contact associated with the feature

Searchable fields for tasks

Item ID Name Notes Plus any text based custom fields that have been added to the database

Searchable fields for incidents

Incident Number Name Notes Description Replication Procedures Resolution Plus any text based custom fields that have been added to incidents Any text based fields for the Customer and Customer Contact associated with the incident

Working With Views

Views are a powerful way to control the look and feel of your OnTime environment. Individual views save a series of attributes about your screen that you can recall instantly. Views can also be made either public or private, similar to filters. Simply check or uncheck the "Private View" checkbox when creating a view to keep the view to yourself or share this view with other OnTime users. To use views, adjust your OnTime in either Web or Windows, examining the following criteria:

The current treeview tab

The current project tab information, customer tab information, or users tab information

Currently active Filter

How the items are currently Grouped


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Any Search Text entered

Column settings including which columns are visible, the column order and the width of the columns

Currently selected Details tab

When you have these set in a certain way that you would like to come back to later, click the "Views" button and then click "Save View":

Once you are on the "Add View" screen, the system wants to know which options you would like to attribute to the view you are about to save:.

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Your view is then available to adjust your screen properties:

User Dashboard

The User Dashboard is a new window that personnel can utilize to view items and is designed for the typical user. It provides the familiar grid list, but it combines all the different item types into a single, group-capable list. Quick-filters and customized filters can be used to access specific data. This non-modal window can also be run side-by-side with the main OnTime window and can be set up to update over time automatically.


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The User Dashboard is composed of five different sections: Toolbar, Filters, Grid, Group Summary, and Pie Chart.

Toolbar

The toolbar contains several buttons which control how information is handled on the entire dashboard:

Edit Selected Item

Opens the "Edit" screen for the currently selected item using the item's Project-level field template.

Edit selected Item in Workflow

Opens the "Edit" screen for the currently selected item using the item's Project-level field template. Double clicking on an item in the list will also open the item in workflow view.

Select columns to show in grid

Controls which columns appear on the grid.

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Group

If a field is selected here, then the grid will break up its items into piles based on the values of the selected field.

Select an auto-refresh time, or Refresh

Auto-refresh can do an automatic refresh of the data in intervals of 5 minutes, 30 minutes, or 1 hour.

Item Type

This selection allows for all item types or only certain item types (Defects, Features, Tasks, Incidents).

Toggle between quick filtering and automatic filtering

When this toggle is inactive, then the Quick Filters section is available for filter selection from the User Dashboard (see "Quick Filters" below).

When this toggle is active, then the Quick Filters section is removed and the user's filters are applied to the User Dashboard (the user's filters from the main OnTime window that are currently activated). This allows users to customize their own search criterion through the use of OnTime custom filters.

Quick Filters

The Quick Filters section is only visible when the "Toggle between quick filtering and automatic filtering" button is not activated (see description above). If the user is not activating their own personal filters, then the Quick Filters are available for fast filtering choices. There are seven Quick Filters that are available:

Assigned To

Projects

Status

Priority

Start Date

Due Date

Completion Date

Remember: If these Quick Filters are not giving you enough search capability, then create your own filter on the main OnTime system, apply it, and then click the "Toggle between quick filtering and automatic filtering" button above to use your customized filter.

Grid


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The User Dashboard grid has much of the same flexibility that the main OnTime grid has:

Users can move fields around by dragging the column headers to a new location on the grid

Column widths can be modified by dragging on the header spacers on the header row

Single-column sorts can be easily accomplished in ascending and descending order by simply left-clicking on a column header

Double clicking on an item on the grid will perform an "edit" on the selected item just as if an edit were normally performed

Group Summary

The Group Summary displays summary information for the grid data based on the Group selection that is currently chosen. If the data is not being grouped by a field, then the information is grouped by "Item Type".

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Pie Chart

The Pie Chart displays the grouping information from the "Group Summary" grid. The sections are broken down into a colorful chart, useful for determining grouping distributions at-a-glance. In the upper-right hand corner a button exists to instead toggle group amounts with estimated duration values. Also, the graph can be minimzed using the arrow in the bottom-right side of the chart.

Working With Users

When OnTime users are created, they are assigned security roles and provided access to projects and tasks based on those security roles. Users can be created by hand each time or they can be created based on pre-defined defaults. Once users have been created, they can be edited or deleted. In addition, users can set up their account options and settings as they desire.

Managing Security Roles

In OnTime, security roles are project-based, meaning that certain features can be turned on and off on a per-project basis. Multiple roles can be set up for different projects, and users can be assigned to multiple roles.

OnTime has the following built-in roles predefined:

Administrator - The admin role cannot be modified and has full control to every feature of OnTime. This is the only special role in the OnTime System.

Project Manager - The project manager role is intended to allow project managers to have the appropriate access to add and modify users. It can be customized to grant or deny access to various features.

Developer - The developer role is intended to be more restrictive and define the features that a developer would be allowed to use. This role can be customized to grant or deny access to various features.

QA Tester - The tester role is intended to be more restrictive and define the features that a tester would be allowed to use. This role can be customized to grant or deny access to various features.


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Support Engineer - The support engineer roll is intended to allow the viewing of defects and features with the ability to create and edit incidents. This roll can be customized to grant or deny access to additional features.

By default, the above roles have access to the following global privileges:

Global Feature Admin Project Manager

Developer Tester

Add User

Edit User

Delete User

Manage Users

Export

Import

Manage Public Report Shortcuts

Manage Defect Reports

Manage Feature Reports

Manage Task Reports

Manage Project Reports

Manage Other Reports

Manage List Types

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Manage OnTime Database

Manage Public Filters

Manage Email Notifications

Manage Workflow

Manage Custom Fields

Manage Pick Lists

Manage Field Templates

Manage Customer Portal Settings

Manage Customer Portal Customers

View Project Dashboard

Link Items

In addition to the global privileges, each role has a number of privileges that are project-specific. These are the default values:

Project Feature Admin Project Manager

Developer Tester

Add Project

Edit Project


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Delete Project

Archive Items

Add Defect

Edit Defect

Delete Defect

Change Defect's Workflow Step

View Defect

View Defect Audit Trails

Defect SCM

Defect Work Log

View Defect Emails

Send Defect Emails

Delete Defect Emails

Add Feature

Edit Feature

Delete Feature

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Change Feature Workflow's Step

View Feature

View Feature Audit Trails

Feature SCM

Feature Work Log

View Feature Emails

Send Feature Emails

Delete Feature Emails

Assign Tasks

Task SCM

Task Work Log

View Task Emails

Send Task Emails

Delete Task Emails

View Project Notification List

Change Project Notification List


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View Items Notification List

Change Items Notification List

The default security privileges can be modified as you please using the OnTime Security Role Manager. Information on using the OnTime Security Role Manager can be found in the Security section.

For more information on security roles, see the Administration Guide.

Defining Security Roles

Security roles define what access a user has to OnTime actions and projects. For each role, there are several sets of privileges to be set:

Access to specific projects

Within projects access to project specific functions

Global access to functions

Access to specific reports

Field-level access

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Access to a specific OnTime features are granted by checking the box next to the privilege. In a new, empty database, all security roles have access to the features listed in the Managing Security Role table. However, access to projects created in the new empty database needs to be created. To give a role access to a project, check the box next to the project name.

Checking the box for a parent project will automatically turn on access to all that project's child projects. Removing access to a parent project doesn't remove access to the child projects. Removing access from a child project will remove the access to all parent projects. This means that a user can have access to child projects without having access to the parent project.

Advanced Security Permissions

If you need to restrict security roles from entering data in certain fields when adding or editing defects, features, or tasks, you can do so by clicking the Advanced button. This will bring up the Advanced Security Settings window page where you can define field-level permissions.

To manually select which fields the security role is allowed to edit, check the 'Enable field-level security' checkbox and then check all the fields the security role has permission to enter data for. These field-level permissions only apply to entering data into these fields, they do not control viewing privileges for these fields. Users will always be able to view all the fields for defects, features, and tasks.

Adding a Security Role

To add a new role, click the Add New Role button. OnTime will prompt for the name of the new role. Enter the name and click OK. This will return control to the main security role interface, shown above. On this screen, check the boxes for the features and projects users with this role will be able to access. When the role is fully defined, click the Save Changes button.


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Editing a Security Role

When editing a security role, the name of the security role, the projects a role has access to and the privileges for the role can be modified. To change the name, click the Edit Role Name button. Change the name and save the changes. To change the project access or privilege selections, change which boxes are selected and click the Save Changes button.

Deleting a Security Role

To delete a security role, first ensure that there are no users associated with that role. Next, select the role name on the Security Role Settings window. To complete the deletion, click the Delete Role button. OnTime will ask for verification that the role is to be deleted. Affirm the deletion. If there are no users associated with the role, the deletion will occur. If there are users associated with the role, OnTime will offer the reminder that no users can be assigned to a role in order to delete the role. The role will not be deleted.

Managing Users

Most work to create, edit, and manage users in OnTime is done through the Manage Users window. This interface is also used to add, delete, and change users. Besides allowing work on individual users and new users, this interface shows a summary of the user information for the system and a summary of what users and licenses are in use.

The user grid provides information on each user within the system, whether they are active or not, with the exclusion of Customer Portal users. This information is shown in the grid in the center of the interface. To sort the user information, click on the appropriate column heading.

Below the user grid is the summary of license and user information for this installation. The line just below the user grid shows the total users, active users, and licenses in use.

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The next row shows how many client licenses of each type are in use. In this case, the single active user is a mixed mode user. This means this user can access the OnTime Data from any of the interfaces.

The final line of the Manage Users interface shows whether the Remote Server is in use by any of the current users.

Choosing an Authentication Type for Users

Before setting up any OnTime users, it's a good idea to first choose a common authentication type for your users. This section explains the two types of authentications supported by OnTime.

Note: OnTime user authentication and the SQL Database Authentication are completely independent of each other. For example, it's possible to use Windows Integrated Authentication for OnTime user authentication while you use SQL Server Authentication for Database authentication.

Windows Integrated Authentication

The first mechanism is called "Windows Integrated Authentication". This method checks the currently logged in Windows user and tries to automatically log in that user into the OnTime system using their domain credentials. Users must still be created in the OnTime system, however, they will not have to provide any login information if they are already logged into their Windows Active Directory account.

OnTime Built-In Authentication

OnTime also provides a built-in authentication method known as "OnTime Built-In Authentication". This method simply asks the user for their login id and password every time they try to connect to the OnTime system. These unique usernames and passwords are stored in the OnTime Database. This method is ideal for external users who don't necessarily have a domain account on your corporate network.

New User Defaults

One way to make the task of creating new users much simpler and more consistent is to use New User Defaults to set up the default information for new users. New User Defaults can be accessed from the "Manage New User Defaults" button at the top of the Manage Users window. The New User Defaults window allows the pre-setting of 5 fields:

What domain will be used to create email addresses

How email addresses are created

Which user to use as a basis for the default settings of each new users

Which authentication method to use

How to default the authentication settings


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Email Domain Default

The email domain default will be used to complete the domain part of the email. Enter the appropriate email domain (ie: axosoft.com).

Email Address Generation Type

The email addresses for most companies use one of the following patterns. Pick the one from the dropdown list that most closely matches the addresses on the email system to be used for notifications. All new users created from then on will have the default email address created from their user information. This address can still be changed when the user is created or edited should the user's email address not exactly match the email address generated.

None

First Name & Last Name (johndoe)

First Name & Last Initial (johnd)

First Initial & Last Name (jdoe)

First Name (dot) Last Name (john.doe)

First Name (dot) Last Initial (john.d)

First Initial (dot) Last Name (j.doe)

If there isn't a pattern for email address generation, then select none. In this case, all email addresses will need to be entered by hand.

Copy Users Settings From

To make new user creation as simple as possible, OnTime allows a current user on the system to be the default user for all new users. The dropdown list will show the current list of users, select one to be used.

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Setting a user to copy settings from allows the easy setting of which columns are visible, what fonts are used, what size the windows default to, how lists are sorted, what filters are available, etc.

When selecting a user for the settings to be copied from, be sure to take security roles into consideration. It probably isn't a good idea to select the admin user as the base, unless administrator IDs are being created.

If a number of users of the same role are being created, create one user with the desired settings and then use that user as the default user for the settings. When the next users for the next role are being created, create a user of that role and then change the settings default to that user.

Authentication Method

Select the desired authentication method from the two choices OnTime allows. Once the desired method has been chosen, the default settings will need to be set.

If Windows authentication is to be the default, type in the Windows Domain defaults for new users. Then for either type of authentication, select the generation type from this list:

None

First Name & Last Name (johndoe)

First Name & Last Initial (johnd)

First Initial & Last Name (jdoe)

First Name (dot) Last Name (john.doe)

First Name (dot) Last Initial (john.d)

First Initial (dot) Last Name (j.doe)

Remember...

These settings are the defaults for new users. When a user is created, any of these settings can be adjusted for that user. In addition, these settings can be adjusted based on the users being created.

Creating New Users

OnTime is installed with one active user: Admin. This user is the default administration user and has full access to all projects and all items within the projects. However, as was shown in the Managing Security Roles section, it is fully expected that additional users in a variety of security roles will be needed for any given database.

OnTime users are any person who accesses the OnTime system through any of the OnTime Windows, Web and VS.NET client types. These users can be any team member of a software development effort. It is recommended that when users no longer need access to the database they be made inactive users rather than be deleted. This allows their data to remain intact, but removes their access to the OnTime system and frees the license to be used by another user.

To create a new user, use the Manage Users icon. This icon can be accessed directly from the OnTime toolbar or from the Tools menu (Tools --> Manage --> Users). This will bring up the Manage Users window which lists all of the current users in the OnTime system. For information on working with these users, see Editing Existing Users. To create a new user click the New User button. This will bring up the Add User window.


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User Information

The first set of information needed when creating a new user is the information about the users identity and security role.

To begin definition of the new user, fill in the user's name (first and last) and their email address. Next, select the security role this user will be assigned. The security role determines what the user will be able to access, so be sure to give them a security level that allows them to access everything they need to, without allowing access to items they should not see.

Next, set the user's status to active. Active users will be able to log into OnTime and use it to create and work with projects and their items.

User Authentication

The next step in creating a new user is to determine wether they will be using Windows Integrated Authentication or OnTime's Built-In Authentication to log into OnTime. See the section titled Choosing an Authentication Type for more information.

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If the user will be logging in with Windows Integrated Authentication, select the first radio button and fill in the user's Windows id. The id is the domain the user's computer belongs to followed by the user's Windows login ID. Separate the domain name from the user id with a backslash (ie: mydomain\jdoe).

Note: Multiple Windows Ids can be added for the same user if that user connects to the database from multiple domains. In this case, separate the domain\userid pairs with a semi-colon.

If the user will be using OnTime Built-in Authentication, a unique login id and password will need to be generated, entered and the password confirmed for the user. Once this process is completed, the user can access the OnTime database from any of the OnTime products to which access has been provided on the Access Type tab, as the user id and password are stored in the OnTime database.

User Access Type

The final step in setting up a new OnTime User is to define how the user will be accessing OnTime.


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Users can be set up to use any OnTime client or to only use a specific client. If the user is expected to access the OnTime projects from a combination of the Windows Desktop, the Web, and VS.NET, a mixed mode license is recommended. If the current installation does not have mixed mode licenses, contact Axosoft sales for more information on acquiring a mixed-mode license. If the user will only be accessing OnTime projects from one of the OnTime versions, select the second radio button, then click the selection box for the appropriate version.

If there is a user who is expected to use more than one OnTime version to access the data, it is recommended that a single mixed-mode license for the user instead of using separate licenses for each version for the same user.

If the OnTime installation includes an Enterprise Server installation, choose whether the user will always, never, or sometimes be connecting via the Enterprise Server.

Saving the New User

Once the user has been completely set up, click the OK button to save the user. If the user is not needed, click the Close button.

Once a user is created, the user information can be changed at anytime by a user with sufficient security access by going back to the user list and clicking the Edit button.

Editing or Deleting Existing Users

Information on existing users can be changed at any time by any user with sufficient security access. To change the user information open the Manage Users window and double click the user's record. This action will bring up the Edit Users window. As you can see from these screen shots, the screens for editing users are the same as those for creating new users.

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Notice that the password does not show, nor does it show how long the password might be if there is one. This is done to ensure the security of user information.

Deleting Users

While users can easily be deleted from the OnTime system, it is recommended that in a production environment, users be set to Inactive instead of removed from the system. This will allow actions previously preformed by the user to still be easily seen within OnTime.

Users can be deleted by clicking on the user's information in the user list and then clicking the delete button.

User Options and Settings

As an OnTime user, there are a few things that can be done to make data entry and access easier and more consistent. These options are organized into four tabs on the User Options window. To access these options, go to Tools --> User Options or click the Personal Preferences button:

Personal Settings

There are four options on the personal settings tab.


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A user may choose to see or not see the inactive projects to which they have access. Unchecking the "Show Inactive Projects" box does not delete these projects from the database, it merely removes them from the current user's project tree view.

The 'Print item details as HTML' option allows the user to control whether the detail fields (Description, Notes, Replication Procedures, and Resolution) are printed as HTML or printed as just plain text on the built-in reports which include these fields.

The 'Save Search String on Exit' option allows the user to specify if they want the last search string used to filter items to be saved and restored the next time they log into OnTime, or if it should clear the search string.

The final option allows the user to change their own password without needing to go through the database manager. When clicked, the Change Password button brings up this three entry window:

When changing a password, the existing password must be supplied, followed by the new password and a confirmation of the new password. The existing and new passwords should be different.

Appearance

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In order to allow users the maximum customization of the user environment, OnTime for Windows allows each user to define the fonts and sizes used to display their items.

To change the appearance of one of the lists, click the associated button. This will bring up the standard Font Window:

The font, style and script options available on this window will depend on which fonts are installed on the machine running OnTime.


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Note: When fonts are changed for a list, the column headings for that list will reflect the changes as well.

Category Types

The Category Types tab allows users to create categories for their own use when working with tasks.

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These categories are by definition private, and therefore not visible to other OnTime users. Use the three buttons to the right of the window to add, change, or delete categories.

Preferences

On the preferences tab, various display and usage options can be modified.

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How would you like to display Customer Contacts Selections? - This options allows the control under the Customer Contact tab within a Defect or Feature to be switched between a drop down list or a search function to chose the customer contact. If you have quite a few customer contacts, a search control is easier to use as it provides a search interface for finding contacts. Alternatively, a drop down list of Customer contacts can be used. This style is usually more appropriate for smaller amounts of customer contacts.

Show Item History in Descending Order - Checking this option reverses the Item History list in a descending order. By default, the list is sorted in ascending order by date.

Double-Click Action - Allows the double click behavior within the main datagrid to be switched between Edit or View.

Email Signature

OnTime allows each user to have a custom email signature used when sending out emails from the email tab within a defect, feature, task or incident. Using the rich text editor, a robust email signature can be created and saved against your user account. This signature will automatically be appended to any new email created.


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Multi-Edit Fields

For each item type, the fields available for use with the Multi-Edit feature can be selected. Simply check the fields that you'd like to be able to use with Multi-Edit under the desired item type. Fields listed here will include all default and custom fields except any default or custom large text fields.

Working With Field Templates

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Field Templates in OnTime provide a way of defining which fields of an item can be viewed, edited, and whether the fields require a value or not. Field templates are defined per item type - defect, feature, task, or incident - and any number of field templates can be defined in the system.

A field template can be assigned to a project so that when items are added or edited in that project OnTime, will only display the selected fields from the template. A field template can also be assigned to a workflow step so that when items are placed in that workflow step and edited, OnTime will display the selected fields from the template. Workflow field templates override project-level field templates.

To manage and define field template select the Tools --> Manage --> Field Templates menu option. The Manage Field Templates window will be displayed.

Adding Field Templates

To add a new field template, on the Manage Field Templates window select the tab associated to type of template you want to create - defects, features, tasks, or incidents - and click the New Template button. The Add Field Template window will be displayed.


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Type in a name and description for your template, then select which fields you want to be part of the template.

Checking the checkbox to the left of the field name selects the field and makes it visible on the user interface when adding or editing an item. To select all the available fields, click the Select All button. To un-select all the selected fields, click the Unselect All button.

If you want a field to be pre-populated with a default value when creating an item, enter a default value next to the field in the Default Value column. Keep in mind that the default value will only be applied to new items created with the field template applied.

If you want the make a field required, so that users have to enter in a value for that field, check the checkbox in the Required column. To make all items visible or not visible, click the Select All or Unselect All buttons in the lower right.

By default the fields are editable, but if you want to make a field read-only so that users can still see its value but cannot change it, check the checkbox in the Editable column. The field will then be greyed-out and uneditable when viewed.

If you want to rearrange the order of the fields on the user interface, select a field and use the Move Up or Move Down buttons to move it in the list

Click the Save button to save the field template.

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Editing Field Templates

To edit a field template from OnTime, open the Manage Field Templates window select the desired field template and click the Edit button or double-click the field template. The Edit Field Template window will be displayed.

Update the information in the field template and click the Save button to save the changes.

Deleting Field Templates

To delete a field template from OnTime, on the Manage Field Templates window select the field template and click the Delete button. A window will pop up asking you to confirm the deletion of the template.

Once you click Yes the field template will be deleted.


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Copying Field Templates

To copy a field template from OnTime, open the Manage Field Templates window select the field template and click the Copy button. A copy of the field template will be made with the word ' copy' appended to its name.

Copying a field template can help speed up creating new templates if only minor differences exist between two templates.

Working With Workflows

Workflows in OnTime provide a way of defining a process that your organization or team will follow when tracking defects, features, tasks, or incidents in the system. OnTime lets you define process steps that can automatically perform actions, update items, and notify users as items move through the workflow. Once you define the process you can put it in place and choose to let users freely use the workflow, or have OnTime enforce the process flow so no mistakes can be made.

Workflow steps in OnTime let you define the following:

Select fields to automatically update with any values you specify (e.g. update the Status of an item to Closed)

Define what fields a user may update manually when the item is in a specific workflow step by applying a Field Template to a Workflow Step (e.g. user can update the Resolution field when placing the item into Defect Ready for Testing)

Specify whether to force the user to manually update an item when placing it into a workflow step (e.g. user must update the Resolution field when placing the item into Defect Ready for Testing)

Control what workflow step an item may be moved into while in a specific step (e.g. when an item is in Defect Found it can only be moved to Defect Verified or Defect Rejected)

Control who may move an item into another workflow step while in a specific step (e.g. when an item is in Defect Ready For Testing only users in the Tester security role may move it into the Defect Fixed step)

Define what users should be notified when an item is moved into a workflow step, or whether no notifications should be sent at all

Run external programs to perform other actions or update external data

To manage and define workflows and workflow steps select the Defects --> Edit Workflow or Features --> Edit Workflow menu option.

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Adding Workflows

To add a new workflow, on the Manage Workflows window select the appropriate tab - defects, features, tasks or incidents - and click the Add button. The Add Workflow window page will be displayed.

Type in the name of the workflow and a description. Click the Save button to save the new workflow.

Editing Workflows


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To edit an existing workflow, select the workflow from the list and click the Edit button or double-click it. The Edit Workflow window will be displayed.

You may modify the workflow's name and description. Once you update the information click the Save button to save the changes.

Deleting Workflows

To delete an existing workflow, select the workflow from the list and click the Delete button. A window will pop up asking you to confirm the deletion of the workflow.

Once you click Yes the workflow and all of its steps will be deleted.

Copying Workflows

To copy a workflow from OnTime, on the Manage Workflows window select the workflow and click the Copy button A copy of the workflow will be made with the word ' copy' appended to its name.

Copying a workflow can help speed up creating new workflows if only minor differences exist between two workflows. Copying a workflow will copy the workflow, all of its associated steps, and all of the details for each step.

Adding Workflow Steps

To add a new step to a workflow, select the workflow and click the Add button in the Workflow Steps section. The Add Workflow Step window will be displayed.

Step Name

The step name tab has general step information.

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Type in the name of the step and click Next.

Step Actions

The step actions tab let you select what fields you want changed in the item when it is placed into this workflow step.

Check the checkbox next to the fields whose values you want to set when an item reaches this step, and select a value for the field in the Change Value To column.

Item Edit Template


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The edit template tab lets you select the field template to use when editing the item placed in this workflow step.

From the Field Template dropdown select the field template to be used when editing the item while in this workflow step (using the Edit in Workflow feature). You may also chose to force an edit of this item when the item is placed into this workflow step. Check the 'Force Edit' checkbox to force an edit of the item. The selected field template will be used when the item is forced to be edited.

Allowed Next Steps

The Allowed Next Steps tab lets you specify which steps an item can be moved into as well as which security roles are allowed to move the an item to these next steps.

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In the listbox on the left, check the name of the workflow step into which the item can be placed (while it is in this workflow step). To set the security roles who may change the workflow step to the checked workflow step, select the workflow step, and in the listbox on the right check the security roles.

Notice that the list of security roles' checkboxes change as you select a step on the left. That is because you can specify the security roles by step name. For example, you can decide that Developers can move the item from the current step to Defect Read For Testing, but only Testers may move it to Defect Fixed.

Notifications

The notification settings cannot be changed while adding a workflow step. The workflow step must be saved before Notifications can be created. See Editing Workflow Steps for more information.

You may click the Save and Add Notifications to save the workflow step and place it in edit mode so you can change the notification settings.

Other Settings

The other settings tab lets you select other miscellaneous options for the workflow step.


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The 'Archive Item' checkbox lets you choose whether you want the item to be archived automatically when it is placed into this workflow step.

The 'Update Actual Time From Work Log' checkbox lets you choose whether you want the item's Actual Time value to be automatically updated with the sum of the work log entries when it is placed into this workflow step.

The 'Prompt user to log work entry' option allows a popup for a work log entry to be presented to the user when an item is placed in a workflow step. Additionally, the 'Require user to log work entry' checkbox will prevent the user from closing this popup without entering work log information.

When an item is placed into a workflow step you may want to run an external process to perform an action or update external data. If you do, check the 'Run External Process' checkbox and type in the process name and arguments. The arguments may include field values from the item in OnTime. Use the Add Field button to add fields to the arguments list. This option may have a high security risk and so it is disabled by default. Only an OnTime administrator may enable this option (see the Configuring System Options section in the Administrator's Guide).

Editing Workflow Steps

To edit an existing workflow step, select the workflow step from the list and click the Edit button or double-click it. The Edit Workflow Step window will be displayed. With the exception of Notifications, all of the tabs and details are the same as the Add Workflow Step window.

You may modify any of the information regarding the workflow step. When editing a step, you may also add notifications for the step, so that when the item is placed into this workflow step an email notification is sent out.

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For more information see the Adding Users to Notification Lists section.

Once you've updated the workflow step click the Finish button to save the changes.

Deleting Workflow Steps

To delete an existing workflow step, select the workflow step from the list and click the Delete button. A window will pop up asking you to confirm the deletion of the workflow step.

Once you click Yes the workflow step will be deleted.

Working With Projects

Projects allow defects, feature requests, and tasks to be organized, categorized, and tracked in a hierarchically organized fashion.

What is a Project?

Projects can be thought of as a variety of different things: Software Applications, a Feature Set, a Category of Related Items, a Customer and many more. Any project can be broken down into any number of sub-projects. Sub-projects can in turn be broken down to have their own sub-projects. As an example, let's consider a project to create a corporate web site. The sub-projects within the project might include:

Corporate Web Site

About Pages

Product Pages


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Support Pages

Internal Pages

401K

Directory

Employee handbook

etc....

Projects can contain defects, features, tasks, and incidents. A single project can contain any number of defects, features, tasks, incidents or sub-projects..

User access to each project is defined by the security roles assigned to the user. Any number of users can be associated with any number of roles, so a user can have different sets of privileges for different sets of projects.

For more information about the project hierarchy see Understanding Project Hierarchy.

The OnTime Project Tree

OnTime displays the projects as a tree structure. Our sample project's tree looks like this:

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Each project is likely to have one or more sub-projects. In addition, projects can be of almost any type. The example project contains web pages as well as other software projects that are all tracked in the same OnTime Database.

Before beginning project creation, it might be a good idea to create a list of the projects you expect to create within OnTime. This will help to organize which sub-projects will be associated with other projects.

Understanding Project Hierarchy

Just as projects in OnTime are arranged in a tree structure, the related defects, features tasks, and incidents follow the same structure. Elements within a project can be seen by parent projects (those above themselves in the tree), but not by those at the same or lower level than themselves (child projects).

For example, the sample database has a project called "Line of Business Apps". This site has 3 sub-projects, Accounting, Integration, and Sales CRM. Each of these three sub-projects also have 2 or 3 sub-projects.

In OnTime, projects have parents, siblings, and child projects. In the sample database, Integration has:

A parent project (Line of Business Apps)

2 sibling projects (Accounting and Sales CRM)

3 child projects (BizTalk Automation, CRM & Accounting, and Web & CRM)


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If a defect is reported in the BizTalk sub-project of the Integration project, it will be visible to the BizTalk and Integration projects. However, it will not be visible to the other sub-project in Integration, nor will it be visible to the sub-projects of the Accounting or Sales CRM projects.

This visibility factor comes into play when you are looking at defects, features, and tasks in the main pane. The list of defects for the Integration project contains the defects for itself and all of its child projects. The project column shows which project a defect, feature, or task is associated with.

Adding Projects

To add a new project in OnTime, select the parent project in the project tree view and select the Projects --> New menu option or click the 'Add new project' button on the main toolbar The Add Project window will be displayed.

General Project Settings

If you need to change the parent project select a new parent project from the 'Parent Project' dropdown. The new project will be created as a sub-project of the parent project.

Type in the name and a description of the project

If the new project is a timed project and has a start and due date, select the appropriate dates. The start date defaults to the current date.

Select whether the project is active or inactive from the 'Project Status' dropdown. If a project is no longer worked on it can be marked as inactive so that it does not have to be deleted and can be hidden from the projects tree view.

Field Template Settings

The field template settings allows you to select a field template to be used when adding or editing items in this project. A separate field template can be selected for each item type - defects, features, and tasks.

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If you want the project to inherit the field template from its parent project, select the 'Inherit field template from parent project' radio button. The name of the inherited field template and the project it is inherited from are displayed underneath the radio button. By default new projects inherit from their parent.

If you want to select a specific field template for this project select the 'Use selected field template' radio button, then select the field template you want to use from the 'Field Template' dropdown.

Workflow Settings

The workflow settings allow you to select a workflow to be used for items in this project. Separate settings can be selected for defects and features. Workflows are specified for each item type. The project can be set to use the workflow of its parent project by selecting the ‘Inherit workflow settings from parent project’ radio box or a workflow can be specified by selecting the ‘Use selected workflow settings’ option. The desired workflow can then be chosen from the Workflow dropdown menu. Choosing the “Enforce workflow step selection for items” will restrict Workflow step selection to only those configured in the workflow. Also, the ‘Restrict new items to selected workflow step’ option allows a step to be applied to items created or moved into the project. Items moved from another project into the new project can keep the same workflow step by chosing the last option.


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If you want the project to inherit the workflow settings from its parent project, select the 'Inherit workflow from parent project' radio button. The name of the inherited worklfow and the project it is inherited from are displayed underneath the radio button. By default new projects inherit from their parent.

If you want to select a specific workflow for this project select the 'Use selected workflow' radio button, then select the workflow you want to use from the 'Workflow' dropdown.

The 'Enforce workflow step selection for items' checkbox allows you to specify if you want OnTime to enforce the selection of a workflow step, meaning if the workflow step field should always have a value selected (check the Enforce checkbox) or if you want to be able to clear the workflow step of an item by selecting a blank option (un-check the Enforce checkbox).

The 'Restrict new items to selected workflow step' checkbox allows you to specify if you want OnTime to force the workflow step when adding a new item (defect or feature) to the workflow step selected in the 'Place new items into' dropdown. If you un-check the Restrict checkbox, all workflow steps will be available when adding an item, if you check the Restrict checkbox only the workflow step selected in 'Place new items into' will be available.

The 'Place new items into' dropdown lets you select a default workflow step when adding new items.

The 'Items moved into project are placed into' dropdown lets you select a workflow step that will be applied to items that are moved into this project. Because projects can have different workflows, when moving an item from one project to another OnTime needs to know what workflow step from the new project's workflow to place the item in.

Customer Portal Settings

The customer portal settings let you select field templates used in Customer Portal for this project, which define what fields customers can view and edit. Separate settings can be selected for defects and features.

If you want the project to inherit the Customer Portal settings from its parent project, select the 'Inherit Customer Portal settings' radio button. The names of the inherited field templates and the project they are inherited from are displayed underneath the radio button. By default new projects inherit from their parent.

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If you want to select specific field templates for this project select the 'Use selected Customer Portal settings' radio button, then select the field templates for viewing, adding, and editing. These field templates define what fields customers will be able to see when viewing an item, enter in when adding an item, and update when editing an item.

To add a new project, select the project that will be the parent and click the Add button on the toolbar and a blank entry will be made in the tree view, with the cursor place in edit mode inside it. Type in the name of the project and simply click somewhere else or hit Enter to save the name.

Editing Projects

To edit a project, select the project from the tree view and select the Projects --> Edit menu option click the Edit button on the Project Selection toolbar. The Edit Project window will be displayed.

Update the project's information and click the OK button to update the changes.

To edit a project's name, select it in the tree view and click its name. The cursor will be place in edit mode next to the name and you may update it. Once you are done click somewhere else or hit Enter.

Deleting Projects

To delete a project, select the project from the tree view and select the Projects --> Delete menu option and click the Delete button on the toolbar. A window will pop up asking you to confirm the deletion of the project.

Once you click Yes the project will be deleted. When a project is deleted all the items from that project will be moved to the parent project.

Only projects that do not have any sub-projects can be deleted. If you select a project that contains sub-project the Delete option will be disabled.


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Copying Projects

To copy a project, select the project from the tree view and select the Projects --> Copy menu option. A new project will be created with the word 'copy' appended to its name. All of the project's settings will be copied with the project. Items in the project do not get copied, only the projects itself does.

Working With Project Wiki

Adding Wiki Pages

To create a wiki page, simply select a project and click the add button on the wiki toolbar. We can then enter the title of our page as well as optionally make this page the default wiki page for this project. The default wiki page for a project will be the first wiki page shown when selecting the project.

Deleting Wiki Pages

To remove a Wiki page, simply select the desired page from the Wiki page dropdown and click the delete button from the toolbar. A confirmation dialog will be displayed.

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Editing Wiki Pages

To edit a wiki page, select the appropriate project from the project tree, choose the desired page from the wiki page dropdown, and click the edit button on the wiki toolbar. We will now be able to modify the title of the wiki page as well as its contents.

Using the rich text editor toolbar, we can add links, insert images, create tables and format wiki pages See the Formatting Text Fields section for more details. After you are finished making your changes, click the "Save Changes" button from the Wiki toolbar or optionally cancel your changes by clicking the


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"Cancel Edit" button. After saving your changes, the new Wiki content will be instantly available. Wiki pages can also be edited in HTML mode. To edit a wiki page in HTML mode, click the 'Edit HTML' button on the end of the toolbar. In the window that appears, the HTML code for the wiki page can be edited.

Viewing Project Wiki History

To create a wiki page, simply select a project and click the add button on the wiki toolbar. We can then enter the title of our page as well as optionally make this page the default wiki page for this project. The default wiki page for a project will be the first wiki page shown when selecting the project.

Working With Project Attachments

Project attachments allow logs, images, or any other files to be attached directly to a project. Select the project you’d like to work with from the project tree and click the ‘Project Attachments’ tab. To attach a file to your project, click the ‘Add New Attachment’ button. In the Add Attachment popup that appears, we can specify the File Name and Path or browse for the file to attach. If you would like to rename the file as it is stored in OnTime, change the filename that appears in the ‘Store As’ field. We can also specify a description of the file. The description appears in the list of attachments for your project to help attachments to be easily identified. Lastly, we can select how to store the file in OnTime. The file can be stored directly in the OnTime database, making the file easily accessed by anyone using OnTime, or alternatively using a path only. This option allows us to link to files in an existing file share. To use this option, specify a UNC path to the file in the ‘File Name and Path’ field.

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In the same way that screenshots can be created and manipulated for defects, features, tasks and incidents, project attachments allow images to be pasted and edited from your clipboard. After taking a screenshot (usually using the PrintScreen or Alt-PrintScreen key combination), click the paste image from clipboard button on the Project Attachment toolbar. The paste screenshot tool will appear. Clicking the ‘Paste image from clipboard’ button will take the current contents of your clipboard and paste it into the editor. Using the simple image tools as the top, you can crop the image or perform other light image editing tasks. When complete, the ‘Add Attachment’ popup will appear. Specify a name for this image as well as a description, then click ‘Save’ to add the image to the project

Working With Project Wiki

Project Wikis act as a collaboration point for your projects. In the wiki tradition, users can collaborate to create informative documents for your projects such as processes, requirements, knowledge for a project, lunch menus, or any other information relevant to your projects.

Table of Contents and Recent Changes

To view a Table of Contents for your Wiki pages, click the ‘Table of Contents’ button on the Wiki toolbar. This view will show the wiki pages and their associated projects for the project selected in the project tree and its children. You can also jump to the pages in the list by simply clicking on the appropriate link.

Similar to the table of contents, clicking the ‘Recent Changes’ button will bring up a detailed list of the last 25 modifications. Keep in mind that the list of changes detailed will include pages in the selected project and its children.

Navigating Project Wiki Pages

Moving between pages in the project Wiki is as easy as navigating a web browser. Within the wiki pages, you can click links to other wiki pages or to external web sites. Additionally, selecting the ‘Home’ button on the wiki toolbar will navigate to the default wiki page for the currently selected project. You can also use the ‘Back’ and ‘Forward’ buttons to return to previously visited wiki pages or to advance through your history.

Searching Wiki Pages

To search for Wiki pages, simply enter a search term into the "Search" box on the Wiki toolbar. This search will find the entered term in all of the Wiki pages of the selected project and its children. The pages containing the search term will be listed in a hierarchy, allowing you to easily see what projects the resulting pages belong to.

Copying and Moving Wiki Pages

To copy a Wiki page, select the desired wiki page and simply click the copy button on the toolbar. The wiki page will be copied into the same project as the original page and the title of the wiki page will be appended with the word 'copy'. The copied wiki page can then be edited independently. Also, moving your wiki pages between projects is done by selecting the desired wiki page and clicking the Move button on the toolbar. A drop down list of your projects will appear. Select the desired project destination for the wiki page and the wiki page will be moved to its new location.

Working With Defects

OnTime's Defect tab can be used to track software defects found at any stage of the software development process.


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Note: In OnTime VS.NET, defects, features, and tasks all shown in the same list. The defects are marked with the defect icon, which looks like a small ladybug.

By default, Defects can be reported by anyone on the project team. If the Customer Portal is being used, customers can also report defects if the system administrator has set them up to have access.

Defects are associated with only one project. Any defect reported against a sub-project will be visible in the defect list for all the parents of that sub-project.

When a defect is found in the product, an OnTime user can add information about the defect to the applicable project. When defects are reported, it is helpful to provide as much information as possible about the circumstances that lead to finding the defect, including the steps to reproduce the issue.

Once a defect has been created, it can be viewed, edited, deleted, or moved from one project to another.

Adding a Defect

When a new defect is reported, it must be added to a project. The process for adding a defect starts by selecting the project the defect is being reported against. Next, bring up the Add Defect window , fill in the information to describe it, and then save the defect.

1. In the project tree, click the project the defect will be reported against. Remember that a defect can only be associated with a single project.

2. To create the new defect, select Defects --> New from the menu, click the 'Add a Defect' button from the toolbar within the Defects tab, or right click within the datagrid and select 'Add Defect'.Defects --> New

3. On the Add Defect window, complete the fields needed to define the defect. Required fields will be noted in bold while uneditable fields will be greyed out.

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Enter in any information that is pertinent. The available fields to enter information in depend on the field template used for the project, as well as the security role the user belongs to.

Type and format the content for the description and replication procedures fields. Be as descriptive as possible. Formatting options and information can be found under Formatting Text Fields.

If this defect is going to be viewable through the Customer Portal, click the Customer Portal tab, check the Make this defect publicly viewable through the customer portal box and select the customer from the dropdown list. If desired, check the box to notify the customer of changes made to this defect. If the customer is not in the customer list, they can be added by clicking the Add button.

If there are attachments to be connected to this feature, click the Attachments tab, then click the Save and Attach button. The feature will be saved and the attachments list will be shown. For information on working with attachments see Attaching Files to Items.

If there are users that need to be notified when changes are made to the feature, click the Notification List tab, the click the Save and Add Emails button. For information on adding notifications, see Adding Users to Notification Lists.


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The last step is to save or cancel the new defect, if this hasn't already been done. Click Save and Close to return to the main defect list. Click Save to save this defect, but continue editing it. (This option is useful for intermediate saves while the defect is being created.) Click Cancel to exit the defect creation without saving the new defect.

In addition to adding a defect via this method, new defects can be made by right clicking an existing defect and selecting Duplicate. The defect will be given a new ID and all other fields will be copied. If this process is used, it is recommended that the new defect be edited to change it to reflect the actual reason the defect was reported.

Viewing a Defect

Defects can be viewed in a read only mode which provides a quick and easy way to check through and print defects. To view a defect, select the item and click the view button on the toolbar. Also, if the double click option within your users settings is set to view an item, then simply double clicking an item will open the item in a view mode. Defects viewed in this way will use the appropriate project field template to determine which fields can be seen.

At the top of the item view, you can click the Next Item and Previous Items to move through the defects currently in your datagrid. Printing a viewed defect can be done by clicking the Print button. The item will then open in a Report viewer and can be printed by clicking the "Print Report" button. When finished viewing defects, click the close button at the bottom.

Deleting a Defect

Deleting defects is a very simple process. Click the defect in the list. Either click the Delete Defect button or select Defects --> Delete from the menu.

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Warning: Deleting a defect will also delete all associated attachments for that defect. If the attachment is stored in the database, the entire attachment will be deleted. If the attachment is linked, the link will be deleted, but not the original file.

OnTime will put up a prompt window to ensure the correct defect has been selected for deletion. Be sure that the correct defect is selected and click OK.

Warning: Deleting a defect can not be undone. If the wrong defect is deleted, the defect will need to be recreated from scratch.

Moving a Defect

Moving an Item to a Different Folder

Any defect can be moved between projects via the Edit interface. Select the defect to be moved and edit it. Using the dropdown list for the Project field, change the project name for the defect. Save the changes.

In addition, OnTime Windows allows defects to be moved from one project to another via drag and drop. Select the defect to be moved and drag it to its new project.

If the moved defect has any tasks associated with it, the tasks will not move, only the defect.

Moving an Item to a Different Type

Right-clicking on any defect in the main grid will allow you to move an item to another item type:

Working With Features


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In OnTime, Features are requests for more functionality about a project which needs to be tracked in the OnTime system. In OnTime Web and OnTime Windows, features can be found on the right hand side of the screen, under the features tab:

Note: In OnTime VS.Net, defects, features, and tasks all show in the same list. The features are marked with the feature icon, which looks like a sheet of white paper.

By default, features can be requested by any member of the team and through the OnTime Customer Portal if the system administrator has set up access to the system through the Customer Portal.

Feature requests are usually for future work. While they can show up at any point during the project, they are most likely to show up in testing or after the project has been released.

Features are associated with only one project. Any feature requested for a sub-project will be visible in the feature list for all the parents of that sub-project.

When a feature is requested for the product, an OnTime user adds information about the feature to the applicable item. When features are requested, it is helpful to provide as much information as possible about the feature to ensure proper development of the functionality.

Once a feature has been created, it can be viewed, edited, deleted, or moved from one project to another.

Adding or Editing a Feature

When a new feature is requested, it must be added to a project. The process for adding a defect starts by selecting the project the defect is being reported against. Next, bring up the Add Defect window , fill in the information to describe it, and then save the defect.

1. In the project tree, click the project the defect will be reported against. Remember that a defect can only be associated with a single project.

2. To create the new defect, select Defects --> New from the menu, click the 'Add a Defect' button from the toolbar within the Features tab, or right click within the datagrid and select 'Add Defect'.

3. On the Add Defect window, complete the fields needed to define the defect. Required fields will be noted in bold while uneditable fields will be greyed out.

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Type and format the content for the description and notes fields. Be as descriptive as possible. Formatting options and information can be found under Formatting Text Fields.

If this feature is going to be viewable through the Customer Portal, click the Customer Portal tab, check the Make this feature publicly viewable through the customer portal box and select the customer from the dropdown list. If desired, check the box to notify the customer of changes made to this feature.

If there are attachments to be connected to this feature, click the Attachments tab, then click the Save and Attach button. The feature will be saved and the attachments list will be shown. For information on working with attachments see Attaching Files to Items.

If there are users that need to be notified when changes are made to the feature, click the Notification List tab, then click the Save and Add Emails button. For information on adding notifications, see Adding Users to Notification Lists.

The last step is to save or cancel the new feature. Click Save and Close to return to the main feature list. Click Save to save this feature, but continue editing it. (This option is useful for intermediate saves while the feature is being created.) Click Cancel to exit the feature creation without saving the new feature.


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In addition to adding a feature via this method, new features can be made by right clicking an existing feature and selecting Duplicate. The feature will be given a new ID and all other fields will stay the same. If this process is used, it is recommended that the new feature be edited to change it to reflect the actual reason the feature is being requested.

Viewing a Feature

Features can be viewed in a read only mode which provides a quick and easy way to check through and print features. Features viewed in this way will use the appropriate project field template to determine which fields can be seen.

At the top of the item view, you can click the Next Item and Previous Items to move through the features currently in your datagrid. Printing a viewed feature can be done by clicking the Print button. The item will then open in a Report viewer and can be printed by clicking the "Print Report" button. When finished viewing features, click the close button at the bottom.

Deleting a Feature

Deleting features is a very simple process. Click the feature in the list. Either click the Delete Feature button or select Features --> Delete from the menu.

Warning: Deleting a feature will also delete all associated attachments for that feature. If the attachment is stored in the database, the attachment itself will be deleted. If the attachment is linked, only the link will be deleted, but not the original file.

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OnTime will put up a prompt window to ensure the correct feature has been selected for deletion. Be sure that the correct feature is selected and click OK.

Moving a Feature

Moving a Defect


Any feature can be moved between projects via the Edit interface. Select the feature to be moved and edit it. Using the dropdown list for the Project field, change the project name for the feature. Save the changes.

In addition, OnTime Windows allows features to be moved from one project to another via drag and drop. Select the feature to be moved and drag it to its new project.

If the moved feature has any tasks associated with it, the tasks will not move, only the feature.


Right-clicking on any feature in the main grid will allow you to move an item to another item type. Right click the desired feature and chose the item type that the feature will be moved to.

Working With Tasks

Tasks can be best thought of as personal to-do items or items which need to be done that relate to a specific feature or defect. To access Tasks in OnTime, simply select the "Tasks" tab on the main window.


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Note: In OnTime VS.NET, defects, features, and tasks all show in the same list. The tasks are marked with the task icon, which looks like a yellow floating piece of paper.

There are two kinds of tasks: private tasks and public tasks. Private tasks are those tasks the user assigns to themselves, which no one else can see. Public tasks are either tasks a user assigns to someone else or tasks that are set so that other users can see and work with.

Tasks are associated with only one project. Any task created in a sub-project will be visible in the task list of all the parents of that sub-project.

When a task is created in a project, an OnTime user can add information about the task to the applicable project. The amount of information a user provides about a task is variable. If the task is created using the quick add bar, the only information requested is the task name, the category of the task, the due date, and the user the task is assigned to. If a task is created using the new task button, more information will be requested.

Note: In OnTime for VS.Net, the task is automatically assigned to the current user.

Once a defect has been created, it can be viewed, edited, deleted, or moved from one project to another.

Adding or Editing a Task

The process for adding or editing a task is virtually identical. The difference is in starting the process. To add a task, select the project the new task will be associated with, bring up the add task window , fill in the information to describe it, and then save the task. To edit the task, select the task to be edited and either click the edit button or select Tasks --> Edit from the menu. The task will come up in edit mode and it can be changed in the same manner described here to create it.

1. In the project tree, click the project the task will be part of. Remember that a task can only be associated with a single project.

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2. Select Tasks --> New from the menu

3. On the Add Task window , complete the fields needed to define the task.


If there are attachments to be connected to this task, click the Attachments tab, then click the Save and Attach button. The task will be saved and the attachments list will be shown. For information on working with attachments see Attaching Files to Items.

If there are users that need to be notified when changes are made to the task, click the Notification List tab, then click the Save and Add Emails button. For information on adding notifications, see Adding Users to Notification Lists.

The last step is to save or cancel the new task, if this hasn't already been done to add attachments. Click Save and Close to return to the main task list. Click Save to save this task, but continue editing it. (This option is useful for intermediate saves while the task is being created.) Click Cancel to exit the task creation without saving the new task.

Quick Add

In addition to creating tasks via the New Task interfaces, tasks can also be created using the Quick Add toolbar at the top of the task interface.


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To add a task, click in the Name field and add the name. Tab through the other 3 tabs and select the appropriate information for the task. Finally, press the return key. The new task will appear in the list. By default, the tasks will be associated with the project that is selected in the project tree.

This functionality is designed to quickly add basic tasks to a users task list. If these tasks need to be connected to a specific defect or feature, they can be edited after creation to make that connection.

Viewing a Task

Tasks can be viewed in a read only mode which provides a quick and easy way to check through and print tasks. Tasks viewed in this way will use the appropriate project field template to determine which fields can be seen.

At the top of the item view, you can click the Next Item and Previous Items to move through the tasks currently in your datagrid. Printing a viewed task can be done by clicking the Print button. The item will then open in a Report viewer and can be printed by clicking the "Print Report" button. When finished viewing tasks, click the close button at the bottom.

Deleting a Task

Deleting tasks is a very simple process. Click the task in the list. Either click the Delete Task button or select Tasks --> Delete from the menu.

Warning: Deleting a task will also delete all associated attachments for that task.

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OnTime will put up a prompt window to ensure the correct task has been selected for deletion. Be sure that the correct task is selected and click OK.

Moving a Task


Any task can be moved between projects via the Edit interface. Select the task to be moved and edit it. Using the dropdown list for the Project field, change the project name for the task. Save the changes.

In addition, OnTime Windows allows tasks to be moved from one project to another via drag and drop. Select the task to be moved and drag it to its new project.

If the moved task was associated with any features or defects, the tasks will be moved but the associated defect or feature will not.


Right-clicking on any task in the main grid will allow you to move an item to another item type:

Working With Incidents

Adding an Incident


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When a new incident needs to be created, then, it must be added to the project. The process for adding an incident starts by selecting the project, incident, or task that the incident is being reported against. Next, bring up the Add Incident window , fill in the information to describe it, and then save the incident.

1. In the project tree, click the project/customer/user that the defect will be reported against. Remember that an incident can only be associated with a single project.

2. Select Incidents --> New from the menu.

3. On the Add Incident window Incident, complete the fields needed to define the incident.


Type and format the content for the description and replication procedures fields. Be as descriptive as possible. Formatting options and information can be found under Formatting Text Fields.

If this incident is going to be viewable through the Customer Portal, click the Customer Portal tab, check the Make this incident publicly viewable through the customer portal box and select the customer from the dropdown list. If desired, check the box to notify the

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customer of changes made to this incident.. If the customer is not in the customer list, they can be added by clicking the Add button.

If there are attachments to be connected to this incident, click the Attachments tab, then click the Save and Attach button. The incident will be saved and the attachments list will be shown. For information on working with attachments see Attaching Files to Items.

If there are users that need to be notified when changes are made to the incident, click the Notification List tab, the click the Save and Add Emails button. For information on adding notifications, see Adding Users to Notification Lists.

The last step is to save or cancel the new incident, if this hasn't already been done. Click Save and Close to return to the main incident list. Click Save to save this incident, but continue editing it. (This option is useful for intermediate saves while the incident is being created.) Click Cancel to exit the incident creation without saving the new incident.

In addition to adding a incident via this method, new defects can be made by right clicking an existing incident and selecting Duplicate. The incident will be given a new ID and all other fields will stay the same. If this process is used, it is recommended that the new incident be edited to change it to reflect the actual reason the incident was reported.

Deleting an Incident

Deleting incidents is a very simple process. Click the incident in the list. Either click the Delete Incident button or select Incidents --> Delete from the menu.

Warning: Deleting an incident will also delete all associated attachments for that incident.. If the attachment is stored in the database, the entire attachment will be deleted. If the attachment is linked, the link will be deleted, but not the original file.

OnTime will put up a prompt window to ensure the correct incident has been selected for deletion. Be sure that the correct incident is selected and click OK.

Warning: Deleting an incident can not be undone. If the wrong incident is deleted, the incident will need to be recreated from scratch.

Moving an Incident


Any incident can be moved between projects via the Edit interface. Select the incident to be moved and edit it. Using the dropdown list for the Project field, change the project name for the incident . Save the changes.

In addition, OnTime Windows allows incidents to be moved from one project to another via drag and drop. Select the incident to be moved and drag it to its new project.

If the moved incident has any tasks associated with it, the tasks will not move, only the incident.


Right-clicking on any incident in the main grid will allow you to move an item to another item type:


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Viewing an Incident

Incidents can be viewed in a read only mode which provides a quick and easy way to check through and print incidents. Incidents viewed in this way will use the appropriate project field template to determine which fields can be seen.

At the top of the item view, you can click the Next Item and Previous Items to move through the incidents currently in your datagrid. Printing a viewed incident can be done by clicking the Print button.

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The item will then open in a Report viewer and can be printed by clicking the "Print Report" button. When finished viewing incidents, click the close button at the bottom.

Working with Incidents

OnTime's Incident tab can be used to track customer incidents at any stage of the support process.

Note: In OnTime VS.NET, defects, features, tasks, and incidents are all shown in the same list. The defects are marked with the defect icon, which looks like a small ladybug.

By default, Incidents can be reported by anyone on the project team. If the Customer Portal is being used, customers can also report incidents if the system administrator has set them up to have access.

Incidents are associated with only one project. Any incident reported against a sub-project will be visible in the incident list for all the parents of that sub-project.

When an incident is found in the product, an OnTime user can add information about the incident to the applicable project. When incidents are reported, it is helpful to provide as much information as possible about the circumstances that lead to finding the incident, including the steps to reproduce the issue.

Once an incident has been created, it can be viewed, edited, deleted, or moved from one project to another.

Working With OnTime

In addition to doing basic work with defects, features, tasks, and incidents, OnTime has built-in functionality to allow you to work with these items in more specific ways. New defects, features and incidents can created from existing ones, the history of items can be viewed, files can be attached to items, items can be printed or changed in groups, items can be moved through workflow steps quickly and easily, etc.

Duplicating Items

Defects and features can be duplicated to make it easier to create new items. To duplicate an item, either right click the item and select duplicate from the menu or select Duplicate from the Defect or Feature menus.


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When an item is duplicated, it receives a new item id, but all other fields are copied exactly as they were in the original item.

Attaching Files to Items

Defects, features tasks, and incidents can all have files attached as needed to provide additional information about the item. For example attachments might include:

Screen shots of error conditions and messages Imported files and text Additional documentation of the requested feature Error logs and other debugging information System information to show the state of the machine where the error occurred

To add an attachment, view the item and click the Attachment tab. This will change to the New Attachment tab. From there, the user can select, upload, and describe the linked file. In addition, a decision must be made whether to upload the file or just the link to the file.

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Editing the storage location or the description uses the same interface. To edit an attachment's information, click the edit button. In the Windows interface, the button is the word Edit.

Linking or Storing Attachments

Attachments can be saved in two different ways. Attachments can be uploaded directly into the database or a file in an existing Windows file share can be linked to using a UNC path. As noted in the screen shot, it is recommended that most attachments be stored in the database. This allows all users with access to the item to have access to the attachment. If database space is a problem, then store only the path to the file instead of the entire file. However, be sure that all users who need access to the attachment have access to the device and directories where the file is stored. This method also allows files in an existing Windows share to easily be linked to in OnTime.

Note: Attachments stored in the database cannot be edited directly. To edit an attachment that is stored in the database, first save the attachment, edit the file and re-attach it.

Pasting Screenshots

OnTime provides an easy way of creating, editing, and attaching screenshots to an item on the fly. Just take a screenshot (using the PrintScreen or Alt-PrintScreen key combination) or copy the image into the clipboard and click the Paste Image from Clipboard button on the Attachments tab of an item. At the top of the image editor window that appears click the Paste Image from Clipboard button. The contents of the clipboard will be pasted and can now be edited.


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Using the simple image tools as the top, you can crop the image or perform other light image editing tasks. Once you paste the image you can choose to crop it or point out certain areas of the screenshot by surrounding the problem area with a box or circle.

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When complete, click the ok button at the bottom and the ‘Add Attachment’ popup will appear. Specify a name for this image as well as a description, then click ‘Save’ to add the image to the project.

Click OK when done and the screenshot will be saved as an attachment.


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Using the Attachments

Once an attachment has been added to an item, it can be viewed, saved to a new location, or deleted from the database from within the OnTime interface.

Open the attachment by selecting the attachment and clicking the open button. Once the open button has been clicked, the file management system for the computer takes over and processes the file.

Deleting the attachment is done the same way, only using the remove button instead of the open button.

To move the attachment to a different location, use the Save As button.

Formatting Text Fields

WIki pages as well as large text fields within items, such as descriptions, replication procedures, notes, and resolutions, can be formatted. The formatting options for these fields are based on HTML tags.

Text Formatting

Formatting options include the standard text formatting options of bold, underline, italics, and strike-through. Text can be bolded, underlined, or italicized by selecting the text and clicking the appropriate button on the toolbar or using the Control-B, Control-U, or Control-I key combinations respectively.

Text color, font, and size can also be changed. To change the color of a piece of text, select the desired text and click the font color button on the toolbar then select the desired color. Changing the font and size of the text can be done by selecting the desired text and clicking the font attributes button on the toolbar. From the font attributes popup, the desired font and size can be changed.

Text Alignment

Your text field content can also be justified as needed. Select the desired text and chose the manner in which you'd like it to be aligned: align left, align center, or align right.

Bulleted and Numbered Lists

Information in these fields can be formatted as either bulleted or numbered lists. To add bullets to a list, select the text and click the appropriate button: Both numbered and bulleted lists are "intelligent" lists. If the content is indented to a new level, the bullet or number will change to indicate a new list has started. Moving parts of a list back out a level will change the number or bullet to the previous bullet.

Lists and also blocks of text can also be indented for readability and clarity. Click the increase indent or decrease indent button to move the indentation.

Inserting Links and Images

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In OnTime 2008, links can now be added to Wiki pages and large text fields. While external web links can be added to both Wikis and large text fields, links to Wiki pages can only be added to Wiki pages. To add a web link, select the text you'd like to make a link, click the add link button and entered the link information. Adding a link to a Wiki page can be done by selecting the desired text you'd like to turn into a link, clicking the 'Add link to wiki page' on the toolbar. In the resulting popup window, select the project in which the wiki page you'd like to link to resides in and finally select the wiki page.

Attachment images can also now be inserted into large text fields and wiki pages. Images in Wiki pages can be project level attachments anywhere in the project hierarchy while images in large text fields within defects, features, tasks, or incidents need to be attached directly to the item. To insert an image, click the 'Add Attachment Image' button from the toolbar and select the desired image. If the image needs to be attached as well, select 'New Attachment' from the list. Also, images can be resized by selecting the image and clicking the 'Resize Image' button on the toolbar. In the popup that appears, the image size can be altered.

Tables

Tables can also be added to your content to organize your text and images. To add a table, click the add table button from toolbar. The table properties popup will appear, allowing the details of the table to be specified. After a table is created, you can edit the table by right clicking on the table and selecting Table --> Properties or selecting the Table button from the toolbar.

Other Formatting Options

The other formatting option, available within Large Text fields, is to add a history stamp to the content. Using the Stamp button located to the right of the text field , a line is added to the descriptive field. Stamps are always added at the end of the text field. Stamps are added in the following format:

Edited by {UserName} on {date}

Stamps can be removed from the text fields by selecting the text and clicking delete or backspace. If desired, horizontal lines can be added to divide information sections. When all formatting has been completed, be sure to save the changes.

Edit HTML (Wiki Only)

To edit a wiki page in HTML mode, click the 'Edit HTML' button on the end of the toolbar. In the window that appears, the HTML code for the wiki page can be edited. After making the desired changes to the HTML, click 'OK' to save your changes.


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Item History

OnTime keeps a history of changes for each defect, feature, task, and incident created in the system. The history can be accessed via the History tab . When an item is created, the history of changes is initialized with an entry that shows who created the item and when it was created.

A sample history log looks like this:

The next history entry is the item details at creation. The view of these details can be toggled on or off by using the Toggle Original Item Details link.

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The remainder of the history entries log who changed the item, what was changed, and when the item was changed.

Item histories can be useful for tracking when and how an item was changed over time. The history cannot be edited by any user, so it is a good mechanism for change tracking. The history tab can not be accessed after an item is deleted. Once an item is deleted, its history will need to be accessed via the audit trail.

Audit Trails

Audit trails allow OnTime users to see the changes made to defects, features, tasks, and incidents at a more global level than the changes shown in the history for each item. History logs show who and what was done to a specific item. If that item is deleted, direct access to the history for that item is lost. On the other hand, the audit trail logs changes to any items in the selected project. These trails are summarized in the list view of the audit trail. When an entry in the audit trail is selected, the details for that entry are shown in the detail pane.

The details pane shows not just that the item was changed, but exactly what changes were made and who the changes were made by. If a singe edit or workflow step change occurred, all of the resulting changes are tracked under a single audit log entry. For example, defect number 5 in the sample data was edited twice: once by Hellen Smith and once by Fred Itguy. These two changes show on both the history tab for the defect and in the audit trail. When Hellen created the entry, a single entry was made in the audit trail:

When Fred made his changes, he made several changes at once. All of these changes also show in a single entry, separate from the one that tracked Hellen's change:


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What is Tracked for Each Entry?

The fields tracked for each item are those fields that are used to identify the items and those fields which are set via a list of values. These are the same list of fields that are available for grouping and filtering.

Item ID - The id for the item. This number will be unique within each type of item, but the same number may be used in both defects and features

Item Type - Defect, Feature, or Task, indicating which type of item the entry refers to

Project Name - The project containing the defect or feature

Item Name - The descriptive name of the item as it shows in the item list

Audit Type - What kind of change was made. Possible options are created, changed or deleted

Audit Source - How the change was made. Possible options are manual, workflow, import or portal.

Note: What do these options mean? "Manual" means the change was made directly to the item by a user. "Workflow" means that the change was made to the item during the change of a workflow step. "Import" means the change was made during the importation of the item from another application. "Portal" means the change was caused by something that was done via the customer portal.

Audit Date - The date stamp of when the audit trail entry was created.

Audit Time - The time stamp of when the audit trail entry was created.

User Name - The name of the user who performed the change that is being tracked by this entry.

Changing the View of the Audit Trail

While the default view of the audit trail is to see all entries made in the last 10 days, the entries can be filtered and grouped to show detailed information on changes made a certain way or over a certain time. In addition, filters can be stacked on top of each other, as well as on top of grouping levels.

Group by settings

Grouping for the audit trail entries works just as it does for the item views. A series of grouping options are offered based on available fields. When a group by field is chosen, the view of the audit entries shifts to group entries by the values of that field. Available fields for grouping are:

Item Id

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Item Type

Project Name

Audit Type

Audit Source

Audit Date

User Name

The final option on the group list is "UnGroup". Selecting this option turns off the current group setting and returns the view to a merged list. The same result can be gotten by just clicking the Group button instead of clicking and dragging down to a group by setting.

When audit trail items are grouped by item id using OnTime Web Server, the resulting list will be in numerical order. When audit trail items are grouped by item id using OnTime for Windows, the resulting list will be in alphabetical order. In other words, on the web, the items are listed as 1, 2, 3,..., while in Windows they are listed as 1, 10, 11, ... Also, when the audit trail entries are viewed on the web with this filter, the order of the entries has a secondary sort of by audit type applied, while the same entries viewed via OnTime for Windows does not have this additional sort applied.

Available filters

In addition to grouping data by fields, the audit trail entries can be filtered to show only specific entries. These filters include:

Item Type

Audit Type

Audit Source

User

Date Range

Item type, audit type, and audit source offer the selections described above in the field descriptions. User filters by the name of the user who made the change that cause the audit entry. The unusual one is date range.

When specifying a date range to filter on, there are several choices. Audit entries can be filtered to show all changes ever made, those changes made today or yesterday, the changes made this week or last week, or changes made in the last 10 days or the last month. By default, the date range filter is set to Last 10 Days.

The last choice for date range to filter by is the custom range. This allows the user to select a start date and end date using actual calendars. For example, this filter can be used to filter the view to show only the changes over the last reporting period, regardless of whether the reporting period lines up with one of the pre-determined ranges.

Example scenarios

This powerful group of features allow users to specify just what they wish to use. For example:


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Changes made over time: Jack has been gone on vacation for a week. While he was gone, progress was made on several of the defects he reported. Now that Jack is back, he wants to see what was changed. While viewing the audit trail, he sets the Item type filter to show only defects. He then sets a date range filter to set up a custom date filter that covers the time period of his vacation. Now, the audit trail only shows the changes to defects that occurred while he was gone. By applying a group by of Item ID, Jack can then easily scroll through the list to see which changes were done to the defects he reported.

Changes made by an unexpected user: A manager notices that even though Fred Itguy is supposed to be working only on defects, his name has shown up on a number of feature requests. In order to find out which ones, she views the audit trail and filters on item type and user. Item type is set to features, user is set to Fred Itguy. The resulting list shows which features have been changed by Fred, so that the manager can find out why Fred is making the changes.

Changes by workflow: It needs to be determined if the workflow steps are being used to automatically the changes to defects and features. The audit trail can be grouped by audit source. The audit trail entries caused by workflow step changes will all be grouped together. Other changes can be investigated to see if they should have been done via workflow steps or if they were legitimately done via another means.

Missing items: Several items are no longer in the item list, but need to be tracked for audit sake. These items can be seen by setting the date range to all and the audit type to delete.

Customer feature requests: A list of customer requested needs to be created for viewing. The view is set so that the item type shows only features, the audit type shows only created items, and the audit source shows only items created via the portal.

Multi-Select for Multi-Edit

Multi-select allows the user to select multiple defects, features, or tasks and make the same changes to all of the selected items at the same time.

To edit multiple items at the same time, use shift click to select a continuous series of items or control click to select non-contiguous items. When items are multi-selected, the item's row gets highlighted. Using the multi-edit interface changes can be made to the list of items. In addition, a single defect or feature can be used with multi-edit, when desired.

Note: Multi-select is not available in OnTime for VS.NET

Once the items to be changed are selected, click the Multi-Edit button and select the field to be changed from the dropdown list. Most fields within OnTime can be multi-edited including any custom fields associated to the item. The exceptions to this are the large text fields included by default with OnTime, any custom large text fields, or any custom multi-select pick lists.

In addition, multi-selected items can be deleted, archived, set visible in the Customer Portal, or the Customer Contact name can be changed using the multi-edit button.

Note: If the current workflow step for multi-selected items is changed, any changes defined for the workflow change will be made as well. However, if the descriptive fields are supposed to be edited during the workflow change, those prompts will not appear. The changes will need to be made by hand after the multi-edit session is completed.

Each of the fields able to be changed using multi-edit have defined field values. These values are the only ones that can be chosen. In addition, all of the multi-selected items will be changed to the same selected value.

Printing Items

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In addition to using the Reports options from the menus, defects and features can be printed on the fly. To use this interface, select the items to be included in the report then right-click to get the context menu and select the Print option

For details on the contents of the available reports, see What Reports are Available.

Copying and Moving Items

Items can easily be copied or moved from one type to another.

Copying Items

When viewing a list of defects, features, tasks or incidents, single items can be copied from one type to the other. When items are copied from one type to another, all common fields are copied to the new item. Also, a relationship to the originating item is created. Optionally, the worklogs can also be copied along with the rest of the item data if the administrator has enabled the 'Copy worklogs when copying items across item types' system option. To copy an item, first select the desired item from the data grid. Then either right click on the item and select Copy To and chose the desired item type or from the appropriate menu, select Copy to Defect, Copy to Feature, Copy To Task, or Copy to Incident. Then either view the item and select the appropriate copy to button from the toolbar or right click on the desired item and select the desired Copy to type.


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Moving Items

When viewing a list of defects, features, tasks or incidents, single items can be moved from one type to the other. When items are moved from one type to another, all common fields are moved to the new item. Also, a relationship to the originating item is created. To move an item, first select the desired item from the data grid. Then either right click on the item and select Move To and chose the desired item type or from the appropriate menu, select Move to Defect, Move to Feature, Move To Task, or Move to Incident.

Keyboard Shortcuts

For many of the actions that can be performed in OnTime, there are keyboard shortcuts that can used to perform the task. The following table shows the shortcut and the command associated with the shortcut.

Note: Keyboard shortcuts only work in OnTime for Windows.

Keyboard Short Cut Command

Ctrl-P New Project

F5 Refresh Database

Ctrl-D New Defect

Ctrl-F New Feature

Ctrl-G Goto Item

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Ctrl-T New Task

Alt-P-N New Project

Alt-P-R Refresh Database

Alt-D-N New Defect

Alt-D-E Edit Current Defect

Alt-D-D Delete Current Defect

Alt-D-C Check-off Current Defect

Alt-D-F Edit Defect Filters

Alt-D-T Turn Defect Filter On

Alt-D-W Edit Defect Workflow

Alt-D-X Move Current Defect to Next Workflow Step

Alt-D-P Move Current Defect to Previous Workflow Step

Alt-D-U Edit Defect Custom Fields

Alt-D-L Edit Defect Columns

Alt-D-R Refresh the Database

Alt-F-N New Feature

Alt-F-E Edit Current Feature

Alt-F-D Delete Current Feature

Alt-F-C Check-off Current Defect

Alt-F-F Edit Feature Filters

Alt-F-T Turn Defect Filter On

Alt-F-W Edit Feature Workflow

Alt-F-X Move Current Feature to Next Workflow Step


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Alt-F-P Move Current Feature to Previous Workflow Step

Alt-F-U Edit Feature Custom Fields

Alt-F-L Edit Feature Columns

Alt-F-R Refresh the Database

Alt-K-N New Task

Alt-K-F Edit Task Filters

Alt-K-U Edit Task Columns

Alt-K-R Refresh the Database

Alt-T-E Manage Email Notifications

Alt-T-U Manage Users

Alt-T-S Manage Security Roles

Alt-T-L Manage List Types

Alt-T-P Manage Pick Lists

Alt-T-T Manage Field Templates

Alt-T-O Manage User Options

Alt-H-E Enter Activation Key

Alt-H-C Check for Updates

Alt-H-F Send Feedback

Alt-H-A About On-Time

Exporting OnTime Data

OnTime defects, features, tasks, and incidents can be exported to a comma separated values (CSV) file. The most common reason for doing this is to allow manipulation of the data in Excel for generation of a wider range of reports.

To define which fields will be exported, select the Edit Export Fields item from the appropriate menu. By default, the fields to be exported are as shown in the Edit Export Fields interface:

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The fields to be exported are indicated by a check in the appropriate Export Column box. When the export file set up is complete, click OK or Save to return to the main OnTime Interface.

To export the defects, features, or tasks, select the Export item from the appropriate menu. A prompt will appear to allow you to select a save location and/or change the name of the file to be created. After the export, the file can be saved. If OnTime for Web is being used, the user may choose to open the new CSV directly in Excel.

Archiving Items

After using OnTime for a while, you may get to a point where certain items are no longer needed or useful to view in every-day usage. For example if you are working on a new version of a product and you still have the old version's requirements still in the system, they may no longer be needed to be seen. Instead of keeping all these features active in the system, or worse deleting them from the system, you may want to consider archiving them. Archiving gives you the best of both worlds: it keeps the items in the database but it does not show them on the UI anymore (unless you really want to). Archiving simply flags items as 'archived' and OnTime will no longer retrieve these items from the database, therefore improving the performance of your OnTime system as well as hiding the items that are no longer needed.

Archive Wizard

To archive items, select the Tools --> Archive menu option. The Archive Wizard window will be displayed.


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First select the project from the dropdown where the items you wish to archive are located. This includes all items in the selected project and all its sub-projects.

Next select what type of items you want to archive: defects, features, or tasks. Check the appropriate checkbox.

You may filter the items to be archived using a filter you created by checking the 'Use Filter' checkbox underneath the appropriate item type, and selecting the filter from the list. This allows you, for example, to only archive defects whose status is 'Closed' by using an appropriate filter.

Once you have made your selections, click the Next button and you will be shown the next page.

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Before starting the archiving process, you are given information about how many items of each type will be archived, depending on your filtering options. Once you have reviewed this information click the Start Archiving button to start the archiving process.

When the process is done you will get a message informing you that the items have been archived successfully.

Once archived, the items will no longer show up on the list in OnTime.

Archiving Individual Items

The Archive Wizard is great if you have a large number of items you need to archive, or if you wish to archive an entire project. However, there are times when you may want to only archive a certain few items. Defects, features, and tasks can also be archived using the Multi-Edit menu. Simply select the items you wish to archive and from the Multi-Edit menu on the toolbar select Archiving --> Archive Item.

Restoring Archived Items

If you need to view or restore archived items, you may do so by checking the 'Show Archived' button on the toolbar on the defects, features, or tasks tab.


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The 'Show Archived' toggle button may not be on the toolbar. To place that button on the toolbar, click the wrench icon at the right of the toolbar and you will get the toolbar menu. Select the 'Show or hide archived defects' option to check it, and the button will be placed on your toolbar.

Once the 'Show Archived' button is toggled on the toolbar, all archived items will be displayed again on the list in OnTime. The only way to un-archive these items is by using the Multi-Edit menu. You will want to select the items you wish to un-archive, and from the Multi-Edit menu on the toolbar select Archive --> Unarchive Item. This will flag the selected items as 'not archived'.

Working With Related Items

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OnTime provides a way to relate any two items to each other, be they defects, features, or tasks. Relating items helps in identifying dependencies, flagging duplicate items, or just marking them as related. The item relationships in OnTime are for tracking purposes only.

Items in OnTime have a Related Items tab on their Details tab control, where you can view any items related to the current item.

The Item Relation Columns can be modified by selecting the "Edit Columns" button (the far right button) to control which columns appear on the grid. You can also move columns by dragging around the column headers, as well as controlling the widths of the columns--just like the main Windows interface:

Adding Item Relations

To relate two items in OnTime, select one of the items and on the Related Items tab click the Add Relation button. The Add Related Items window will be displayed.


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Find the item, or items, you want to relate to the current item by selecting the item type - defect, feature, or task - and typing in a search criteria. You may leave the search text box blank if you want to see a list of all the items. Click the Search button to get the search results in the list.

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From the search results list select the item, or items, you want to relate. Type in a description for the relation, if necessary, and select the relation type from the Relation Type dropdown. If you want to reverse the relation (from parent-child to child-parent) you may do so by clicking the Reverse button.

Once you've made your selection click the Save button to add the relations.

Editing Item Relations

To edit an item relation, select the relationship you want to edit and click the Edit Relation button. The Edit Item Relation window page will be displayed.

Editing the item relation lets you modify the description of the relation and the relation type. Once you've updated the relation information click the Save button to save the changes.


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Deleting Item Relations

To delete an item relation, select the relation you want to delete and click the Delete Relation button. A window will pop up asking you to confirm the deletion of the relation.

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Once you click Yes the item relation will be deleted.

Managing Item Relation Types

Item Relation types define the relationship between two items in OnTime. There are three relation types defined by default in OnTime: Duplicates, Relates, and Depends. Relationships can be defined as a parent-child relationship ('Duplicates' has a source item as the parent and the copy item as the child, 'Depends' has the master item as the parent and the dependent item as the child), or as a sibling relationship ('Relates' merely relates two items).

Although the relation types do not have to be parent-child relationships, they are defined and stored in OnTime as parent-child. A relationship is defined by a name, a parent description and a child description. The parent description describes the relation between the parent and the child (e.g. 'parent' is duplicated by 'child'), while the child description describes the relation between the child and the parent (e.g. 'child' duplicates 'parent'). To define a sibling relationship simply use the same description for both the parent and child descriptions (e.g. is related to).

To manage item relation types select the Tools --> Manage --> Item Relation Types menu option. The Manage Item Relation Type window will be displayed.

Adding Item Relation Types

To add a new item relation type, from the Manage Item Relation Types window click the Add button. The Add Item Relation Type window will be displayed.

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Type in the name of the relation type, a string describing the relation between the parent and the child, and a string describing the relation between the child and the parent. The parent and child description strings should be in a format that allows them to be placed between 'parent' and 'child' to form a sentence (e.g 'parent' is duplicated by 'child').

Click the Save button to save the relation type.

Editing Item Relation Types

To edit an item relation type, select it from the Item Relation Types list and click the Edit button. The Edit Item Relation Type window page will be displayed.

Once you've updated the information click the Save button to save the changes.

Deleting Item Relation Types

To delete an item relation type, select it from the Item Relation Types list and click the Delete button. A window will pop up asking you to confirm the deletion of the relation type.

Once you click Yes the item relation type will be deleted.

Note: If there are related items defined using the deleted relation type they will lose the relation type and will show it as blank.


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Working With Work Logs

OnTime provides an easy way for users to track time worked on defects, features, tasks, or incidents. Users can then update the item's Actual duration with the click of a button, and OnTime will update the value with the sum of work logged.

Items in OnTime have a Work Log tab on their Details tab control, where you can view and track time worked on the current item.

Adding Work Logs

To enter a new work log for an item, on the Work Log tab click the Log Work button. The Log Work window will be displayed.

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Type in the amount of type spent working on the item, select the time unit (Minutes, Hours, Days, or Weeks), and the date when the work was done. Next select the type of work and type in a description of the work done. The work log types is a built-in list type in OnTime and its values can be customized through Working With List Types.

Click the Save button to save the work log.

Editing Work Logs

To edit a work log entry, select the work log from the list and click the Edit button. The Edit Work Log window will be displayed.

Once you've updated the information click the Save button to save the changes.

Deleting Work Logs

To delete a work log entry, select the work log from the list and click the Delete button. A window will pop up asking you to confirm the deletion of the work log entry.

Once you click Yes the work log is deleted.

Updating Actual Time

When you add new work log entries for an item, or modify existing ones, you may want to update the Actual Duration field of the item. You can easily do so by clicking the Update Item button. Once you do that OnTime will update the item's Actual Duration value to the sum of your work log entries.


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Working With Notifications

The OnTime system provides the ability to automatically notify users of updates to items within a project. On a database level, these updates are set up using the Email Notification Services window. Notifications are sent via email when items are created, changed, or deleted. In addition, email notification settings can be customized globally, for each project, or for each item.

Notifications can be sent to OnTime Users, the clients of OnTime users who are set up to use the OnTime Customer Portal, or any other email address desired. The interface for adding OnTime users and Customer Portal users is done via a list created from the database. Additional email addresses are added manually.

Note: To configure email notifications, you must use either the OnTime Windows or Web clients.

To configure email notifications see Configuring Email Notifications in the Administrator's Guide.

Adding Users to Notification Lists

OnTime allows emails to be sent out based off change events to keep users informed of what is going on with items within the OnTime system. Notifications can be created on a project level to keep users informed about events happening within a project and its child projects or on an item level to keep a users informed about changes on a particular defect, feature, task, or incident. Notifications can also be created on a workflow level, informing users when an item reaches a particular workflow step.

Project Notifications

Notifications on a project level are managed from Project Wiki Tab. After selecting the Project Wiki tab, click the Project Notification Lists tab at the bottom. To add a user to the notification list or to add additional events for a user, click the Add button from the toolbar.

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Item Notifications

Notifications for a specific defect, feature, task, or incident can be accessed from the list view or by editing the desired item. To access notifications from the list view, select the desired defect, feature, task, or incident from the data grid and click the Notification List tab within the Details tabs. Notifications can also be configured by editing an item and selecting the Notification List tab within the Details tabs. Click the add button from the toolbar to begin creating a notification.


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Creating Item or Project Notifications

To add a new user to the notification list, click the boxes in the Notification Types list to show when the additional notifications will be sent. Next, select the OnTime Users to be added and click the right pointing double arrows to add them to the list. Repeat this process to add OnTime Customers to the list. If there are others who need to be notified, but who are not OnTime users, add their email addresses one at a time to the Other Email box and click its right pointing double arrow to add the address. While the users will remain in the user and customer lists, they can not be added to the Emails Included list more than once.

While multiple users can be selected and added at the same time from the OnTime Users and OnTime Customers lists, other email address must be added one at a time.

If a user is accidentally added that should not be on the list, select the user from the Emails Included list and click the left pointing double arrow to remove them from the list.

To save the new addresses in the email notification list, click the Save button. If the changes aren't correct, the list changes can be discarded by clicking the Cancel button.

Notifications on Workflow Steps

Notifications can also be created on workflow steps. When editing a workflow step, select the Notifications tab. Clicking the Add button will allow OnTime users, OnTime Customer Contacts, or manually entered emails to be added to the notification list for this workflow step. An email will then be sent to the specified user or email address every time an item reaches the appropriate workflow step.

Working with Alerts

The OnTime system provides the ability to automatically notify users of updates to items. Alerts can notify users or customers using either changes in field data or items matching a filter criteria. Like Notifications, alerts can be created on an item level, a project level, or on a workflow setp. Alerts can be sent to OnTime Users, OnTime Customer Contacts, or any other email address desired. Before alerts can be sent out, email notification settings will need to be configured by an administrator.

To configure alerts see Configuring Email notifications in the Administrator's Guide.

Project Alerts

Alerts can be created on a project level, allowing alert emails to be sent out for all new items that match a filter or match the specified field changes. To view project level alerts, after selected the desired project from the project tree, select the Project Wiki main tab and from the details tabs below, click the Project Alerts tab. To create an alert, click the Add Alert button of the desired type (defect, feature, task, or incident).

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Item Alerts

Alerts for a specific defect, feature, task, or incident can be accessed from the list view or by editing the desired item. To access alerts from the list view, select the desired defect, feature, task, or incident from the data grid and click the Alerts tab within the Details tabs. Alerts can also be configured by editing an item and selecting the Notification List tab within the Details tabs. Click the add button from the toolbar to begin creating an alerts.

Creating Alerts

To add an alert, click the "Add Alert" button. The Add Alert window will appear. First, enter a name and description. Alerts can be configured to trigger in two ways: when a field value changes or when an item's conditions become true for a selected filter. Next, chose the "Change Field Value" or "Filter" radio box


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Clicking on “Next” to the “Triggers Details” you can add edit or delete an alert trigger.

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When adding a trigger, you can specify how to trigger the alert in which the end user will get notified. In this example, the alert will trigger when a defect's Severity is changed to Critical. Any field, including custom fields can be used. Triggers can also use the [Empty] value to encompass changes to or from no value. For example, a trigger could be created to activate when the "Assigned To" field is changed to [Empty], letting someone know when an item has no owner.


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Once the alert is added you will see it under the “Trigger Details” tab. Multiple triggers can be added by repeating the process.

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Clicking Next will bring us to the Alert Actions tab where the recipients of the Alert email can be added. OnTime users, customers and even email addresses not in the OnTime system can be added to the Alert list on the right. Use the >> and << buttons to add and remove recipients. Also, if enabled by an Administrator, external processes can be specified at the bottom. This allows OnTime to perform actions outside of OnTime when this alert is activated.

Selecting the “Save” button will save the new alert and display it under the “Alerts” tab under the detailed information section items.


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The OnTime system provides the ability to automatically notify users of updates to items within a project. On a database level, these updates are set up using the Email Notification Services window. Notifications are sent via email when items are created, changed, or deleted. In addition, email notification settings can be customized globally, for each project, or for each item.

Notifications can be sent to OnTime Users, the clients of OnTime users who are set up to use the OnTime Customer Portal, or any other email address desired. The interface for adding OnTime users and Customer Portal users is done via a list created from the database. Additional email addresses are added manually.

Note: To configure email notifications, you must use either the OnTime Windows or Web clients.

To configure email notifications see Configuring Email Notifications in the Administrator's Guide.

Working With Emails

OnTime provides the ability to receive, send, and track emails related to any defect, feature, task, or incident. Before you can use the Emails feature in OnTime, make sure the administrator has configured the SMTP server for outgoing emails (see Configuring Email Notifications in the Administrator's Guide). Also make sure that the OnTime Email Service has been configured for incoming emails, and email accounts have been set up (see Setting up OnTime 2008 Email Service in the Administrator's Guide). OnTime uses the SMTP server configured in Email Notifications to send out emails, and it uses the POP3 accounts set up in the OnTime Email Service to read incoming emails.

Incoming emails are read by the OnTime Email Service and either new items are created or the emails are associated with already existing items. The way OnTime decides whether an email is associated with an existing item is by looking for the item's ID in the subject line. The item's ID has to be in the format [#id] anywhere in the subject (e.g. [#42] associates it with item ID 42). If the ID is not in the subject, or the item cannot be found, a new item is created (see Managing Email Accounts in the Administrator's Guide for more information).

When sending new emails, or replying to other emails, OnTime will automatically place the item's ID in the subject line so that any replies will be associated with that item.

To work with emails use the Emails tab in the Details section of any item.

Reading Emails

To read an email associated with an item in OnTime, simply select the email message you want to read and the content of the email will be displayed in the reading pane.

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You can choose to re-position the reading pane on the bottom of the list if you need a wider reading area, by selecting the Dock Bottom option in the Reading Pane dropdown button on the toolbar.

Sending Emails

Sending New Emails

To create and send a new email message associated with an item in OnTime, select the item and from the Emails tab click the New Email button on the toolbar. The Send Email window will be displayed.


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Select the account you want to send the email from in the From dropdown. The dropdown is populated with a list of emails of the accounts configured in the Email Service by your administrator. For more information on configuring email accounts see the Managing Email Accounts section in the Administrator's Guide. You may also choose to type in an arbitrary email address, however because OnTime only checks the email accounts set up in the Email Service any replies to this message may not be read into OnTime (this option may be disabled by your administrator through the System Options).

Next, type in the recipient's email address, the subject of the email, select whether the email is sent as HTML or plain text, and type in the body of the message. Once you entered in all the information click the Send button to send the email. The new email will be listed within the Email details tab.

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Replying To Emails

To reply to a customer's email that is associated to an item in OnTime, select the email message from the list and click the Reply button on the toolbar. The Send Email window will be displayed.


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The From and To addresses will be pre-selected based on the from and to addresses in the email message you are replying to. The subject line will also be populated with a reply to the original subject, and the body of the email message will contain the quoted body of the original email. Type in the reply message and click the Send button to send the reply.

The reply email will be listed in the Email list.

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Forwarding Emails

Often times, a copy of an existing email or information within an email already created will need to be sent out. Emails can be forwarded by simply selecting the email to be forwarded and click the "Forward" button from the toolbar. The email creation window will appear with the original message quoted and can then be appended with extra information if needed. Click send to send off the forwarded message to its recipient.


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Deleting Emails

To delete an email message associated with an item, select the message and click the Delete button on the toolbar. A window will pop up asking you to confirm the deletion of the message.

Once you click Yes the message will be deleted.

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Working With List Types

Working With List Types

OnTime has a set of built-in pick lists - Status, Priority, Severity, Category, and Work Log Types - which are referred to as List Types. While OnTime is delivered with a robust set of statuses, priorities, and severities it is expected that the options provided will not necessarily meet the needs of every set of OnTime projects. To help OnTime users customize their OnTime systems to more closely match their processes, the ability to manage list types is provided via the Tools --> Manage --> List Types menu choice.

From here you can add new values, edit existing values, or delete existing values. You can also re-order the values in the list using the Move Up and Move Down buttons. OnTime will display the values in the order defined when displaying them in a dropdown on the add or edit window.

Adding List Type Values

To add new values to a list type, select the appropriate tab for the list type and click the Add button. The Add New window will be displayed.


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Type in the new value and click the OK button to save it.

Editing List Type Values

To edit an existing value in a list type, select the value from the list and click the Edit button. The Edit window will be displayed.

Update the value and click the OK button to save the changes.

Deleting List Type Values

To delete an existing value in a list type, select the value from the list and click the Delete button. A window will pop up asking you to confirm the deletion of the value.

Once you click Yes the value will be deleted.

Working With Pick Lists

Working with Pick Lists

A pick list is a field type whose elements are predefined members of a list. When a pick list is defined, the possible choices for that pick list are also defined. Pick Lists are defined at a database level to gather information that a specific company needs. Once a pick list is created, it can be used for fields in either defects, features, or tasks.

In the sample database, there are four pick lists pre-defined, Environments, Operating systems, True/False, and Yes/No. The values for these pick lists can be seen by selecting the pick list name in the left column of the Manage Pick List window. The possible values for the selected pick list will show in the right hand column.

Work on a Pick List is done using the Manage Pick Lists window. To access this window, select Edit Pick Lists from the Tools menu.

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From this window pick lists and their potential values can be added, edited or deleted. In addition, the order of the values within a pick list can be changed.

Adding Pick Lists

To add a new pick list, click the Add New button next to the pick list column on the Manage Pick Lists page. Doing this brings up the Add Pick List field:

To define the new pick list, type the new field's name. When done, click OK.

Once a new pick list has been defined, the associated values need to be defined. This is done by clicking the Add New button for the right hand list on the Manage Pick List window. Clicking this button activates the New Pick List window, which looks virtually identical to the Add New Pick List window. Type in the name of the new value and click OK. Repeat the add new process for each value in the pick list.

Pick list values are stored as text. Each value is a string, which can be no longer than 50 characters.


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Also, when creating picklists you will notice the "Stored Procedure" option. This allows the custom picklist to pull their values from a stored procedure. For example, if you wanted to provide an additional picklist that was based on your Ontime users, you could create a custom picklist, and for the "Stored Procedure" field, give it the stored procedure "spS_Users_Names". The "Display Column" field tells OnTime which column from the stored procedureresult set will be used as the value that OnTime users see in the picklist. In the "spS_Users_Names" stored procedure, this would be the "Name" column.

Adding Dependent Pick Lists

In some instances it is helpful to be able to relate two pick lists so that when a value is selected from on pick list the second pick list only shows values pertaining to this selected value. An example of such a situation is if you want to define a Products list and a Versions list. The values in the Versions list are dependent on the values in the Products list. If the values of the Products list are Accounting App and Sales CRM, each one of these values would have its own Versions values.

To create dependent pick lists like these, first you need to add the top level (parent) pick list and its values as described in the above section.

Next select the top level pick list, Products in our example, and click the Add Child button. This will bring up the Add Pick List window so you can add the dependent pick list. Once you enter the child pick list's name and save it, you will notice that this new pick list shows up indented underneath the parent pick list on the list.

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Now you need to add the values for the dependent (child) pick list. These values are dependent on the values of the parent pick list, so you first select the parent value from the values list and click the Add button. Once you enter the value and save it you will notice that this new value shows up indented underneath the parent value on the list.

OnTime supports an unlimited depth of dependent pick lists, so you are not limited to only two, parent and child.

Once you have your dependent pick lists defined, you can create custom fields based on these pick lists and the dependency between them will be automatically handled by OnTime. For more information see the Adding Dependent Custom Fields section.

Editing Pick Lists or Pick List Values


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To edit existing pick lists, return to the Manage Pick Lists window. Select the pick list to be edited and either double click the field name or click the edit button for the pick lists.

Notice that for editing, the name of the pick list is already filled in. To edit it, type the new name and click OK. When a pick list value is edited, it shows in the same manner and is edited in the same manner.

If a pick list is changed, the label changes, but the values do not. If a pick list's values change, existing items using that value are left alone and new items are created with the new choices. For example, if a pick list named "Responsible Department" has its name changed to "Department Responsible", no change is made to any item in the database that uses that pick list to set the values for its fields. If one of the items in the picklist goes from "Accounting" to "Accounts Payable", any items which already have the appropriate field set to Accounting will remain the same. Any new items will not have Accounting as an option, instead they will have Accounts Payable as an option.

Deleting Pick Lists or Pick List Values

To delete a pick list value, select the value from the right hand column of the Manage Pick List window and click delete. A prompt will appear asking if the field should really be deleted. Affirming the deletion causes pick list value to be deleted. Items which use that value will remain unchanged. Future items will not have that item to choose from for the pick list.

To delete a pick list , select the pick list itself from the left hand column of the Manage Pick List window and click delete. A prompt will appear asking if the pick list should really be deleted. Affirming the deletion causes the pick list to no longer be available for use with a custom field. Items which have already been created with this pick list will remain unchanged.

If an item which uses that picklist is accessed before the picklist is redefined, the dropdown list for the picklist will be blank. Going back into Custom Fields and editing the field will show the picklist as [None]. In order to give the field a value, you must connect it to an existing picklist.

Working With Custom Fields

Working with Custom Fields

Defects, features, tasks, and incidents in OnTime have a set of built-in fields that define the items. However, chances are that each organization has their own fields that they would like to track within OnTime. You can create custom fields for either defects, features, tasks, or incidents to customize what information OnTime tracks for your items.

Work on Custom Fields is done using the Manage Custom Fields window. To access this window, go to Tools --> Manage --> Custom Fields.

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From this window custom fields for either defects, features, or tasks can be added, edited or deleted. In addition, the order of the custom fields on the item creation or editing pagewindow can be changed.

Adding Custom Fields

To add a new custom field, click the add button on the Manage Custom Fields page. Doing this brings up the Add Custom Field window:


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To define the new custom field, type the new field's name in the Field Label. Field Labels can be up to 50 characters in length.

Next, define the type of the custom field. Available types are:

Number

Text

Date & Time

Pick List

Large Text

Checkbox

Hyperlink

As a field type is selected, the options in the additional information area changes. For each field type, there are additional parameters.

All Fields - For all fields, the 'Include field in all field templates' option is available. This option will set the field to be visible within all existing field templates for the associated item type. This operation is performed when the new field is saved and does not affect subsequent new field templates.

Number fields - field size is defined to be 8, but the format of those 8 digits can be Decimal (2 places), Integer, Money, or Percent.

Text fields - the only definable field is the field size. The default size is 50 characters, but the size can be anything between 5 and 400 characters.

Date and Time fields - the choices are full date and time, short date, or short time.

Pick Lists - any defined pick list can be chosen for the value choices. If no pick list is chosen, an error message will appear reminding the user that a pick list must be chosen in order for a field type of pick list to be created. To create a pick list while defining the pick list field, click the Pick List link. You can the choose whether you want to make the custom field a single or multi-select list. Multi-selectable fields allow you to select multiple values from the pick list.

Large Text field - the field size cannot be modified, but this field type allows storage of an unlimited size of text. Additionally, the 'Show field in details section' checkbox at the bottom can be used to include the Large Text field in the Details Tabs on the main UI.

Checkbox - nothing can be modified. A checkbox field will be displayed with a selectable checkbox with the Field Label text to the right.

Hyperlink - With hyperlinks, the Field Link can be specified and can contain text as well as place holders for fields within the item used to create dynamic hyperlinks. To add place holders for your fields, click the '>>' button to the right of field link, simply select the desired field from the list. For example, a simple hyperlink can contain a link to a website, using a Field link of http://www.mysite.com. To create a dynamic link, we can use placeholders to automatically direct our link to content within the linked site. For example, using a field link of http://www.mysite.com/forums/showpost.aspx?postID=[DefectId] will replace the [DefectId] portion of the URL with the Defect ID of the item and would take us directly to a post on our forums related to this defect.

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Adding Dependent Custom Fields

If you have defined dependent pick list (see the Add Dependent Pick Lists section) and you wish to create dependent custom fields, all you need to do is create custom fields based on the pick lists that you defined. OnTime will automatically handle the dependency on the add/edit forms.

For example, if you wish to create two custom fields based on the Products and Versions dependent pick lists, create a custom field called Product of type Pick List based on the Products pick list, and a custom field called Version of type Pick List based on the Versions pick list.

Once you've defined your fields and you go to add a defect, you will notice the two custom fields, Product and Version, on the add form. The Product field will contain the values of the Products pick list. When you select a value in the Products dropdown you will notice the values in the Version field dropdown changing to reflect it.


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Editing Custom Fields

To edit existing custom fields, return to the Manage Custom Fields window. Select the field to be edited and either click the edit button or double click the field name.

When editing a custom field, the name can be changed for all types. For text fields, no other fields can be changed. For number fields or date & time fields, the format can also be changed. For Pick List fields, a different pick list can be chosen. In this case, the items with the old pick list choices will remain unchanged, but new items will be created with the new pick list choices.

Deleting Custom Fields

To delete a custom field, select the field label from the Manage Custom Fields list and click delete. A prompt will appear asking if the field should really be deleted. Affirming the deletion causes the data stored in that field to also be deleted. Since the deletion of a custom field can not be undone, be sure that the field being deleted is the correct one before affirming the deletion.

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Warning: When a custom field is deleted, all data for that field for all records in the system will be lost.

Working With Manage Fields Layout

To work with your Project, Customer, or Customer Contact Field layout, select Tools -> Manage -> Custom Fields from the menu. Under the Customers, Customer Contacts, or Projects tab, click the ‘Manage Field Layouts’ button on the toolbar. The Custom Field Layout editor will appear.

On the left, the Fields Layout section will show us the visual structure of our custom fields. On the right, in our Fields List, the fields that have not been added to the Field Layout are displayed. Be sure at least one group has been created to contain your custom fields. To create a new group, click Add Group from the toolbar and provide a name for the group.


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Groups will appear as tabs both within the Custom Field Layout editor and when editing a project. To add a field to a group, simply drag the field from the field list onto the Field Layout. To reorder fields, drag the field label up and down within the field editor. Also, you can make fields required or editable by selecting the appropriate option from the drop down menu to the right of the field. To reorder your Groups, select the appropriate group tab and use the right or left arrow buttons on the toolbar to move the group tab in the desired direction.

To remove the field, simply click the red ‘X’ next to the desired field. To remove a group, click the desired group tab and select delete group. This will only remove the group and the fields contained in the group from the layout and will not affect any of your data.

SCM Integration

OnTime supports integration with various Source Control Management systems, including SourceGear's Vault, Microsoft's Visual Source Safe, Perforce's SCM System, and Subversion. The integration that OnTime provides allows users to link items from OnTime to files in the SCM system, and perform simple operations on the files against the SCM system, like checking files in and out.

SCM integration is configured at the project level, allowing you to link different projects in OnTime with different folders in the SCM system, and even possibly configuring different projects with different SCM systems (one project using Vault and another using VSS).

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To set up an SCM system in OnTime, select the project you want to configure it for and go to the Projects --> Manage Source Control menu. The Source Control Management window will be displayed.

You need to select the SCM system you want to integrate with. The currently available options are Perforce, Microsoft Visual Source Safe, SourceGear Vault, and Subversion. Because OnTime's SCM integration uses a 'plugable' interface, Axosoft or any 3rd party could easily develop and integrate with other SCM systems.

When you select the SCM system from the dropdown, the user interface changes to allow you to enter in the pertinent information for connecting and working with that system. That means the user interface will differ slightly depending on the SCM system selected, but the information entered is roughly the same: selecting where the SCM resides, credentials used to connect to the SCM, a path to the GUI client if available, and the folder in the SCM to link the OnTime project to (where the files reside).

For example the user interface for setting up integration with Vault looks like this:

The Vault Connection Information option is selected and allows you to enter in the paths and connection information required for Vault.


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Type in or browse to the path where the Vault command-line client resides on your computer. Vault's command-line client is vault.exe

Type in the name of the server where the Vault server resides

Specify if SSL should be used for secured connection if the Vault server is configured to use SSL

Type in the user name and password of the Vault account used to connect to Vault

Type in or browse to the path where the Vault GUI client resides on your computer. Vault's GUI client is VaultGUIClient.exe

Select the Repository and Default Folder option.

This option lets you select the folder inside Vault that will be linked to the project in OnTime.

Select the Vault repository to connect to.

Vault has a configuration option that lets you require comments when checking files in. This option in OnTime should match the option setting in Vault, otherwise OnTime may have trouble checking files in.

Select the default folder to link to the project.

Once all the options are selected click Save to save the settings.

Working With SCM Files

Files from an SCM system can be linked to any item in OnTime. When working with items you will notice the SCM Files tab on the details tab control, which is both on the main window as well as the add and edit window. The SCM Files tab is always visible, however the buttons on the tab will only be enabled if you have configured SCM integration for the project the item is in.

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If the path to the SCM GUI client was entered when the SCM was configured in OnTime, you will be able to launch the GUI client by clicking the Launch SCM button. Otherwise the button will be disabled.

Adding Links to Files

To add a link from a file inside the SCM system to an item in OnTime, on the SCM Files tab click the Add Link button. The Add SCM Links window will be displayed.

The default folder will be displayed in the Folder Tree list. Select the folder inside the SCM where the file resides. The contents of the folder will be displayed on the right side in the Available Files list once the folder is selected. If the file you want to link does not reside under the default folder hierarchy, check the Show All Files checkbox to view all the folders in the SCM system.

Select the file you want to link and click the Add Link to File button. You may select multiple files by using the Shift or Control keys. Once you clicked the button the file will be added to the Linked Files list at the bottom of the window.


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This will create a link to the latest version of the file, which may change as the file's version changes. You may want to create a link to a specific version of a file, so that, for example, you can link to the version where certain fixes were made in the file. To link to a specific version, once you select the file click the Show File History button. The View File History window will be displayed.

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Select the version of the file from the list that you want to link to and click the Add Link button. The file will be added to the Linked Files list on the Add SCM Links window.

Once you've added all the files you want linked, click the Save button to link the files to the item in OnTime.

Deleting Links to Files

To delete a link to an SCM file from an item in OnTime, on the SCM Files tab select the file in the list and click the Delete Link button. You may select multiple files by using the Shift or Control keys. A window will pop up asking you to confirm the deletion of the link.

Once you click Yes the link to the file will be deleted.

Viewing Files and History

To view the history of a linked file select the linked file, right-click it and select View History from the context menu. The View File History window will be displayed.


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In the File History list you will see a list of all the versions of this file (the history). The list shows the version number, the date when the file was versioned, and the action that caused the version.

To view the contents of a file, select the version you wish to view from the File History list and click the View File button. The View File window will be displayed.

From this window you can choose how you want to view the file.

The default option is to open the file using Notepad. Text files like source code files can quickly be opened using Notepad.

If you wish the use the default application associated with the file's extension you can select the Default Application radio button.

If you have another application that you want to open the file with, select the Other radio button and type in or browse to the location of this application.

Once you click OK the file will be opened using the application selected.

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Checking Files In and Out

When working with linked SCM files you can easily check files in and out right from OnTime. Only files which are linked to the latest version can be checked out. If the link is to a specific version the file cannot be checked out.

To check out a file, on the SCM Files tab select the file and click the Checkout Files button. The status of the file will be updated to show that the file was checked out.

To check in a file, select the file and click the Checkin Files button. The Add Comments window will be displayed.

On this window you may enter comments that will be used when checking the file into the SCM system. If you want the comments to also be stored in OnTime for the item to which the file is linked, you can check the 'Update Related Item(s)?' checkbox and select the field where the comments will be stored.


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The Update Field dropdown will list built-in detail fields (Description, Notes, Replication Procedures, and Resolution) and custom fields of type Large Text.

Because the link to the file you are checking in is to the latest version of the file (remember that you cannot check in our out files with links to specific versions) , you may decide when checking it in that your work on this file is done and you want to change the link from Latest Version to the actual version number. You can then check the 'Checkin resolves this item' checkbox which will cause OnTime to get the actual version number of the file after it is checked in, and modify the link to the file to be to that version instead of Latest Version.

Once you click the Checkin button the file will be checked in and its status updated on the list.

Reports

OnTime is delivered with report generation and viewing built-in. The report interface is built on top of Data Dynamics' Active Reports. There are specific reports for defects, features, and projects. These reports can be either viewed directly from OnTime or saved to be viewed later using Adobe Acrobat.

List of Built-In Reports

OnTime comes with a number of pre-defined reports ready to use. These reports are split into four categories: project level reports, defect reports, feature reports, and task reports. Each report is generated based on the project currently selected for view and its sub-projects (child projects). If the defects or features being viewed have been narrowed via either a filter or a search, then the narrowed list will affect the report data as well.

Project reports

Project reports are generated from the Reports --> Project Summary Reports menu item. There are three reports available:

Project Summary - provides an overview of the status of the selected project and its child projects.

Project Workload Chart - provides a series of pie charts indicating the percent of the project finished for defects, and features, followed by a project summary pie chart.

Project Readiness Chart - provides a series of pie charts indicating the status of the project in terms of items assigned, in progress, and closed. This data is provided for both the number of items and the estimated hours of effort.

Defect reports

Defect reports are generated from the Reports --> Defects Reports menu item. There are eight reports available:

Defect Details - provides a detailed list of the defects associated with the selected project. For each defect, any available defect field information is shown.

Defect List - provides a summary sheet of the defects associated with the current project.

Defects By User - prompts the user for which security roles to report on, then provides a summary by user of the number of defects assigned to that user and the estimated hours to complete each defect. Each reported user's information is sorted by status (assigned, in progress, or closed).

Defects By User Chart - provides the same data as the Defects by User report, but as pie charts instead of listed data.

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Defects Fixed By Week - prompts the user for start and end dates of the range to be reported, then provides a bar chart showing the number of defects fixed each week over that time period.

Defects Found By Week - prompts the user for start and end dates of the range to be reported, then provides a bar chart showing the number of defects found each week over that time period.

Defects By Status Chart - prompts the user for which security roles to report on, then provides a pie chart for each defect status (assigned, in progress, or closed) of the number of defects in that status per user.

Defects Estimated Vs. Actual - provides a comparative summary of the estimated effort against the actual effort for each defect in the selected project.

Feature reports

Feature reports are generated from the Reports --> Features Reports menu item. There are eight reports available:

Feature Details - provides a detailed list of the features associated with the selected project. For each feature, any available feature field information is shown.

Feature List - provides a summary sheet of the features associated with the current project.

Features By User - prompts the user for which security roles to report on, then provides a summary by user of the number of features assigned to each user and the estimated hours to complete each feature. Each reported user's information is sorted by status (assigned, in progress, or closed).

Features By User Chart - provides the same data as the Features by User report, but as pie charts instead of listed data.

Features Requested By Week - prompts the user for start and end dates of the range to be reported, then provides a bar chart showing the number of features requested each week over that time period.

Features Completed By Week - prompts the user for start and end dates of the range to be reported, then provides a bar chart showing the number of features found each week over that time period.

Features By Status Chart - prompts the user for which security roles to report on, then provides a pie chart for each feature status (assigned, in progress, or closed) of the number of features in that status per user.

Features Estimated Vs Actual - provides a comparative summary of the estimated effort against the actual effort for each feature in the selected project.

Task reports

Task reports are generated from the Reports --> Task Reports menu item. There are two reports available:

Task Details - provides a detailed list of the tasks associated with the selected project. For each task, any available task field information is shown.

Task List - provides a summary sheet of the tasks associated with the current project.

Incident reports


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Incident reports are generated from the Reports --> incident Reports menu item. There are seven reports available:

Incidents By Escalation - provides a summary sheet of incidents, grouped by escalation level.

Incidents By User - provides a summary sheet of incidents, grouped by individual user.

Incidents Details - provides a detailed list of the incidents associated with the selected project. For each incident, any available incident field information is shown.

Incident List - provides a summary sheet of the incidents associated with the current project.

Incidents Reported By Day- provides a bar graph chart showing the number of incidents that occurred for each day in the time period selected.

Incidents Reported By Month - provides a bar graph chart showing the number of incidents that occurred for each month in the time period selected.

Incidents Reported By Week- provides a bar graph chart showing the number of incidents that occurred for each week in the time period selected.

Work Log reports

Work Log reports are generated from the Reports --> Work Log Reports menu item. There is one report available:

Work Log List - provides a summary sheet of the work logs associated with the current project.

User Dashboard Reports

User Dashboard reports are generated from the Print Items button on the toolbar within the User Dashboard.

User Dashboard Report - provides a list of items viewed within the User Dashboard

The Report Interface

Report generation is started from either the menu interface or the toolbar interface. Once a report is generated, a new window will appear containing a preview of the chosen report.

While the content and layout of each report is different, the interface to the contents is the same:

When a report is generated, the first page of the report is generated. To view the next page, click the down-arrow icon. After moving off the first page, the up-arrow icon will become enabled and you can click it to go to the previous page.

To go to a specific page you can enter a number in the text box next to the up/down arrows. In the above example you can enter in 2/2 and hit Enter and you will be taken to the second page.

To print the report, click the printer icon. To export the report to PDF click the left-most icon. To zoom in or out, click the magnifying glass icons.

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To search for a specific piece of text, click the binoculars icon and a prompt for the search string will appear. When the search string is found, it is highlighted in the report view with a red box. If the search string is not found on the current report page, the view will change to the first page that has the search string on it.

Report Samples

Reports in OnTime have one of two basic looks. They are either columnar text that provides details on and explains the current state of the project, or they are pie charts which show an overview of a wide variety of project status information. Samples of all reports can be acquired by running any of the reports against the sample data.

Sample Pie Chart Report

Sample Columnar Data Report

Managing Reports

Reports in OnTime consist of master reports and report shortcuts. Master reports are the base reports that define the type and layout of the report. Master reports do not filter the data in any way. When you design a custom report you actually create a master report. Report shortcuts let you define the filtering and sorting for the master reports. Once you've created a master report you can create any number of report shortcuts based on it, with different filtering and sorting criteria. Report shortcuts are the reports that are listed in the Reports menu in OnTime, and they are the viewable and printable reports. This


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model helps when you have different users who want to view the same report, just filtered slightly differently for their own needs.

To manage reports select the Reports --> Manage Reports menu option.

The Manage Reports window lets you create, edit, and delete master reports, create, edit and delete report shortcuts, and copy and view master reports or shortcuts.

The reports are listed in a hierarchical tree view, with the master reports as the parent nodes and the report shortcuts as the child nodes.

The master reports have an icon of a page that can have 3 different colors: green for built-in reports, yellow for custom reports, and grey for inactive reports. The built-in master reports cannot be modified, but you can copy them and modify the copies, or create report shortcuts for them. Custom reports are all the reports that were created by OnTime users in you system. Inactive reports are reports that you choose to no longer make available to users to run from OnTime, but do no wish to delete.

The report shortcuts have an icon of either two people for public shortcuts, or a person with a lock for private shortcuts. When you create a report shortcut you can decide to make the shortcut public so all users of OnTime can view and print that report, or keep the shortcut private so only you can view and print the report.

At any time you want to preview a master report or report shortcut, you can select it from the list and click the Preview button on the toolbar. Previewing a master report will print the report without filtering or sorting the data (remember that master reports do not contain any filtering definition).

You may copy a custom master report or any report shortcut by selecting it from the list and clicking the Copy button on the toolbar. Note that if you copy a built-in master report, certain filtering criteria may no longer be applied to any shortcuts of the copy (for example, running the built-in report Defects By User will ask you to select from a list of security roles; running a copy of this report will not ask for that information. This is a limitation of the current end-user reporting implementation in OnTime.)

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Creating Custom Reports

To create a new custom report, from the Manage OnTime Reports window first select the type of report you want to create. The available options are: Defects Reports, Features Reports, Tasks Reports, Incident Reports, Project Summary Reports, and Other Reports. The first four types are reports that run against a specific pre-defined stored procedure which returns all the data necessary to create that type of report (this is the same stored procedure that the built-in reports of that type are created against). The Other Reports lets you create reports that run against any arbitrary SQL query (which can be a call to a stored procedure).

Once you've selected the report type, click the 'Create a new report' button on the toolbar. If you've selected Other Reports, a window will be displayed prompting you to enter in the SQL query.

Any valid SQL query which can run against the OnTime database can be entered in. If you wish to create a more complex query that returns that data you want on the report, it is recommended that you create a stored procedure in the OnTime database and just type its name in this window (e.g. type in 'spS_Users' to get the users data from the database).

OnTime Report Designer

The Report Designer window is where you can create your custom report.

Report Layout

The report area is the area in the center of the Report Designer window. The reporting area consists, by default, of a Page Header section, Detail section, and Page Footer section. The page header and footer sections are printed as you would assume, at the top and bottom of every page. This is where you would place page numbers, or print date, or any information that should be repeated on every page. The detail section is where the printing of the data most likely occurs. The detail section is printed for every record, thus placing any field or control into this section will cause them to be printed once for every record in your data source.

You can also add additional sections by right-clicking the reporting area, and selecting the Insert menu option on the context menu. The available options are Report Header/Footer and Group Header/Footer. The report header and footer sections are printed at the beginning and end of your report. This is where you would place a report title, or report summary that should only be printed once


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for the report. Inserting a group header and footer allows you to group data by a certain field in your data source. Once you insert the group, click the Group Header section and in its properties panel you can specify what field to group by.

Fields

The Fields panel lists all the fields from the data source that are available for you to use on the report. Depending on what type of report you are creating, the list will be different. To use a field from the data source in you report, simply click and drag the field you want onto the report. For most reports you would place the fields in the details section, but you may place the fields in any of the sections of the report.

Tools

The toolbar on the left side of the designer window contains a list of objects (tools) that you can use on your report. To use any object in the report, simply click the object on the toolbar then draw it on the report area.

Pointer - is the default tool and is used for working with objects on the report area.

Label - is used for printing simple text. A label can be connected to a field, or just display any other text. A label supports simple formatting as well as rotating the text using the Angle property.

Text Box - is used for printing text that needs to be formatted. A text box can be connected to a field, or just display any other text just like a label. The text box support more complex formatting than the label, and does not support rotating the text. Using the text box's OutputFormat property you can specify different formatting for the values of the text box. You can also use the text box for performing summaries of fields in the data source.

Rich Text Box - is used for printing RTF or HTML text. A rich text box can be connected to a field, or just display custom text.

Check Box - is used for placing a check box on the report. A check box can be connected to a field, or display some other text.

Shape - is used for drawing rectangles or ellipses. Use the Style property of the shape to specify what it should draw.

Line - is used for drawing a straight line.

Page Break - is used for manually inserting a page break in the report.

Picture - is used for inserting an image in the report.

Chart - is used for inserting a graph in the report.

Formatting Text

To format any field or text placed on the report, simply select it on the report and use the formatting buttons on the toolbar. Formatting options include changing the font, bold, italic, and underline, and justification of the text.

Editing Custom Reports

To edit an existing custom report, select the custom master report from the list and click the 'Edit selected report' button from the toolbar. The Report Designer window will be displayed, allowing you to modify the master report. You may modify any aspect of the report (layout, SQL command for Other

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reports, scripts, etc.). Once you've updated the report, select the File --> Save menu option to save the changes, and close the window.

Deleting Custom Reports

To delete an existing custom report, select the custom master report from the list and click the 'Delete selected report' button on the toolbar. A window will pop up asking you to confirm the deletion of the master report.

Once you click Yes the master report will be deleted along with all its associated report shortcuts.

Managing Report Shortcuts

Report shortcuts are the filtered views of master reports, and they represent the actual reports that can be run from OnTime. You can create multiple report shortcuts for the same master report, thus having different filtered views of the same report.

To manage report shortcuts select the Reports --> Manage Reports menu option. The Manage Reports window will be displayed.

Adding Report Shortcuts


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To add a new report shortcut,. The New Report Shortcut window will be displayed.

Type in the name of the shortcut and select if you want the shortcut to be public, so that everyone can run it.

If you are creating a shortcut for a Defect, Feature, Task, or Project report, you may choose to have the report be filtered automatically by OnTime using the filter criteria currently selected in the UI to filter the item list. This will use the currently selected project, the selected filter, search criteria, and sort order on the UI.

If you wish to use a specific filter for the report, un-check the 'Automatically filter report...' checkbox. You can then choose to use a pre-made OnTime filter by selecting it from the dropdown, or type in your own SQL filter. You must use correct SQL syntax for the filter (which consists of the 'where' clause of a query without typing in the 'where').

You can also type in your own sort criteria, which also has to use correct SQL syntax (which consists of the 'order by' clause of a query without typing in the 'order by').

Once you've entered all the filtering information click the Save button to save the report shortcut. Once you save it, the shortcut will appear as a report in the Reports menu in OnTime.

Editing Report Shortcuts

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To edit an existing report shortcut, select the report shortcut from the list and click the 'Edit selected report shortcut' button on the toolbar. The Edit Report Shortcut window will be displayed.

You may change any of the report shortcut information as well as the filtering and sort criteria. Once you've updated the information click the Save button to save the changes.

Deleting Report Shortcuts

To delete a report shortcut, select the report shortcut and click the Delete button on the toolbar . A window will pop up asking you to confirm the deletion of the report shortcut.

Once you click Yes the report shortcut will be deleted and it will be removed from the Reports menu. Deleting a report shortcut does not delete the master report.

Active Reports Concepts


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Active Reports Concepts

OnTime uses Active Reports as its Report Generation utility. To create more advanced custom reports, a good understanding of Active Reports architecture and Scripting are necessary.

The following sections explain the basics of Active Reports:

Report Structure

Report Execution

Report Events

Rich Text

Report Structure

A report section contains a group of controls that are processed and printed at the same time as a single unit. ActiveReports defines the following section types:

Report Header

A report can have one report header section that prints at the beginning of the report. This section generally is used to print a report title, a summary table, a chart or any information that needs only to appear once at the report's start.

Report Footer

A report can have one report footer section that prints at the end of the report. This section is used to print a summary of the report, grand totals or any information that needs to print once at the report's end.

Page Header

A report can have one page header section that prints at the top of each page. It is the first section that prints on the page except when the page contains a report header section. The page header section is used to print column headers, page numbers, a page title or any information that needs to appear at the top of each page in the report.

Note: Bound controls in the PageHeader or PageFooter are not supported. The data in such controls may not be in synch with the data displayed in other sections on the page.

Page Footer

A report can have one page footer section that prints at the bottom of each page. It is used to print page totals, page numbers or any other information that needs to appear at the bottom of each page.

Group Header/Footer

A report can consist of single or multiple nested groups, with each group having its own header and footer sections. The header section is inserted and printed immediately before the detail section. The footer section is inserted and printed immediately after the detail section.

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Detail

A report has one detail section. The detail section is the body of the report and one instance of the section is created for each record in the report.

Some of the above information was created by Data Dynamics. The original work can be found here.

Report Execution

ActiveReports report execution begins by raising the ReportStart event. At this point, accessing data source properties might cause DataInitialize to fire. The report validates any changes made to the report structure in ReportStart.

Printer settings are applied next.

If DataInitialize is not fired during the ReportStart event, it will be fired. The data source will be opened. If there are any parameters in the data source with unset values and "ShowParameterUI" is set to True, ActiveReports displays a parameters dialog and fires "ParameterUIClosed" when the dialog is closed. If the report is a subreport and requires parameters, ActiveReports binds the subreport parameters to any fields in the parent report.

Next, the FetchData event fires. If there is no data, the NoData event is raised.

Note: The DataInitialize and FetchData events are the only events in which the Fields collection should ever be referenced.

Group sections are bound and sections begin rendering on pages.

Events are then fired for processing the report header, followed by page header, groups, detail and page footer for each page in the report. The cancel flag is checked after each event.

The speed in processing and output generation of ActiveReports is attributed to its intelligent, multi-threaded, single-pass processing. ActiveReports will process and render each page as soon as the page is ready. If ActiveReports is not able to fully render a page because of unknown data elements or because the layout is not final, it places the page in cache until the data is available.

Summary fields and KeepTogether constraints are two reasons that a page might not be rendered completely. The summary field is not complete until all the data needed for calculation is read from the data source. When a summary field such as a grand total is placed ahead of its completion level, such as in the report header, the report header and all following sections will be delayed until all of the data is read.

The KeepTogether property determines whether a section should print in its entirety on the same page. When this property is set to True, the section will print on the same page without any page breaks. A False setting allows the section to be split across two or more pages. If the KeepTogether property is set to True, but the section is too large for the current page, or to fit fully on the next page, the KeepTogether property will be ignored.

The GroupKeepTogether property determines whether group header and footer sections will print as a single block on the same page. The property defaults to None which allows the group block to be split across pages. When you set this property to All, ActiveReports attempts to print the complete block on the same page without any page breaks. When a complete block does not fit on a single page, it will be split across two or more pages. The third option, FirstDetail, prevents any widowed group header sections. The group header will always print with at least one detail section.



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Report Events

Section Events

There are three events that fire for each section, regardless of its type or content. The sequence of these events depends on the summary objects and their section dependencies. Because there are many possible report designs, the event-firing sequence must be dynamic in order to accommodate individual report demands. The only guaranteed sequence is that a section's Format event fires before the BeforePrint event, which in turn occurs before the AfterPrint event but not necessarily all together. Reports should not be designed to rely on these events firing in immediate succession. Out of the three events, the Format event generally is used the most often, followed by the BeforePrint event and, in rare circumstances, the AfterPrint event.

Note: You should never reference the report's Fields collection in these section events. The DataInitialize and FetchData events are the only events in which the Fields collection should ever be referenced.

Format event

This event fires after data is loaded and bound to the fields but before the section is laid out for printing. Use this event to modify the layout of a section or any of the controls in the section. This is the only event in which a section's height can be changed. Also use the Format event to pass information, such as an SQL String, to a Subreport. Because a section's height is unknown until the Format event finishes, it is possible for a section's Format event to fire while the report is on a page to which the section is not rendered. For example, the Detail_Format event fires but the section is too large to fit on the page. This causes the PageFooter event and the PageEnd event to fire on the current page, and the PageStart, any other Header events, and possibly the FetchData event to fire before the section is rendered to the canvas on the next page.

If the CanGrow or CanShrink property of any control contained within a section, or the section itself, is set to True, all of the growing and shrinking of controls contained in this section, and the section itself, takes place in the Format event. Because of this, information about a control or a section's height cannot be obtained in this event.

BeforePrint event

This event fires before the section is rendered to the page. You can use this event to modify the values of the controls before they are printed. Any changes made here will not affect the height of the section. We recommend that you do NOT access any fields in a DataSource's dataset in this event. Also use this event to do page specific formatting since the report knows which page the section will be rendered to when this event fires. Once this event has finished, the section cannot be changed in any way because the section is rendered to the canvas immediately after this event fires.

The growing and shrinking of the section and all controls contained in a section have already taken place by the time this event fires. Use this section to resize any controls if needed. Since all controls and section growth have already taken place by the time this event fires, this event may be used to get an accurate height of the section, or, if needed, any controls contained in it. Any controls in the BeforePrint event may be resized but not the height of the section itself.

AfterPrint event

This event fires after the section is rendered to the canvas object. You can use this event to draw directly to the canvas. Do not use the AfterPrint event to make any changes to the section since the section has already been rendered to the canvas at this point.

Although AfterPrint was an important event prior to ActiveReports Version 1 Service Pack 3, it is rarely used in any of the newer builds of ActiveReports. When you place code in the section events, you likely

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will place your code in either the Format event or the BeforePrint event. This event is still useful for drawing on the page after text has already been rendered to the page.

Some of the above information was created by Data Dynamics. The original works can be found here and here.

Rich Text

When displaying certain OnTime fields in reports (Description, Notes, Resolution, Replication Procedures, and custom Large-Text fields), it is necessary to display them using a RichText control. The following is a list of all of the HTML tags which can be used with the RichText control. Any tags which are not supported will be ignored. Please note that W3C conventions are strictly observed.

Tag Comment Attributes <B> Bold none <I> Italic none <P> Paragraph align, style <STRONG> Strong (looks like bold) none <BIG> Big none <SMALL> Small none <PRE> Preformatted none <FONT> Font face, size, color, style (see notes for style attributes) <BODY> The body tag background, text, leftmargin <H1> - <H6> Heading levels one through six none <BR> Line break none <EM> Emphasized (looks like Italics) none <U> Underlined none <IMG> Image align, height, src, width <SUP> Superscript none <SUB> Subscript none <CENTER> Center alignment none <TABLE> Table align, border, cellpadding, cellspacing, height, style, width <TR> Table row align <TH> Table head none <TD> Table datum align, border, colspan, rowspan, width <LI> List item none (nesting levels yield disc, circle, square bullets) <OL> Ordered list type <UL> Unordered list type, value

<STRIKE> Strike through none

NOTE: The style attributes of <FONT>, <P>, and <TABLE> support the following properties:

border-bottom border-bottom-width border-color border-left border-left-width border-right border-right-width border-style

border-top-width border-width font-family font-size height line-height margin-bottom margin-left

margin-top padding-bottom padding-left padding-right padding-top table-layout text-align text-indent


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border-top margin-right width


Scripting

Scripting

OnTime uses Active Reports which can be customized using C# script.. To create more advanced custom reports, a good understanding of Scripting and Active Reports architecture are necessary.

The following sections explain the basics of scripting:

Basic Scripting

Events

Accessing Fields and Controls in a Script

Global Properties

Here is a scripting example of some commonly requested functionality:

Grouping Data

Basic Scripting

If you need to do more complex manipulation of the data on your report, you may using the scripting abilities of the Active Reports designer.

To view the scripting interface simply click the 'Show or hide the report's scripts' button on the toolbar.

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The default scripting language is C#. To enter scripts, first select an object from the Object dropdown. Objects listed in the dropdown represent sections on the report, and the ActiveReport object itself representing the entire report. Next select the event where you want to place the script in. The events depend on the selected object, with most sections only having 3 events: Format, BeforePrint, and AfterPrint. For most reports you would place the scripts in the Format event. Once you select the event, an event handler definition will be created for you.

Events

Single Firing Events

The following events are all of the events that fire only once during a report's processing. These events fire at the beginning and at the end of the report processing cycle.

ReportStart

This event fires before the DataInitialize event. Use this event to initialize any objects or variables needed while running a report. Also use this event to set any Subreport control objects to a new instance of the report assigned to the Subreport control. Do not add items dynamically to a report once this event has finished.

DataInitialize

This event fires after ReportStart. Use it to add custom fields to the report's Fields collection. Custom fields can be added to a bound report (one that uses a Data Control to connect and retrieve records) or an unbound report (one that does not depend on a data control to get its records). In a bound report the dataset is opened and the dataset fields are added to the custom fields collection, then the


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DataInitialize event is fired so new custom fields can be added. The DataInitialize event can also be used to make adjustments to the DataSource or to set up database connectivity.

ReportEnd

This event fires after the report finishes processing. Use this event to close or free any objects that you were using while running a report in unbound mode, or to display information or messages to the end user. This event can also be used to export reports.

Multiple Firing Events

The following ActiveReports events fire multiple times during a report's processing.

FetchData

This event fires every time a new record is processed. The FetchData has an EOF parameter indicating whether the FetchData event should fire. This parameter is not the same as the Recordset's EOF property and is defaulted to True. When working with bound reports (reports using a DataControl), the EOF parameter is automatically set by the report; however, when working with unbound reports this parameter needs to be controlled manually. Use the FetchData event with unbound reports to set the values of custom fields that were added in the DataInitialize event or with bound reports to perform special functions, such as combining fields together or performing calculations. The FetchData event should not have any references to controls on the report.

If you need to use a value from a Dataset with a control in the Detail section, set a variable in the FetchData event and use the variable in the section's Format event to set the value for the control. Please note that this method of setting a variable in the FetchData event and using it to set a control's value is only supported in the Detail_Format event.

Also use the FetchData event to increment counters when working with arrays or collections.

PageStart

This event fires before a page is rendered. Use this event to initialize any variables needed for each page when running an unbound report.

PageEnd

This event fires after each page in the report is rendered. Use this event to update any variables needed for each page when running an unbound report.

Some of the above information was created by Data Dynamics. The original works can be found here.

Accessing Fields and Controls in a Script

Managing fields and controls in the OnTime Report Designer is managed through the script of the report.

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Accessing Fields

To access fields from the data source use the following syntax:

rpt.Fields["DueDate"]

Note: The 'rpt' variable is the equivalent of 'this' for the report class.

Example

if (rpt.Fields.Contains("DateFound") && rpt.Fields["DateFound"].Value != null)

{

// execute some code

}

Accessing Controls

To access controls on the report, you need to use the following syntax:

((TextBox)rpt.Sections["Detail"].Controls["txtDueDate"]).Text

Example

((RichTextBox)rpt.Sections["GroupFooter3"].Controls["replicationRichTextBox"]).Text = "Some Text";

Global Variables

There are four special global variables which are passed into an OnTime Report at runtime that can be used dynamically in scripting. All of these global variables are designed to be read-only; they provide information to the report at run-time and changing the variable does nothing to the report itself.

Report Title

Variable Name: rptTitle

Variable Type: String

Description: This variable returns the name of the report shortcut associated with this report. This should be used to display the name of the report at the top of the page. This way, if a user changes the shortcut name, the report title in Active Reports can be populated with their new name (remember that the shortcut is the name of the report that appears in the dropdown menu that your users will see).

Example:


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public void PageHeader_Format() { ((Label)rpt.Sections["PageHeader"].Controls["labelTitle"]).Text = rptTitle; }

Selected Project

Variable Name: rptSelectedProject


Description: This variable gives the name of the project currently selected by the user in the Project Tree. Since OnTime is already filtering the report data by the project selected in the Project Tree, this field will allow you to display the user's project. This is most typically used to display the user's currently selected project at the top of the report.

Example:

public void PageHeader_Format() { ((Label)rpt.Sections["PageHeader"].Controls["labelSelectedProject"]).Text = rptSelectedProject; }

HTML Details

Variable Name: rptPrintHTMLDetails

Variable Type: Boolean

Description: This variable provides the state of the user's "Print Item Details as HTML" setting under "Personal Settings". This setting allows the report designer to dynamically know if some of the user's data will be in HTML format or not.

Example:

if (rptPrintHtmlDetails) { ((RichTextBox)rpt.Sections["GroupFooter4"].Controls["descriptionRichTextBox"]).Html = _description; } else { ((RichTextBox)rpt.Sections["GroupFooter4"].Controls["descriptionRichTextBox"]).Text = rptHelper.HtmlToText(_description); }

Selected Group

Variable Name: rptSelectedGroupField


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Description: This variable returns the name of the Group that the user currently is grouping data with in OnTime. This variable is used to create dynamic grouping. Users can sort their data by a specific group in OnTime and then run a report and see their data grouped in the way they chose; this variable is required to provide that functionality.

Example:

if (rpt.Fields[rptSelectedGroupField].Value.ToString().Length > 0) { ((Label)rpt.Sections["autoGroupHeader"].Controls["labelGroupHeader"]).Text = rpt.Fields[rptSelectedGroupField].Value.ToString(); } else { ((Label)rpt.Sections["autoGroupHeader"].Controls["labelGroupHeader"]).Text = "[None]"; }

Grouping Data

When scripting a report, it is important to understand that there are two main ways to group your data:

1. Grouping the data the same way every time (static)

2. Grouping the data based on the user's selection on the Group box in OnTime (dynamic)

The first method should be used for times when the report must have the data sorted the same way, every time. The second method should be used when then report needs a different sort each time. Let's examine how to create sorts for these different cases.

Note: Previewing a report in Design Mode does NOT incorporate any grouping functionality! To test your grouping, create a shortcut of your report and preview the shortcut.

1. Group Data Statically the Same Way Every Run

This method is very easy and does not require any actual scripting. Open your report and select the group header section (if you do not have a group section, right-click on the report and select "Insert" -> "Insert Group Header/Footer"). Once the group header is selected, look down at the Properties window and find the DataField combo-box. The DataField box will list all of the fields that your data can be sorted with. Simply select the field you wish to sort your data with, and Active Reports will handle the rest.


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2. Group Data Dynamically Based on the User's Selection

To create a report where data is sorted on-the-fly, you will need to perform the following steps:

1. Create a Group Header

2. Change the Group Header name to: "autoGroupHeader"

3. Insert this code into the ActiveReport_ReportStart() portion of code:

((GroupHeader)rpt.Sections["autoGroupHeader"]).DataField = rptSelectedGroupField;

This code uses one of OnTime's Global Variables named: rptSelectedGroupField. This variable controls which "Group" the user selects in the Group Dropdown in OnTime.

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175

Index

A

Accessing OnTime............................................19

Add

Attachments ................................................103

Custom Fields .....................................152, 154

Defects ..........................................................84

Features ........................................................89

Field Templates.............................................61

Filters.............................................................26

Item Relation Types ....................................125

Item Relations .............................................123

List Type Values..........................................146

Pick Lists .............................................148, 149

Projects .........................................................74

Report Shortcuts .........................................179

Tasks.......................................................94, 96

Users.......................................................48, 51

Users to Notification Lists ............................129

Work Log.....................................................127

Workflows................................................65, 66

Alerts...............................................................132

Archive

Archiving Items............................................118

Attachments ....................................................103

Audit Trails ......................................................110

Authentication

OnTime User Authentication .........................48

SQL Server Authentication............................15

C

Columns........................................................... 23

Connect

Connect to OnTime Database ...................... 19

Connect to OnTime Enterprise Server.......... 21

Log In ........................................................... 22

Copy

Defects ................................................103, 114

Features ..............................................103, 114

Field Templates............................................ 64

Projects ........................................................ 78

Reports....................................................... 174

Workflows..................................................... 66

Create

Custom Reports.......................................... 176

Filters............................................................ 26

Custom Fields

Adding .................................................152, 154

Deleting ...................................................... 155

Dependent Custom Fields .......................... 154

Editing ........................................................ 155

Managing.................................................... 147

Custom Fields ................................................ 151

D

Dashboard ....................................................... 36

Defects

Adding .......................................................... 84

Deleting ........................................................ 87


176

Editing .....................................................84, 88

Moving...........................................................88

Viewing..........................................................86

Defects..............................................................83

Delete

Custom Fields .............................................155

Defects ..........................................................87

Features ........................................................92

Field Templates.............................................63

Filters.............................................................31

Item Relation Types ....................................126

Item Relations .............................................125

List Type Values..........................................147

Pick Lists .....................................................151

Projects .........................................................78

Reports................................................178, 181

Tasks.............................................................97

Users.............................................................54

Work Log.....................................................128

Workflows................................................66, 71

Dependent Custom Fields...............................154

Dependent Pick Lists ......................................149

E

Edit

Columns ........................................................23

Custom Fields .............................................155

Defects ....................................................84, 88

Features ..................................................89, 92

Field Templates.............................................63

Filters.............................................................31

Item Relation Types.................................... 126

Item Relations............................................. 124

List Type Values ......................................... 147

Pick Lists .................................................... 150

Projects ........................................................ 77

Tasks...................................................... 94, 97

Users ............................................................ 54

Work Logs .................................................. 128

Workflows............................................... 65, 70

Email Notifications

Adding Users to Notification Lists ............... 129

Email Notifications.......................................... 129

Email Notifications.......................................... 138

Emails

Deleting ...................................................... 145

Reading ...................................................... 139

Sending ...................................................... 140

Emails ............................................................ 138

Export............................................................. 118

F

Features

Adding .......................................................... 89

Deleting ........................................................ 92

Editing .................................................... 89, 92

Moving.......................................................... 92

Viewing......................................................... 91

Features........................................................... 88

Field Templates

Adding .......................................................... 61

Copying ........................................................ 64

Index

177

Deleting .........................................................63

Editing ...........................................................63

Field Templates ................................................61

Filters

Adding ...........................................................26

Applying Filters..............................................26

Deleting .........................................................31

Editing ...........................................................31

Filters ................................................................25

Formatting Text...............................................107

G

Grouping ...........................................................31

H

History

Audit Trails ..................................................110

Item History .................................................109

SCM File History .........................................167

I

Incidents

Adding ...........................................................98

Deleting .......................................................100

Editing ...................................................98, 100

Moving.........................................................100

Viewing........................................................101

Incidents..........................................................102

Introduction .........................................................3

Item Relation Types

Adding .........................................................125

Deleting .......................................................126

Editing .........................................................126

Managing.................................................... 125

Item Relation Types ....................................... 125

K

Keyboard Shortcuts........................................ 115

L

List Types

Adding Values ............................................ 146

Deleting Values .......................................... 147

Editing Values............................................. 147

Managing.................................................... 146

List Types....................................................... 146

Logging In ........................................................ 22

M

Manage

Custom Fields............................................. 151

Field Templates............................................ 61

Item Relation Types.................................... 125

List Types ................................................... 146

Pick Lists .................................................... 147

Projects ........................................................ 71

Reports................................................174, 178

Security Roles .............................................. 40

Users ...................................................... 40, 48

Workflows..................................................... 64

Move

Defects ......................................................... 88

Features ....................................................... 92

Tasks............................................................ 97

Multi-Edit ........................................................ 113

Multi-Select Custom Fields ............................ 152


178

N

New User Defaults ............................................49

O

OnTime Product Line ..........................................7

P

Pick Lists

Adding .................................................148, 149

Deleting .......................................................151

Dependent Pick Lists...................................149

Editing .........................................................150

Managing.....................................................147

Pick Lists.........................................................147

Print ................................................................114

Process.............................................................64

Project Hierarchy ........................................71, 73

Projects

Adding ...........................................................74

Copying .........................................................78

Deleting .........................................................78

Editing ...........................................................77

Understanding Project Hierarchy...................73

Projects.............................................................71

R

Related Items

Adding .........................................................123

Deleting .......................................................125

Editing .........................................................124

Related Items..................................................122

Remote Server

Connecting to Enterprise Server ...................21

Reports

Adding Report Shortcuts ............................ 179

Creating Custom Reports ........................... 176

Deleting ...............................................178, 181

Editing .................................................178, 180

List of Built-In Reports ................................ 169

Managing.............................................174, 178

Printing ....................................................... 114

Samples ..................................................... 172

Viewing................................................114, 172

Reports .......................................................... 169

S

SCM Integration ......................................158, 161

Searching......................................................... 33

Security Roles

Managing...................................................... 40

Security Roles.................................................. 40

Sorting.............................................................. 25

Source Control Management

Adding Links to Files .................................. 162

Checking Files In and Out .......................... 168

Deleting Links to Files ................................ 166

Integration................................................... 158

Viewing Files and History ........................... 167

Source Control Management ......................... 158

T

Tasks

Adding .................................................... 94, 96

Completed Tasks.......................................... 96

Deleting ........................................................ 97

Index

179

Editing .....................................................94, 97

Moving...........................................................97

Viewing..........................................................96

Tasks ................................................................93

U

User Options.....................................................55

Users

Adding ...........................................................51

Authentication Types.....................................48

Deleting .........................................................54

Editing ...........................................................54

Managing.......................................................48

New User Defaults ........................................49

Security .........................................................40

User Options .................................................55

Users ................................................................40

V

View

Columns ........................................................23

Defects ....................................................83, 86

Features ..................................................88, 91

History .........................................................109

Reports........................................114, 172, 174

SCM Files................................................... 167

Tasks...................................................... 93, 96

W

What's New........................................................ 5

Work Logs

Adding ........................................................ 127

Deleting ...................................................... 128

Editing ........................................................ 128

Updating Actual Time ................................. 128

Work Log Types ......................................... 146

Work Logs...................................................... 127

Workflows

Adding .......................................................... 65

Adding Workflow Steps ................................ 66

Copying ........................................................ 66

Deleting ........................................................ 66

Deleting Workflow Steps .............................. 71

Editing .......................................................... 65

Editing Workflow Steps................................. 70

Managing...................................................... 64

Workflows ........................................................ 64

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