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Home Page The home page lists a user's favorite PR ¹. These are the result of the default query of the user. If the user does not have a default query, all PRs that are not closed and that he is responsible or authored will be listed. A default query can be added in the query result form.
Create and Submit Click on the CREATE button to create a new PR. The state of a newly created PR is always the first state in the State menu. The admin need make sure that the first state is 'new' or 'open' etc. The PR will be assigned to a person automatically (based on the Assignable ²) if no assignee (i.e., responsible) is selected. If an assignee is selected, then the PR will be assigned accordingly. An email notification will be sent if the assignee and the author are a different person.
Edit and View To locate an existing PR, one can either click on the PR number (on the Home or Query result page) or enter the PR number in the "OPEN #" field directly. Some fields of the PR are not editable, and some fields of the PR have to be changed for the PR to be updated. If the new assigned person is not the author, an email notifcation will be sent out.
Automatic Assignment When a new PR is created, by default, it is assigned to a person automatically based on the Assignable. However, one can specifically select a person to be assigned. A PR can always be re-assigned thereafter.
Description/Response Both Description and Response are a text field used for the detail description of the PR. For a new PR, it is called Description and can be used for things like description, steps-to-reproduce, etc. For all the responses to the PR, it is called Response and can be used for things like work-around, how-to-fix, resolution, etc.
File Attachment Both binary and text files can be attached. File attachment is useful in cases where the content cannot be entered in the Description/Response field (such as an image), or in cases where the file is patchable. File content is not searchable.
CC Mail When a PR is created or modified, email can be sent to certain addresses explicitly. If there are more than one email address, they must be separated with a semicolon(;), a comma(,), or a space. The content of the email is the same as that of the email notification sent to the assignee.
Email Notification An email notification is triggered only when the author of the PR and the assigned person are a different person. The email is sent to the assigned only. The content of the email (as well as the subject) is template based and can be customized. To receive additional emails, one can configure the Email Notification Triggers from the Prefs page.
Find and Search One can do query either with a "Stored Query" or submitting the query form (which can then be saved as a "Stored Query"). The stored query can be set as default, which is then used on the HOME page. Users of group 'guest' can only edit/view PRs they authored.
Reports and Statistics There are three kinds of reports. The summary report has two parameters, such as State verses Responsible, it is rendered as a text form. The current distribution of PR counts and the history trend are a 2D chart. All these reports are displayed in a new window by clicking on the corresponding links.
User Preferences User can change his own account information, which includes password, email address, default project, signature, email notification triggers, etc.
Email Signature A user can setup an optional email signature. This signature is appended in the email notification for the PR this user created or modified. Signature is configured in the user's preferences.
Email Notification Triggers A user can configure the condition for receiving email notification for each project. The condition is based on the Author, Responsible (assignee), State (status), etc. Note that, "AND" is used among the fields, and "OR" is used among the items of a field. For example, one can configure a trigger of "Author is 'a1' OR 'a2'", or a trigger of "Author is 'a1' AND State is 'new' OR 'closed'". One can not configure a trigger of "Author is 'a1' OR State is 'closed'". One can however configure two triggers for that purpose. To add a trigger, just enter a trigger name and click on Add.
Browse Mode When an existing PR is edited and saved, the next page it returns is determined by the Browse Mode configured in the Prefs page. If the mode is "Back to List", the next page is the query list or the Home page, and if the mode is "Go to Next", the next page is the next PR on the list.
System Administration Bugzero provides both a commandline based and a web-based tool for system administration. By login as user 'admin', you can add or remove projects and edit/configure the project setup. You can also add or remove user accounts.
User Groups When the admin creates a user account, a group has to be set to the user. The group is global and is not related to any individual project. There two special user groups called 'admin' and 'guest'. They are system defined and cannot be changed. The admin group is used only for system administration and the guest group is used for users whose access should be limited. Groups are configured on the GROUP administration page.
Guest Group A guest user has certain restrictions by default. He can not view or edit PRs other than those originated from him, in other words, he can only view and edit his own PRs. For a guest user to be able to submit new PRs, an access code of either 'submit' or 'edit' need to be assigned to him (in this case, they are the same). Guest users do not see the Report page and do not see the Prefs.
Group Type A group can have an associated type. There are three types, Guest, Group, and GuestGroup. Add type "Guest" to a group makes it behaves like a Guest group. Add type "Group" to a group makes the users of this group can only see PRs authored by a user from the same group. The GuestGroup is similar to type Group and in addition, users of the group do not see Reports and Prefs.
Project Access Access is controlled at the project level. For each project, the admin need assign an access code to each user who is allowed to access it.
Field Access Field access is controlled based on user group. If a group is denied to a field, then this field becomes invisible to the users of that group. For example, you may deny the guest group to see the priority or responsible fields. You can also set the field read only.
Assignment Assignable is a mandatory system defined field. For each item in the assignable field, a user has to be assigned. The admin has to input an item, select a user in the User menu, and click on "Add". This user is the default assignee when a new PR is submitted with this item as the assignable.
Field Customization For each project, the display name as well as the content of each field can be customized. If a field is left empty (for example, a menu field with no items in it), then the field is not visible on the PR forms and is considered removed. (some fields are mandatory though). While almost all the field display names can be configured by the admin interface for each project, one can also do so by editing the label.properties file.
State and Status There are two mandatory states, namely, the first state such as 'new' or 'open', and the state 'closed'. One can add any other states as needed. The first state is used when the PR is created.
Workflow For each project, workflow can be configured by the admin. Specifically, for each state during the lifecycle of a PR, the next states it is allowed to go can be restricted. For example, for state 'closed', the only allowed next state could be 'reopened'. On the other hand, for state 'new', all states will be allowed except 'new' and 'reopened'. By default, Bugzero allows any states. The second aspect of the workflow is that, when a PR is modified and its state is changed, Bugzero can be configured to let the PR to be automatically re-assigned. Note that, if the user who is modifying the PR explicitly select a new assignee (responsible), this automatic assignment will not take effect. Finally, the next allowed states can also be restricted based on the user group.
Email Management For each project, an email address, either an alias on Unix/Linux or a real pop3 mail account on Windows, can be set up to receive PRs submitted through email. On Unix/Linux, a perl program is used to forward the email to the Bugzero system directly (push). On Windows, a mailbox daemon is used to fetch emails from the mailbox (pull). This email address is also used as the From address of the notification email. The notification email is template based and can be customized for each project. Both email address and template are configured on the EMAIL administration page. The mailbox daemon is managed through the administration page.
Self Registration For public projects or projects that offer public access, to avoid the administrative overhead of creating too many user accounts individually, a self registration form can be used. By default, a user who submitted this form will be registered to the 'guest' group. A self registered user can only access public projects to submit and view PR ('edit own' access). You need make at least one project public for a self registered user to login. A sample form (register.jsp) was provided.
Internationalization/UTF-8 To use UTF-8, you need a servlet container that implements Servlet API 2.3 or later, and a database that supports UTF-8 character set or whose JDBC driver can encode the unicode characters in the front. To enable UTF-8, you need switch on system.charset=UTF-8 in the file system.properties. Then, for Oracle, you need create a database that uses UTF8 as the character set, and for MySQL, you need set the useUnicode=true in the jdbc url (see example in the file db.properties).
Delete Close Assign These quick action hot buttons may appear on the HOME, query result, and Edit pages. They are provided for your convenience. They should be used with care since there is no audit trail for them. Any one of these buttons can be hidden from the user based on the user group. Only users with "edit" access code can see these buttons. They are configured on admin's Permission page.
¹ PR (problem report) is used here for convenience, it
represents the data record that can be software bugs,
hardware defects, customer support tickets, or any issues or matters.
² Assignable
represents a field that can be area, module, department etc.