Modifying artifacts

Once an artifact has been created it is ready for assignment or manipulation. You can perform the following functions on artifacts in the database:

Managing artifact information

Almost all attributes of an artifact are editable from the view artifact screen. You can alter most attributes, if you have the proper permission level, view user associations, add URL links, create dependencies, add attachments, and view the artifact history.

Dependencies

You can alter or add dependencies as necessary. As when creating an artifact, you must define the dependency type. Dependencies can be blocking, non-blocking or duplicating. For more information on dependencies see Dependencies.

Viewing artifact history

You can access a history of all changes made to an artifact by clicking on the History tab in the Review artifact screen. The artifact history is provided with the date the change was made, a description of the change in the Action column, any reason for the change provided and the author of the change. As attribute options are added changes are noted as "attribute option was set to X". For a single list attribute, a change to a previously selected attribute option will appear as "attribute option changed from X to Y". For multiselect lists a change in attribute options will appear as "attribute was modified to include X" and "attribute was modified to no longer include Y".

Managing user associations

The administrator may have defined several types of user attributes that allow users to easily track the artifacts they are responsible for or in which they have an interest. Users associated with an artifact will receive emails when the artifact is altered. The type of emails is defined by the level of user association. If a user attribute is inactivated in your project, the users associated through that user attribute will no longer receive emails. If the user attribute is later reassociated, the user will once again receive emails when the artifact is altered. You can also use user attributes to search for specfic artifacts.

You can perform user association tasks on either a single artifact or on a group of artifacts. The following is the general process for associating users with artifacts:

  1. Select one or more users to associate with the artifact or artifacts.
  2. Define or edit the association type for each user.
  3. Provide a reason for the change.

Adding user associations

For individual artifacts, user association tasks are performed on the Personnel tab. To associate users with a specific artifact:

  1. Select the artifact you wish to affect either through a query or by artifact id.
  2. If it is not already selected, click the Personnel tab.
  3. Scroll to the Associate users with artifact section.
  4. Associate users with the artifact by peforming one of the following tasks:
    • If you know the username you want to associate with the artifact, enter it in the association type field.
    • If you do not know the username or want to select more than one user click the Browse users... button to see a list of available users. Once on the Personnel page you will need to build an assignee list and define the association for each assignee. To do this:
      1. Select the users you want from the Users table by clicking the checkbox next to the username.
      2. Use the drop down box in the Association column to select an association type for each selected user.
      3. Click the Add selected to assignee list button.
      4. The selected users will appear in the Personnel table. At this point you can change the association type for each user in the table using the drop down boxes in the Association column. If you choose to change an association, click the Update selected to save your changes. You can also use the Remove selected button to delete selected users from the Personnel table.
      5. Once you have added all the users you need to the Personnel table click the Done button.
  5. Enter an explanation for the change in the Reason field.
  6. Click the Save changes button to finish your task.

For multiple artifacts, you can start the user association process from the Query results page. To associate users with multiple artifacts:

  1. Run a query to find the artifacts with which you would like to associate users.
  2. From the Query results page you can perform one of the following:
    • If your query resulted in only the artifacts you would like to affect, select Assign all displayed from the Process results drop down list.
    • If your query resulted in more artifacts then you would like to affect:
      1. Select the artifacts you need by clicking the checkboxes next to the artifacts in the Query results table.
      2. Select the Assign selected option in the Process results drop down list.
  3. Associate users with the artifacts by peforming one of the following tasks:
    • If you know the username you want to associate with the artifacts, enter it in the association type field.
    • If you do not know the username or want to select more than one user click the Browse users... button in the Associate user with above artifacts to see a list of available users. Once on the Associate users with these artifacts page you will need to build an assignee list and define the association for each assignee. To do this:
      1. Select the users you want from the Users table by clicking the checkbox next to the username.
      2. Use the drop down box in the Association column to select an association type for each selected user.
      3. Click the Add selected to assignee list button.
      4. The selected users will appear in the Personnel table. At this point you can change the association type for each user in the table using the dropdown boxes in the Association column. If you choose to change an association, click the Update selected to save your changes. You can also use the Remove selected button to delete selected users from the Personnel table.
      5. Once you have added all the users you need to the Personnel table click the Done button.
  4. Enter an explanation for the change in the Reason field.
  5. Click the Save changes button to finish your task.

Removing associated users

Users associated with artifacts receive email for each action performed on the artifact. As users no longer need to be informed of changes to an artificat they may appreciate being removed from association with the artifact.

To remove user associations from an individual artifact:

  1. Select the artifact you wish to affect either through a query or by artifact id.
  2. If it is not already selected, click the Personnel tab.
  3. Scroll to the Users associated with artifact section.
  4. Find the user or users you want to remove in the Users associated with artifact table and click the Remove checkbox in line with the name.
  5. Enter an explanation for the change in the Reason field.
  6. Click the Save changes button to finish your task.

To remove user associations from multiple artifacts:

  1. Run a query to find the artifacts with which you would like to associate users.
  2. From the Query results page you can perform one of the following:
    • If your query resulted in only the artifacts you would like to affect, select Assign all displayed from the Process results drop down list.
    • If your query resulted in more artifacts then you would like to affect:
      1. Select the artifacts you need by clicking the checkboxes next to the artifacts in the Query results table.
      2. Select the Assign selected option in the Process results drop down list.
  3. Each artifact you selected to alter has a user association table on the Associate users with these artifacts page. Find the user or users you want to remove in each of the tables and click the Remove checkbox in line with the name.
  4. Enter an explanation for the change in the Reason field.
  5. Click the Save changes button to finish your task

Editing user associations

You may need to alter the association type of one or more users through the life cycle of an artifact. The artifact may need to be reassigned or a user may only want to be copied on changes made instead of being responsible for the artifact.

To change user associations on an individual artifact:

  1. Select the artifact you wish to affect either through a query or by artifact id.
  2. If it is not already selected, click the Personnel tab.
  3. Scroll to the Users associated with artifact section.
  4. Find the user or users you want to edit in the Users associated with artifact table and use the Association drop down box to select a new association type.
  5. Enter an explanation for the change in the Reason field.
  6. Click the Save changes button to finish your task.

To change user associations from multiple artifacts:

  1. Run a query to find the artifacts with which you would like to associate users.
  2. From the Query results page you can perform one of the following:
    • If your query resulted in only the artifacts you would like to affect, select Assign all displayed from the Process results drop down list.
    • If your query resulted in more artifacts then you would like to affect:
      1. Select the artifacts you need by clicking the checkboxes next to the artifacts in the Query results table.
      2. Select the Assign selected option in the Process results drop down list.
  3. Each artifact you selected to alter has a user association table on the Associate users with these artifacts page. Find the user or users you want to edit in each of the tables and use the Association drop down box to select a new association type.
  4. Enter an explanation for the change in the Reason field.
  5. Click the Save changes button to finish your task

Moving artifacts

You may need to track a similar artifact in multiple areas. Rather than entering the same artifact twice, in different areas, you can copy or move an artifact to another project or another artifact type within the same project. To use the Copy/move functionality, you must have permission to create artifacts in the destination project. You will be presented with an attribute mapping functionality to reconcile any attributes that have values in the source artifact but do not exist in the destination project or artifact type. Selecting the checkbox next to the attribute will copy or move the attribute into a comment.

To move or copy multiple artifacts at once, you must first conduct a query that will return the artifacts you wish to move or copy. See Searching for artifacts for help on building queries. You can move/copy all of the resulting artifacts or select a subset to be moved or copied. To move or copy all resulting artifacts, do the following:

  1. Log in as a Domain Administrator and click the project from which you want to copy or move an artifact.
  2. Click the Project Tracker > Query Artifacts links. Enter the Artifact ID in the search box on the top of the page or click the "My Artifacts in this project" from the drop-down box placed next to the Artifact ID search box.
  3. Click the artifact which you would like to copy or move to some other project
  4. Click the Move Artifact or Copy Artifact button.
  5. On the page displayed, you can select the list of destination projects where you would like to copy or move the artifact and also specify the artifact type using the drop-down box provided.
  6. Click the Continue button.
  7. On the page displayed, enter the reason for the change in the Reason for change text box and click the Copy Artifact(s) button.

You will be redirected to new artifact created. Click the History tab to view the changes.

Note: If you try to copy or move an artifact created in any one of the five languages provided by CollabNet, that is; English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese Simplified and Chinese Traditional, the history section of that artifact will display the changes made to the new artifact created in the source language of that project. For example, if you create an artifact, for example "S1" in a project that is using Japanese as the project language and move or copy this artifact to a project that is using Korean as the project language, the history section of the new artifact, for example "S2" created will display the changes made to the artifact in the form of an Old Value and New Value column in the source language of the project (Japanese) from where the artifact is being copied or moved, even though the destination artifact belongs to a project using Korean language.

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