What do some formal process default resolutions mean?
When using Formal project management process, there are 8 default resolutions: fixed, duplicate, wont fix, fixed upstream, works for me, invalid and later.
Within these resolutions, it is not very clear to me what
. duplicate
. fixed upstream
mean here.
Does "Duplicate" mean the workitem resolved as a duplicate of some other WI?
What is upstream mean here in term of formal process which will resolve the current WI?
Appreciate if there would have some clarification here.
Within these resolutions, it is not very clear to me what
. duplicate
. fixed upstream
mean here.
Does "Duplicate" mean the workitem resolved as a duplicate of some other WI?
What is upstream mean here in term of formal process which will resolve the current WI?
Appreciate if there would have some clarification here.
Accepted answer
Hi Don,
Duplicate means the work item resolved as a duplicate of another WI which has already been reported for the same issue.
Fixed upstream means the issue has already been fixed in the product, could be indirectly as part of another fix.
Hope this helps!
Thanks,
Sharoon
2 other answers
Yes, "Duplicate" should be used when the work item is a duplicate of some other work item.
"Fixed Upstream" should be used when the issue described in the work item was fixed, but the work to fix the problem was tracked somewhere else and not as part of this work item. This resolution tells someone looking at the work item that the problem should be fixed but that the details of how the problem was fixed are somewhere else. When resolving a work item as "Fixed Upstream," you should mention where the problem was fixed, either a link to another work item, or some other explanation if the fix was not tracked in a work item at all.
There is a gray area between "Duplicate" and "Fixed Upstream." There are cases where it is not clear if two work items really describe the same problem and should be marked as duplicates, or if they are two separate problems where fixing one just happens to also resolve the other.
(I have never used the Formal Project Management process. But I am familiar with all of those resolutions from other process templates. I assume their meanings are similar in the formal process.)
--
David Olsen, IBM Rational, Jazz Process Team
Thanks to Sharoon and David for the details and it makes sense. It woul be very helpful if there is a technote to explain each resolutions(default) in jazz.net although it can be customised and the usage could be different for different users.
Comments
The reasons you give for not wanting to document this too precisely are correct. Teams can use the resolutions to mean whatever they want. RTC generally doesn't have any built in behavior that treats the resolutions differently. (Individuals within a team should definitely agree on what a resolution means, but the team as a whole can pick whatever meaning they want.) Even more importantly, teams are free to customize their work items. So they can add/delete/rename the different resolutions, making the documented meanings for them even more useless.