Issues Tracking

Keeping track of an ever-evolving list of issues such as new features, enhancements, or errors, or tasks yet to be completed in the process of specification or other TC work product development, can be a daunting task; yet it must be done to ensure that highest possible quality of the work product produced.

There are several methods of tracking issues currently in use by OASIS Technical Committees. These include the use of:

• spreadsheets,
• wiki pages,
• a custom-developed XML toolset, and
• externally-hosted JIRA issues tracking systems.

OASIS-hosted Issues Tracking System

OASIS has now installed a JIRA issues tracking system that will be made available to Technical Committees upon request. While any of the existing methods are still viable, Technical Committees may want to consider migrating their existing method to a new JIRA Project.

Access

In accordance with the OASIS Technical Committee Process Policy, Technical Committee Members have read/write access. Access control is at the Project level. All Projects are publicly-viewable.

Projects

Each Technical Committee will be a unique Project and identified by Technical Committee name.

Components

Components are used to group a set of related issues. Components may identify Subcommittees or unique work products (that is, specifications or other document types) within a Technical Committee.

Roles

There are four (4) roles defined:

• TC Chair
• TC Editor
• TC Member
• Anyone

Workflows

There is currently only one workflow available: Technical Committee Issues. Additional workflows can be created based on Technical Committee requirements.

• New - When an issue is created it is automatically assigned a status of New. A New issue has not yet been accepted by the Technical Committee. A new issue may either be accepted (Open Issue) or rejected (Close Issue) by the TC. Once an issue has been entered, the user should send an e-mail to the TC list with the URI.
• Open - An issue accepted by the Technical Committee. Actual discussion of the issue takes place on the TC e-mail list and should include the URI to the actual issue.
• Deferred - An issue accepted by the Technical Committee, but agreed that its resolution will be not be included in the current version.
• Resolved - An issue with an agreed-upon resolution that requires a change to the work product.
• Applied - An issue to which the agreed-upon resolution has been incorporated into a draft work product.
• Closed - An issue that has either been rejected or resolved and incorporated into a Committee-approved work product.

All discussion on issues should happen on the Technical Committee's e-mail list and in TC meetings. As much detail as possible should be included when a new issue is opened. Additionally, the issue should note:

• resolution, if accepted
• reason for closing (completed, duplicate, rejected, etc.)

Requesting a Project

To request a Project, the Chair should send an email message to the OASIS TC Administrator and identify the name(s) of any Issues Editor(s).

NOTE: The issues tracking system is not tied into the OASIS groupware (KAVI) authentication. Permissions must be managed manually.