Interlinked change-request computer system and method having role-based tabular interface

Abstract

A computer method and apparatus for managing changes to a given software system is disclosed. The method and apparatus of the present invention form corresponding change request objects to represent each user's request to make changes to a given software system. For each change request object, the method / apparatus of the present invention provides a release level for issue objects, a task level for task objects, and an activity level for active objects. Each issue object represents the corresponding issue, each task object defines the work required to process the corresponding issue, and each activity object tracks the corresponding performed work. A tabular user interface is also provided that contains a tabular representation of the corresponding release level, task level, and activity level of the change request objects. The table represents a list of scheduled tasks for each user and displays the release, task, and activity objects as a function of the user's role.

Description

Background technique [0001] A typical prior art software change management repository 100 is shown in FIG. 1 . Within the software change management repository 100, a set of objects 99 is maintained to capture the collection of changes that developers and users of the software system have requested. These change request objects 99 are known in different change management repositories by various names such as Modification-Request, Enhancement-Request, Work Item, Defect and Bug. In this disclosure, the term "change request" is used to refer to these types of objects 99 . [0002] Information about the change request is captured within a set of properties of the change request object 99 . This attribute is indicated by an atomic value (such as a string, integer or date) or a reference to another object 99 as indicated by "XX" and a dashed arrow, respectively, of object 99 a in FIG. 1 . Some attributes are predefined and present in all change requests 99, but most attributes ar...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

This approach makes the number of combinations of states explode when the number of stakeholders within the change request management process increases, which makes it difficult to introduce new stakeholders within the change management process

[0005] 2. Multiple users of the software system will report similar problems

[0006] 3. A given change request may need to be addressed differently in multiple releases or variants of a given software system

Updating multiple change request objects as if working on a single activity progress 99 is error prone and expensive

[0008] 5. Different stakeholders within the change management process may work in different locations with different copies of the change management repository 100, or work independently of individual copies of a subset of the change management repository 100

But this causes significant delays and loss of information as stakeholders wait for the mastery of the replicas that will be delivered to them

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