Hi, I would like to know what's the difference with the Edit Defect option and the Edit defect in workflow?

Does one enable to do more things than the other??

 

Help would be very appreciated.

 

David Rainville

 

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ASP.NET Web Developper
Spotwave Wireless
Ontario, Canada

Edit Defect will allow you to simply Edit which will override any workflow steps that you have assigned for a particular project.

The Edit Defect in a Workflow Step will allow the users to edit their items in a workflow step specified that will have certain fields and permissions removed from the end user who is editing an item. For example, I can create a field template and only allow certain fields that my users can modify. If I used the Edit Defect option, the end user will be able to edit all of the fields, even the ones that they are not allowed to modify which have been set by the administrator.

To remove the Edit Defect, Feature, Task permission, go to Tools > Manage Security Roles and uncheck Edit Defect. Be sure to check Change a defects Workflow step for users to be able to still edit their defects within the workflow.

Thank you,

Axosoft Support

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Dragan Marceta
www.Axosoft.com

When you say that we can edit any fields with the Edit defect option, what do you mean by ANY fields? Do you mean all the fields that are defined in the currently used field template which is linked to the workflow step i'm in or you mean the field template that is the default one for the current project (in the edit project option)?

 

The reason I ask this is I tried the edit defect option and I found that some fields that were in the Edit in workflow option weren't in the Edit option!

 

Please answer, thanks

 

David

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ASP.NET Web Developper
Spotwave Wireless
Ontario, Canada

What I meant to say was any fields that are set to required, non editable, and nonvisible in the field template. They can be edited by using the "Edit Item" feature in OnTime which will override the predefined workflow steps.

Thank you,
Axosoft Support

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Dragan Marceta
www.Axosoft.com

Hi there, I went in to security roles and I unchecked the "edit defect" - but made sure that "change a defect's workflow step was correctly checked".

However, when I went in to see the difference, both Edit Defect  AND edit defect in workflow step were greyed out. Any ideas please ? 

The Edit entitlement also plays a role when dragging & dropping tasks into a new projects or doing any updates via the Multi-Edit feature.  Both of these features require the Edit entitlement.  Additionally, I've noticed that when an item is in the last stage of the workflow the items cannot be edited using the Edit In Workflow option but rather requires the Edit entitlement. 

Aside from being confusing to the average user as to when to use Edit or Edit in Workflow, the Edit feature completely bypasses any special field template that you may want to be in place during the edit process.  In other words, someone could use the Edit feature to update an item and avoid having to input required information.

I'd like to see Axosoft take another look at the Edit and Edit in Workflow features and get some feed back from the user community on how these could be implemented better.

I agree.

 

Yes - me too. Not a lot of point in providing workflow directed functionality - if it can all be bypassed through *having* to maintain the full Edit function. c'mon Axosoft- let's see some award wining performance here (ref. promotional email received today from Ontime)

Yes, both multi-edit and drag & drop require Edit privileges because these actions modify the items.  Any time anything is done to an item outside of the workflow it will require Edit privileges. 

The workflow is meant to ensure that users follow certain rules when modifying items, so any changes to the item have to be done through the workflow.  If you give your users Edit privileges then they can indeed edit the item and 'bypass' the workflow field template.  Keep in mind, though, that Edit still uses a field template, the one assigned to the project the item is in, so if you really need to enforce some fields you could do it through that field template.  But this is exactly why we have Edit and Edit in Workflow.  The workflow forces users to follow the rules, and edit allows managers to 'bypass' these rules.

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Dan Suceava
http://www.axosoft.com

I'm not sure I follow the design logic completely.  The Edit privilege is also required to attach files to a item.  Clearly you wouldn't expect managers to get involved to execute such a mundane process.  I think there is also a case still to be made regarding the multi-edit function working with the Edit in Workflow privilege.  Users will still want to update many items at once and still adhere to the workflow.  For example, a average user may want to assign a group of tasks to an individual for testing and do it in such a way as to not have to touch each item individually.  The workflow still applies but the time required to do this job with multi-edit is far less. 

 I still think Axosoft needs to revisit how these two privileges apply to the functionality of the application.

In OnTime 2007 we've added separate privileges for Attachments, so you no longer need Edit privileges for that.  You are right about multi-edit and change workflow.  If users only have change workflow privileges they should be able to do multi-edit workflow and change the workflow of multiple items.  However, they still would not be able to change any other fields.  We'll have to address this issue in a future release.

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Dan Suceava
http://www.axosoft.com