Hi Moodlers!
My school is in the early stages of setting up its own moodle site but we're also in need of a computerised issue tracking system. I see there are a number of powerful and free issue tracking systems out there (such as request-tracker and Liberum etc.) but it would be better if we could get one that met our requirements and was integrated with moodle so that less logins, passwords and admin is involved.
At the moment we're testing Valery's Moodle Tracker module:
http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=1124&filter=1
It looks very promising but I'd be unable to recommend this for production use in our school for the following reasons:
* No ability to prioritise tasks. On the main task view page I'd like all open tasks grouped by priority with highest priority tasks listed at the top in one colour and ordered by date within the priority colour groups. Otherwise maybe it would be more organised to have different priority tasks listed on separate pages and then sorted by date within them?
* Completed tasks should not be listed on the same page as open tasks. Once an issue has been resolved then I would like it removed from the main issue view and archived on a separate page for future reference and to prevent the main (open tasks) view becoming cluttered with completed jobs.
* The ability to restrict who has permission to create issues in a tracker to stop students flooding the tracker with joke requests
* Specify which accounts/members appear in the 'Assigned To' so that only the IT technicians names appear under the 'Assign To' drop-down for the IT faults tracker, the caretakers names for the caretakers job tracker etc.
Can the current moodle tracker mod already do some or all of the above? If not then are there any plans to implement any of these features soon? If the answer to both questions is no then is there a better moodle issue tracker available or what dedicated issue tracking app. do moodlers recommend?
We're running moodle 1.9 under opensuse 11.0 alongside citadel email/groupware so it would be preferable to have an issue tracker that integrates well with such a set up.
Thanks for your help!
Dan
Hi Dan, here comes my point by point position about your requests :
No ability to prioritise tasks.
Actually possible, I use techproject for that more complex task handling features so I didn't have so much need of this before. Not very hard to add this field and handle it within existing screens.
* Completed tasks should not be listed on the same page as open tasks.
Agree with you. This might be a very practical improvement, and was asked for by Robert Berntein already. I might assign some free hours job on it (as it comes in within a more global working assignations for other projects for my customers).
* The ability to restrict who has permission to create issues in a tracker to stop students flooding the tracker with joke requests
This is already possible, restricting the use of the "mod/tracker:report" capability.
* Specify which accounts/members appear in the 'Assigned To' so that only the IT ...
Normally bound (or should be) to the "mod/tracker:resolve" capability in the current module. Resovers cab give back the issue ticket to any of the tracker's managers (whith the "mod/tracker:manage" capability).
Can the current Moodle Tracker mod already do some or all of the above? ...
For more complex tasks of project management, you may try the techproject module wich implements a richer managment model, this module is being revised to increase the notification possibilities (a bit weak till now). I will spend some hours on it to renew the distribution...
Cheers !!
No ability to prioritise tasks.
Actually possible, I use techproject for that more complex task handling features so I didn't have so much need of this before. Not very hard to add this field and handle it within existing screens.
* Completed tasks should not be listed on the same page as open tasks.
Agree with you. This might be a very practical improvement, and was asked for by Robert Berntein already. I might assign some free hours job on it (as it comes in within a more global working assignations for other projects for my customers).
* The ability to restrict who has permission to create issues in a tracker to stop students flooding the tracker with joke requests
This is already possible, restricting the use of the "mod/tracker:report" capability.
* Specify which accounts/members appear in the 'Assigned To' so that only the IT ...
Normally bound (or should be) to the "mod/tracker:resolve" capability in the current module. Resovers cab give back the issue ticket to any of the tracker's managers (whith the "mod/tracker:manage" capability).
Can the current Moodle Tracker mod already do some or all of the above? ...
For more complex tasks of project management, you may try the techproject module wich implements a richer managment model, this module is being revised to increase the notification possibilities (a bit weak till now). I will spend some hours on it to renew the distribution...
Cheers !!
Good news Dan,
Completed taks viewing apart is now available for testing... branch 1.9 STABLE only
No version bump. Just code update.
Changed files :
mod/tracker/view.php
mod/tracker/views/viewmyticketslist.php
mod/tracker/views/viewissuelist.php
+ lang files.
You have an extra top tab for browsing resolved issues apart from working issues, i.e. one who are either RESOLVED or ABANDONNED.
Cheers.
Completed taks viewing apart is now available for testing... branch 1.9 STABLE only
No version bump. Just code update.
Changed files :
mod/tracker/view.php
mod/tracker/views/viewmyticketslist.php
mod/tracker/views/viewissuelist.php
+ lang files.
You have an extra top tab for browsing resolved issues apart from working issues, i.e. one who are either RESOLVED or ABANDONNED.
Cheers.
Hi Valery!
Thanks very much for your quick reply and I'm very grateful for you adding the new tab for resolved and abandoned issues. I will try out this new tracker version and set it up as you advised tomorrow.
So priorities remains the only missing feature off my 'must-have' feature list for this tracker. To be honest I've not had a proper look at the code to see just how much work it would be to add this feature myself but I presume from your reply that although it would be simple to add (for an experienced PHP dev) there has been nobody else requesting prioritising of tasks and thats why you've not added it yourself? Might you add this in the future of have you consciously left this off the feature list for a reason?
Thanks very much for your quick reply and I'm very grateful for you adding the new tab for resolved and abandoned issues. I will try out this new tracker version and set it up as you advised tomorrow.
So priorities remains the only missing feature off my 'must-have' feature list for this tracker. To be honest I've not had a proper look at the code to see just how much work it would be to add this feature myself but I presume from your reply that although it would be simple to add (for an experienced PHP dev) there has been nobody else requesting prioritising of tasks and thats why you've not added it yourself? Might you add this in the future of have you consciously left this off the feature list for a reason?
Hi Don,
no, there is obviously no logical and tremendous reason such feature could not be in. The only reason might have been because managing priorities introduces an additional complexity to the module by its implied extends (who changes priority, who set it up, what notifications might be sent). It was essentially the intrusion within the existing management process of entries that might be a bit time consuming.
Anyway, it is worth we have such kind of additional (maybe optional ?) feature in it. I may spend some hours on it next week.
Cheers.
no, there is obviously no logical and tremendous reason such feature could not be in. The only reason might have been because managing priorities introduces an additional complexity to the module by its implied extends (who changes priority, who set it up, what notifications might be sent). It was essentially the intrusion within the existing management process of entries that might be a bit time consuming.
Anyway, it is worth we have such kind of additional (maybe optional ?) feature in it. I may spend some hours on it next week.
Cheers.
Hi Valery!
Today I got to try out your latest tracker version but there were a couple of problems.
1- The text of the 'Report an issue' tab became white and hence almost unreadable on our setup/ colour scheme.
2- It would seem there is a new 'My Tickets' sub-menu under the Views tab now and that new jobs that get added since the update and then assigned to someone show up under that menu for the designated user but completed or abandoned tasks don't get moved to a separate menu. I was expecting that alongside 'Browse' (see all tasks) and 'My Tickets' there would be another menu called 'Completed/ Abandoned' or something to that effect to which the tasks would be moved.
Can 2 be fixed without any major overhauls of the current code?
Great to hear you'll look into adding priorities soon!
Thanks v. much!
Dan
Today I got to try out your latest tracker version but there were a couple of problems.
1- The text of the 'Report an issue' tab became white and hence almost unreadable on our setup/ colour scheme.
2- It would seem there is a new 'My Tickets' sub-menu under the Views tab now and that new jobs that get added since the update and then assigned to someone show up under that menu for the designated user but completed or abandoned tasks don't get moved to a separate menu. I was expecting that alongside 'Browse' (see all tasks) and 'My Tickets' there would be another menu called 'Completed/ Abandoned' or something to that effect to which the tasks would be moved.
Can 2 be fixed without any major overhauls of the current code?
Great to hear you'll look into adding priorities soon!
Thanks v. much!
Dan
invisible text... mmmm, weird.
What I did was just adding a top tab to collect all archived issues,
the "My Issues" tab is probazbly a new stuff you didn't have in your older version. It allows now with the proper setting in the parameters to make this module behave rather as an issue tracker, or a support ticket manager.
I'll check your other points (... too late now ...!)
Cheers.
What I did was just adding a top tab to collect all archived issues,
the "My Issues" tab is probazbly a new stuff you didn't have in your older version. It allows now with the proper setting in the parameters to make this module behave rather as an issue tracker, or a support ticket manager.
I'll check your other points (... too late now ...!)
Cheers.
