Choose Your Task Tracking Approach
When you set up task tracking, you need to choose the approach that best suits your business needs. (Refer to 6.2.2 Approaches for using Task Tracking.) In many cases, full task-oriented tracking is not required. For a LANSA for iSeries Master System used by multiple Visual LANSA Slave Systems, you can choose from these four basic task tracking approaches:
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Developers are assigned a new task identifier for each new unit of work they perform on any product. Tasks could involve multiple developers and multiple products. Suitable for large sites, for sites with task-oriented methodologies and sites with product and developer crossover. + Development is strictly controlled. + Small incremental changes can be controlled and migrated. + Task IDs can be used to migrate changes. - Administrative overhead. |
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Task identifiers are assigned to products. Suitable for small teams with little crossover between products. + Little administrative overhead. Open one task per product. + Task IDs can be used to migrate the complete set of product changes. - No product completion points per developer. |
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Task identifiers are assigned to individual developers. Suitable for small teams where there is little crossover between developers. + Little administrative overhead. Open one task per developer. + Task IDs can be used to migrate changes. - No product completion points. Tasks can stay open indefinitely. |
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One task for the entire system. Suitable for small teams with trusted developers and minimal modifications. + Minimal administrative overhead. - There is no locking of objects. - You cannot export by task. - There is no task history. - No definable units of work |
By using the LANSA's ability to transfer objects between tasks, it is also possible to combine some (but not all) of these approaches. Refer to Combined Approaches.
Task tracking is very flexible. You are not limited to these four techniques. You may design your own approach for using task tracking as part of your change management strategy, or you might use 6.1.5 Third Party Packages that work with LANSA's task tracking features. When designing a custom approach, you may also want to refer to Set Special Task ID, Share Task IDs, Unlock Objects in Task Tracking, Transfer Object Locks, Special Authorities and Task Tracking and Task Tracking Recommendations.