Issue Tracking Systems

3.2CodeBeamer

Homepage: http://www.intland.com/products/codebeamer.html

License: Proprietary (Free – 500 USD)

Implemented in: Java

Demo site: https://codebeamer.com/cb/user

CodeBeamer is not just a simple Issue tracking system, but it is a Collaboration Development Platform with integrated Application Lifecycle Management. Under this title we can imagine set of services such as Project related Document Management, Wiki, Forum, Online chat and of course Issue tracking integrated with version control (SVN).
It’s available for free for students and evaluators; however for business use it is commercial. As an example of public use we can name for example JavaForge.com community, which host multiple Java open-source projects and is running above CodeBeamer.

Installation

CodeBeamer is a Java EE application running on Apache Tomcat servlet container. It is delivered as a binary installation file either for Windows or for Linux. Tomcat installation files are included in the package; however, there is no problem to install CodeBeamer to your own instance of Tomcat. After finishing the installation, it is necessary to set a connection to the database (and some other configuration) in property file.

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User interface

The user interface looks to have a better structure than Bugzilla UI; however, it still would not win the price for usability. As you can see below in the use-case scenario, it is necessary to go quite deep into the UI to add new issue requests. It would help to move some most used functions to some extra panels, or other similar reorganizations. While using CodeBeamer UI, there was no problem to find anything, only many things involved too many steps.

Screen shot : CodeBeamer use-case - My Start (personal Main page)

Screen shot : CodeBeamer use-case - Project dashboard

Screen shot : CodeBeamer use-case - Project trackers dashboard

(select tracking database)

Screen shot : CodeBeamer use-case - Bug list

Screen shot : CodeBeamer use-case - Add new issue details

Screen shot : CodeBeamer use-case - View issue

Ticket system

CodeBeamer provides a default workflow, which can be customized within the user interface. A guide can be found on the CodeBeamer Wiki page “Workflows” (http://cb.esast.com/cb/wiki/5713).
The workflow diagram below contains the following node types:

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  Yellow node - denotes the start state. A new tracker item will appear in this status.
  
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  Blue nodes - denote the regular states. It will move among these during most of the tracker item life cycle.
  
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  Orange nodes - as there are only leaving transitions for these, one cannot move items to them, but can move items from these to the regular items. These nodes are primarily used for proper migration from legacy trackers.
  

Figure : Default CodeBeamer ticket workflow

CodeBeamer also supports adding of custom fields to the tickets within the user interface.

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Projects management

CodeBeamer, by default, supports the management of multiple projects. Projects can be also grouped in so called “Working sets,” which enable their easier management. So, for example, projects can be sorted into working sets named after the customer for whom they are, and so on.
Each project can have its own settings, access rights, ticket workflow, etc. It works such that project settings are applied in first place, after this, working set settings are taken (if the project is in some working set), and finally, default CodeBeamer settings.

Analysis and monitoring

CodeBeamer has configurable reporting systems. By default it provides:

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  Real Time Task and Bug Reporting with charts;
  
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  A Gantt chart;
  
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  Source code quality and code change reports with trends;
  
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  Reports with custom reports, allowing increased flexibility and automatic generation of release notes and other reports; and
  
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  Built-in CMMI reports.
  

Reports work on a list of tracker items from one or more trackers belonging to one or more projects. Simple reports contain one table for each tracker. Merged reports present the tracker items in a single unified tabular layout.

After running a report, the results can be exported into Excel, PDF, CSV, XML and Wiki formats.

Source code management systems integration

CodeBeamer has built-in interfaces for CVS, Subversion, PVCS, SourceSafe, CM Synergy, and ClearCase SCM systems and can easily be extended to support other systems.

Accessibility and extensibility

CodeBeamer has Web Services API based on the Caucho Hessiann binary web service (http://www.caucho.com/hessian/).

Specialties

As mentioned in the beginning, CodeBeamer is not just a simple issue tracking system, but it is a Collaboration Development Platform with integrated Application Lifecycle Management. This introduces the following features:

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  A built-in Document Management System;
  
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  An internal enterprise Wiki system, which integrates all components such as tracker, document manager, SCM system together into a single application, where all artifacts can be linked and referenced with Wiki markups;
  
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  Support for periodical builds with continuous integration;
  
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  Built-in discussion forums;
  
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  An advanced security platform;
  
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  E-Mail integration with inboxes; and
  
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  Support for providing quality assurance statistics and metrics.
  

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Conclusion

CodeBeamer is just that what it calls itself to be: Collaboration Development Platform. It provides a variety of tools to support both management and development, and in addition, provides also its integration plug-ins into most common IDEs (this will be mentioned in next chapter). It is also easily configurable and maintainable. The UI is seen as a small minus, where the most common tasks are not topped and remain “hidden” in their categories – then can be found when one searches, but they are not evident.