NetResults Tracker

Techniques for prioritizing change requests and collecting data that can be used to monitor performance.

Approval Step

Configure a step for requests to be reviewed to decide which ones will be implemented. The Change Management template available in Tracker has an approval step where a request is assigned to a group. There are other ways to set up this step. For example, requests can be routed to a specific approver by department, product or request type.

See detailed steps in this Knowledge Base article.

Track Time Spent

Track the amount of time spent implementing a change, then run reports to dissect the data. Check out this blog post for details.

Analyze Performance

Set up a User Pulldown field to capture who approved or implemented each change. This allows you to generate performance metrics. This blog post explains how to set this up.

Tracker has a wide variety of features & options, but some situations require a minimalist approach. Tracker has the flexibility to allow you to pare things down to show users the bare minimum to keep them focused on what's important.

Restricted Users

For users such as customers, vendors and end users, who only need to see the records they've reported, a Restricted user account is a great fit. No extra configuration is needed for the user to only have access to their own records. The following video has more information about Restricted Users.

User Group Privileges

A good place to scale things back is in the user group privileges. All standard users are members of the Users group and all Restricted users are members of the RestrictedUsers group. When deciding which privileges to disable for other user groups, you should ensure the privileges are also disabled in these groups since users inherit a basic set of privileges from these groups.

To make changes to user group privileges:

1. Login as Admin and click on the Admin icon.
2. Click on the User Accounts link.
3. Click on the Manage Groups button.
4. Click on the Edit button to the left of the user group you wish to modify.
5. Check the box for a privilege to enable or UNcheck to disable, then click OK to save the changes.

See the Online Help Guide for a description of each privilege.

View Page

Each section on the View Page is tied to a privilege so you can hide sections that are not necessary for a user group.

You can also set which fields are displayed for each user group. This allows you to show users only the fields they need to see.

To choose which user groups can see a field on the View Page:

1. Login as Admin and click on the Admin icon.
2. Click on the Fields link.
3. Click on the Edit button to the left of the field you wish to modify.
4. Scroll down to find the View Page Visibility option.
5. Select the user groups that should be able to see the field on the View Page. To select multiple user groups, hold down the Ctrl button on your keyboard as you select user groups.
6. Click OK to save the changes.

Reports

For some users, you may want to make reports available to them without giving them access to the Search and Metrics pages. They can run reports you make available to their user group on the Home Page, but cannot run ad-hoc report or save their own. This is done by disabling the Query Privileges and selecting "Home Page Only" in Metrics Privileges.

A Simple View

The end result: A few toolbar icons and only the necessary fields and attachments. Alerts, Discussions and Record History disabled.

Use Tracker to develop, manage and maintain your organization's training materials.

Document List

One approach is to simply keep a list of each training document and who owns it. Or, perhaps you just need to keep track of who has received training. These can easily be done by setting up a project and form. And, these can be added to an existing Tracker system while maintaining secure access (users only see the projects and forms accessible to them based on user group privileges).

This blog post explains how to set up a list without a formal workflow.

Review Reminders

You can set a reminder specific to each document for updating it (e.g. some require annual updates, other need more frequent reviews depending on product releases or other milestones).

Use the Alerts feature to send reminders for updating training documents.

Workflow

If desired, you can create a formal workflow for developing and publishing these documents.

The Getting Started Guide is a good resource for building a new workflow. Need Help? Technical Support can answer your questions or even help configure Tracker for you.

Configure fields in your QA process to help measure and analyze performance.

Track Time Spent

There are different ways to track how much time was spent on testing. You can set up a Floating Point or Integer field as described in this Knowledge Base article so QA Engineers can enter how much time was spent testing a fix.

Or, you can run a chart that compares the date an issue was fixed with the date it was tested. The chart can calculate this by comparing date fields or when the issue was in particular workflow states. Create a chart using the Metrics section of the Online Help Guide.

Note Who Tested Each Issue

Setting up a field to save which QA Engineer tested each issue allows you to report on how many issues were tested by each QA Engineer. The User Pulldown Knowledge Base article provides steps for setting this up.

Categorize Items That Fail Testing

Classifying the items that fail testing can help you identify trends and address them.

To add a Pulldown field:

1. Login as Admin and click on the Admin icon.
2. Click on the Fields link.
3. Click on the Add Field button.
4. Select Pulldown as the type and click Continue.
5. Make selections for the options available for Pulldowns
6. Click OK to save the new field.
7. Click on the Manage Forms for This Field button.
8. Click on the desired form and click Add.
9. Add option menu items to the field.

Fields can be initialized with a value on the Add Page or in a later workflow step.

Save an Important Date

You can set a date field with the current date and time to capture when an action happened. For example, most of Tracker's templates have a Date Reported field that saves the date and time the record was created and can be used to generate reports. You may want to save other dates such as the date something was approved or closed.

Date fields can also be set with values relative to other date fields (e.g. 2 days after Date Reported, 1 day before Due Date).

Format a Text or TextArea Field

You can have a value saved in the field automatically. In the sample below, we've saved some text so users can enter information into the field using a specific format.

Other Field Types

Most fields can be initialized including Floating Point, Integer, Pulldown, Url and YesNo fields.

An Important Caveat

Initializing a field means you're clearing out the existing value and setting it to something else. If you've already saved some text in a field and then are initializing it at some point in the workflow, any text already in the field will be deleted.

Set a Field On Add

To initialize a field when a record is added:

1. Login as Admin and click on the Admin icon.
2. Click on the Fields link.
3. Click on the Edit button to the left of the desired field and set the property listed below based on the field type:
   • Date fields: Set the Initialize on Add property to "Yes".
   • Floating Point, Integer, Text, TextArea or Url fields: Set the Initial Value.
4. Click OK to save the change.

Set a Field Later in the Workflow

To initialize a field during the Task operation:

1. Login as Admin and click on the Admin icon.
2. Click on the Workflows link.
3. Select the desired workflow in the pulldown at the top.
4. Locate the States section and click on the Manage link to the right.
5. Click on the state that has the transition you wish to modify, then click on the Transitions button.
6. Click on the Task Fields button.
7. Click on the desired field in the right column and click Add (or simply click on the field if it's already added and click on the Edit button).
8. Use the information about Task Field Properties in the Online Help Guide based on the field type.
9. Click Update to save the change.