Defect Lifecycle

Defects, and their associated Defect actions, allow you to report and manage problems found for a Product, Model, Feature, or other object.

The Defect lifecycle includes these states:

Submit

A Defect is created in the Submit state. While in this state, the Originator can gather the details, such as reference documents and detailed descriptions. When ready, the Originator promotes the Defect to the Evaluate state.

If, in the process of gathering details for the Defect, the Originator determines that no Defect exists, it can be promoted directly to the Rejected state. This could happen if the Defect could not be reproduced, the user made an error and no defect actually exists, or another reason why the Defect will not be resolved.

Evaluate

The Evaluate state is used by the Change Board to triage Defects. The Change Board chooses to Open the Defect (assign it to someone for fixing), Reject the Defect, or demote the Defect to the Submit state (more information is needed before the appropriate action can be determined).

Anyone on the Change Board can manually create Defect Actions at this point.

Open

When the Change Board determines a Defect needs to be resolved, it promotes it to the Open state. If no Defect Actions had been manually created, Defect Management automatically creates one. Any number of additional Defect Actions can be created as needed.

If a Defect had been in the Rejected state and is moved to the Open state, Defect Management checks for any existing Defect Actions in the Test, Closed, or Rejected state. If it does not find any, it then creates a new Defect Action for the Defect.

Closed

You cannot promote a Defect directly to the Closed state. All Defects have at least one Defect Action defined. When all Defect Actions have been promoted to either Closed or Rejected (with at least one in the Closed state), then the Defect is automatically promoted to the Closed state.

If a new Defect Action is created while the Defect is in the Closed state, Defect Management automatically demotes the Defect to the Open state. when the new Defect Action is closed, then the Defect will again be automatically promoted to the Closed state.

Rejected

You can promote a Defect to the Rejected state from any state except Closed. although it cannot be promoted to Rejected if any associated Defect Action is in the Test or Closed states. In addition, Defect Management automatically promotes a Defect to Rejected if all of its Defect Actions have been promoted to the Rejected state. If a Defect is demoted from the Rejected state, the states for the Defect Actions are not automatically changed; you must manually demote the appropriate Defect Actions.

If a Defect is promoted to Rejected, all Defect Actions associated with it are also promoted to the Rejected state.

These are some reasons why a Defect could be rejected:


  • A duplicate of the defect was previously submitted
  • Defect was the result of user error
  • No plans to fix the defect
  • Unreproducible error

A rejected Defect can be reconsidered by demoting it to Evaluate state, which it can restart the process. No Defect Actions can be created for a Defect in the Rejected state.