How to use the DLS CRO Issue Management Tool

The CRO issue management tool (CIMT) is the old name of the Datalink Issue Management Tool. All information for CIMT remains valid for the DIMT.

To avoid making too many changes the tool continue to include some references to the CRO (for example each ticket has a 'CRO' prefix).

This tool is based on a commercial issue tracking application called JIRA. The tool is used to manage problem reporting and requests for interoperability testing and is available for use from this link. Below is an explanation of how the tool should be used. A short video is also available. If you do not have a login for the tool and think you need one please email us requesting access the the JIRA / DIMT tool.

Basic Concepts

There are a number of basic concepts that need to be defined before the workflow can be described.

• Roles. These are used in the definitions of privileges and notifications etc.
• Groups. These define groups of users and are used primarily to control access to issues.
• Security Levels. These determine which users may see individual issues.
• Issue types. The concept of an 'issue' is central to JIRA. We have defined a limited set of issue types.

Types of Issue

JIRA manages 'issues'. For managing problem reporting and investigation three types of issue have been defined: i) a problem report ii) a problem investigation and iii) a sub-task, and for managing interoperability testing requests a fourth type of issue is defined iv) an interop testing request.

• Problem reports are used to record problems with any part of the data link services implementation. Typically these are raised by link stakeholders and describe the observed problem.

• Problem investigations are used to confidentially record the ongoing investigation of a problem report. A problem investigation will be linked with the corresponding problem report but access will be restricted to people directly involved in the investigation to protect confidentiality. As the investigation progresses the corresponding problem report may be updated to report progress. Log files etc. will normally be attached to problem investigations to keep them confidential.

• Sub-tasks are used to break down the work that may be required to resolve a particular problem report. Sub-tasks are used to record actions and assign them to individuals. They are always associated with a parent problem report, but in many ways are treated the same as problem reports within the tool (as it is based on tracking 'issues' and both problem reports and sub-tasks are types of issue).

• Interop testing request (ITRs) are used to request the support of the Data Link testing Facility at EEC Brétigny for inter-operability testing of ATN/VDL-M2/CPDLC Airborne and Ground systems prior to their operational use.

Roles

The following roles are defined:

• Registered users: A person who is considered a trudted member of the data link community and has been given access to the issue management tool. Each organisation participating in the implementation of the data link services is expected to have at least one registered user.
• Reporter: The registered user who created the issue.
• Assignee: The registered user who is currently responsible for the issue.
• Coordinator. This person is responsible for managing the overall process and is assigned the responsibility for a problem report if it is not assigned directly by the reporter. The Coordinator has the right to then assign the PR to other registered users to analyse.
• Datalink Test Facility Manager. This person is responsible for managing the interoperability testing and will be assigned all interop testing request type issues.
• CRO Core Team. This was used in the past to make the tickets available to the CRO team. This role still exists in the tool but there is no longer a CRO core team analysing any problems; the 'CRO Core team' will be a member of the DPMF team that manages CIMT and may assign tickets to other registered users for resolution..