Products

Products typically represent real-world shipping products. Products can be given Classifications. For example, if a company makes computer games, they could have a classification of “Games”, and a separate product for each game. This company might also have a “Common” product for units of technology used in multiple games, and perhaps a few special products that represent items that are not actually shipping products (for example, “Website”, or “Administration”).

Many of Bugzilla’s settings are configurable on a per-product basis. The number of “votes” available to users is set per-product, as is the number of votes required to move a bug automatically from the UNCONFIRMED status to the CONFIRMED status.

When creating or editing products the following options are available:

Product: The name of the product

Description: A brief description of the product

Default milestone

Select the default milestone for this product.

Closed for bug entry: Select this box to prevent new bugs from being entered against this product

Maximum votes per person: Maximum votes a user is allowed to give for this product

Maximum votes a person can put on a single bug: Maximum votes a user is allowed to give for this product in a single bug

Confirmation threshold: Number of votes needed to automatically remove any bug against this product from the UNCONFIRMED state

Version: Specify which version of the product bugs will be entered against.

Create chart datasets for this product: Select to make chart datasets available for this product.

When editing a product there is also a link to edit Group Access Controls.

Creating New Products

To create a new product:

• Select “Administration” from the footer and then choose “Products” from the main administration page.
• Select the “Add” link in the bottom right.
• Enter the name of the product and a description. The Description field may contain HTML.
• When the product is created, Bugzilla will give a message stating that a component must be created before any bugs can be entered against the new product. Follow the link to create a new component.

Editing Products

To edit an existing product, click the “Products” link from the “Administration” page. If the ‘use classification’ parameter is turned on, a table of existing classifications is displayed, including an “Unclassified” category. The table indicates how many products are in each classification. Click on the classification name to see its products. If the ‘useclassification’ parameter is not in use, the table lists all products directly. The product table summarizes the information about the product defined when the product was created. Click on the product name to edit these properties, and to access links to other product attributes such as the product’s components, versions, milestones, and group access controls.

Adding or Editing Components, Versions and Target Milestones

To edit existing, or add new, Components, Versions or Target Milestones to a Product, select the “Edit Components”, “Edit Versions” or “Edit Milestones” links from the “Edit Product” page. A table of existing Components, Versions or Milestones is displayed. Click on an item name to edit the properties of that item. Below the table is a link to add a new Component, Version or Milestone.

Assigning Group Controls to Products

On the “Edit Product” page, there is a link called “Edit Group Access Controls”. The settings on this page control the relationship of the groups to the product being edited.

Group Access Controls are an important aspect of using groups for isolating products and restricting access to bugs filed against those products.

After selecting the “Edit Group Access Controls” link from the “Edit Product” page, a table containing all user-defined groups for this Bugzilla installation is displayed. The system groups that are created when Bugzilla is installed are not applicable to Group Access Controls. Below is description of what each of these fields’ means.

Groups may be applicable (e.g bugs in this product can be associated with this group) , default (e.g. bugs in this product are in this group by default), and mandatory (e.g. bugs in this product must be associated with this group) for each product. Groups can also control access to bugs for a given product, or be used to make bugs for a product totally read-only unless the group restrictions are met. The best way to understand these relationships is by example.

Products and Groups are not limited to a one-to-one relationship. Multiple groups can be associated with the same product, and groups can be associated with more than one product.

If any group has Entry selected, then the product will restrict bug entry to only those users who are members of all the groups with Entry selected.

If any group has Can edit selected, then the product will be read-only for any users who are not members of all of the groups with Can edit selected. Only users who are members of all the Can edit groups will be able to edit bugs for this product. This is an additional restriction that enables finer-grained control over products rather than just all-or-nothing access levels.

The following settings let you choose privileges on a per-product basis. This is a convenient way to give privileges to some users for some products only, without having to give them global privileges which would affect all products.

Any group having editcomponents selected allows users who are in this group to edit all aspects of this product, including components, milestones and versions.

Any group having canconfirm selected allows users who are in this group to confirm bugs in this product.

Any group having editbugs selected allows users who are in this group to edit all fields of bugs in this product.

The MemberControl and OtherControl are used in tandem to determine which bugs will be placed in this group. The only allowable combinations of these two parameters are listed in a table on the “Edit Group Access Controls” page. Consult this table for details on how these fields can be used. Examples of different uses are described below.

Common Applications of Group Controls

The use of groups is best explained by providing examples that illustrate configurations for common use cases. The examples follow a common syntax: Group: Entry, Member Control, Other Control, Can Edit, Edit Components, Can Confirm, Edit Bugs. Where “Group” is the name of the group being edited for this product The other fields all correspond to the table on the “Edit Group Access Controls” page. If any of these options are not listed, it means they are not checked.

Basic Product/Group Restriction

Suppose there is a product called “Bar”. The “Bar” product can only have bugs entered against it by users in the group “Foo”. Additionally, bugs filed against product “Bar” must stay restricted to users to “Foo” at all times. Furthermore, only members of group “Foo” can edit bugs filed against product “Bar”, even if other users could see the bug. This arrangement would achieved by the following:

Product Bar:

foo: ENTRY, MANDATORY/MANDATORY, CANEDIT

Perhaps such strict restrictions are not needed for product “Bar”. A more lenient way to configure product “Bar” and group “Foo” would be:

Product Bar:

foo: ENTRY, SHOWN/SHOWN, EDITCOMPONENTS, CANCONFIRM, EDITBUGS

The above indicates that for product “Bar”, members of group “Foo” can enter bugs. Any one with permission to edit a bug against product “Bar” can put the bug in group “Foo”, even if they themselves are not in “Foo”. Anyone in group “Foo” can edit all aspects of the components of product “Bar”, can confirm bugs against product “Bar”, and can edit all fields of any bug against product “Bar”.

General User Access With Security Group

To permit any user to file bugs against “Product A”, and to permit any user to submit those bugs into a group called “Security”:

Product A: security

Security: SHOWN/SHOWN

General User Access With A Security Product

To permit any user to file bugs against product called “Security” while keeping those bugs from becoming visible to anyone outside the group “Security Workers” (unless a member of the “Security Workers” group removes that restriction):

Product Security: Security workers: DEFAULT/MANDATORY

Product Isolation With a Common Group

To permit users of “Product A” to access the bugs for “Product A”, users of “Product B” to access the bugs for “Product B”, and support staff, who are members of the “Support Group” to access both, three groups are needed:

• Support Group: Contains members of the support staff.
• Access A Group: Contains users of product A and the Support group.
• Access B Group: Contains users of product B and the Support group.

Once these three groups are defined, the product group controls can be set to:

Product A:

AccessA: ENTRY, MANDATORY/MANDATORY

Product B:

AccessB: ENTRY, MANDATORY/MANDATORY

Perhaps the “Support Group” wants more control. For example, the “Support Group” could be permitted to make bugs inaccessible to users of both groups “AccessA” and “AccessB”. Then, the “Support Group” could be permitted to publish bugs relevant to all users in a third product (let’s call it “Product Common”) that is read-only to anyone outside the “Support Group”. In this way the “Support Group” could control bugs that should be seen by both groups. That configuration would be:

Product A:

AccessA: ENTRY, MANDATORY/MANDATORY

Support: SHOWN/NA

Product B:

AccessB: ENTRY, MANDATORY/MANDATORY

Support: SHOWN/NA

Product Common:

Support: ENTRY, DEFAULT/MANDATORY, CANEDIT

Make a Product Read Only

Sometimes a product is retired and should no longer have new bugs filed against it (for example, an older version of a software product that is no longer supported). A product can be made read-only by creating a group called “read-only” and adding products to the group as needed:

Product A:

Read-only: ENTRY, NA/NA, CANEDIT

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