4.4. Classifications, Products, Components, Versions, and Milestones

Bugs in Bugzilla are classified into one of a set of admin-defined Components. Components are themselves each part of a single Product. Optionally, Products can be part of a single Classification, adding a third level to the hierarchy.

4.4.1. Classifications

Classifications are used to group several related products into one distinct entity.

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 classification, containing products representing units of technology used in multiple games, and perhaps an Other classification containing a few special products that represent items that are not actually shipping products (for example, “Website”, or “Administration”).

The classifications layer is disabled by default; it can be turned on or off using the useclassification parameter in the Bug Fields section of Parameters.

Access to the administration of classifications is controlled using the editclassifications system group, which defines a privilege for creating, destroying, and editing classifications.

When activated, classifications will introduce an additional step when filling bugs (dedicated to classification selection), and they will also appear in the advanced search form.

4.4.2. Products

Products usually represent real-world shipping products. Many of Bugzilla’s settings are configurable on a per-product basis.

When creating or editing products the following options are available:

Product

The name of the product

Description

A brief description of the product

Open for bug entry

Deselect this box to prevent new bugs from being entered against this product.

Enable the UNCONFIRMED status in this product

Select this option if you want to use the UNCONFIRMED status (see Workflow)

Default milestone

Select the default milestone for this product.

Version

Specify the default version for this product.

Create chart datasets for this product

Select to make chart datasets available for this product.

It is compulsory to create at least one component in a product, and so you will be asked for the details of that too.

When editing a product you can change all of the above, and there is also a link to edit Group Access Controls; see Assigning Group Controls to Products.

4.4.2.1. Creating New Products

To create a new product:

  1. Select Administration from the footer and then choose Products from the main administration page.

  2. Select the Add link in the bottom right.

  3. Enter the details as outlined above.

4.4.2.2. Editing Products

To edit an existing product, click the “Products” link from the “Administration” page. If the useclassification 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 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.

4.4.2.3. Adding or Editing Components, Versions and Target Milestones

To add new or edit existing 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.

For more information on components, see Components.

For more information on versions, see Versions.

For more information on milestones, see Milestones.

4.4.2.4. 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. For more information on groups, including how to create, edit, add users to, and alter permission of, see Groups and Security.

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 (i.e. bugs in this product can be associated with this group), default (i.e. bugs in this product are in this group by default), and mandatory (i.e. 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. See Common Applications of Group Controls for examples of product and group relationships.

Note

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 Canedit selected, then the product will be read-only for any users who are not members of all of the groups with Canedit selected. Only users who are members of all the Canedit 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.

4.4.2.5. 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, MemberControl, OtherControl, CanEdit, EditComponents, CanConfirm, EditBugs, 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”. You would like to make it so that only users in the group “Foo” can enter bugs in the “Bar” product. Additionally, bugs filed in product “Bar” must be visible only to users in “Foo” (plus, by default, the reporter, assignee, and CC list of each bug) at all times. Furthermore, only members of group “Foo” should be able to 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”. Instead, you would like to make it so that only members of group “Foo” can enter bugs in product “Bar”, but bugs in “Bar” are not required to be restricted in visibility to people in “Foo”. Anyone with permission to edit a particular bug in product “Bar” can put the bug in group “Foo”, even if they themselves are not in “Foo”.

Furthermore, anyone in group “Foo” can edit all aspects of the components of product “Bar”, can confirm bugs in product “Bar”, and can edit all fields of any bug in product “Bar”. That would be done like this:

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

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: 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 “SecurityWorkers” (unless a member of the “SecurityWorkers” group removes that restriction):

Product Security:
securityworkers: 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:

  1. Support Group: Contains members of the support staff.

  2. AccessA Group: Contains users of product A and the Support group.

  3. AccessB 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 “readonly” and adding products to the group as needed:

Product A:
ReadOnly: ENTRY, NA/NA, CANEDIT

Note

For more information on Groups outside of how they relate to products see Groups and Security.

4.4.3. Components

Components are subsections of a Product. E.g. the computer game you are designing may have a “UI” component, an “API” component, a “Sound System” component, and a “Plugins” component, each overseen by a different programmer. It often makes sense to divide Components in Bugzilla according to the natural divisions of responsibility within your Product or company.

Each component has a default assignee and, if you turned it on in the Parameters, a QA Contact. The default assignee should be the primary person who fixes bugs in that component. The QA Contact should be the person who will ensure these bugs are completely fixed. The Assignee, QA Contact, and Reporter will get email when new bugs are created in this Component and when these bugs change. Default Assignee and Default QA Contact fields only dictate the default assignments; these can be changed on bug submission, or at any later point in a bug’s life.

To create a new Component:

  1. Select the Edit components link from the Edit product page.

  2. Select the Add link in the bottom right.

  3. Fill out the Component field, a short Description, the Default Assignee, Default CC List, and Default QA Contact (if enabled). The Component Description field may contain a limited subset of HTML tags. The Default Assignee field must be a login name already existing in the Bugzilla database.

4.4.4. Versions

Versions are the revisions of the product, such as “Flinders 3.1”, “Flinders 95”, and “Flinders 2000”. Version is not a multi-select field; the usual practice is to select the earliest version known to have the bug.

To create and edit Versions:

  1. From the “Edit product” screen, select “Edit Versions”.

  2. You will notice that the product already has the default version “undefined”. Click the “Add” link in the bottom right.

  3. Enter the name of the Version. This field takes text only. Then click the “Add” button.

4.4.5. Milestones

Milestones are “targets” that you plan to get a bug fixed by. For example, if you have a bug that you plan to fix for your 3.0 release, it would be assigned the milestone of 3.0.

Note

Milestone options will only appear for a Product if you turned on the usetargetmilestone parameter in the “Bug Fields” tab of the Parameters page.

To create new Milestones and set Default Milestones:

  1. Select “Edit milestones” from the “Edit product” page.

  2. Select “Add” in the bottom right corner.

  3. Enter the name of the Milestone in the “Milestone” field. You can optionally set the “sortkey”, which is a positive or negative number (-32768 to 32767) that defines where in the list this particular milestone appears. This is because milestones often do not occur in alphanumeric order; for example, “Future” might be after “Release 1.2”. Select “Add”.

This documentation undoubtedly has bugs; if you find some, please file them here.