Capturing effort level by task upon check-in to source control management system

• US 8,645,907 B2
• Filed: 09/11/2007
• Issued: 02/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Opshub, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Opshub, Inc.
• Inventors: Jain, Sandeep, Knight, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Dao, Thuy
• Assistant Examiner(s): CHEN, XI DONALD
• Application Number:
  US11/853,782
• Publication Number:
  US 20080066071A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,338 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/101
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Techniques are provided for capturing the ID of a work item, and the corresponding effort level information, as a part of the actual check-in process of the artifacts into the underlying change management system. This effort information can then be propagated to an external system for subsequent reporting and analysis. In one embodiment, tasks (or similar items such as issues or bugs) are entered into a common task or issue tracking system. As part of this process each task is assigned a unique identifier. A “call-out” is added to the source control management system which captures the effort level and task ID associated with the proposed change. The data entered is validated to ensure that the task ID is valid and that the effort entered is within a valid range. If the data entered is valid, the change to the underlying artifact is allowed to proceed and the effort and task information is stored for later analysis. If the data is not valid, the proposed change is rejected and an appropriate error message is returned to the user.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, at a source control management system, an input representing a proposed change to a software source file, and wherein prior to receiving the input representing the proposed change, causing to be displayed, to a user, a template that allows the user to enter information that represents the effort level associated with said proposed change, and wherein causing the template to be displayed to the user includes inserting the template into a source control management system commit form;

in response to the input, the source control management system capturing an effort level associated with the proposed change by receiving, from a user, a user-specified effort level;

wherein the effort level is a measure of how much effort required in making said proposed change and wherein the effort level is captured during a check in through a source control system and an issue tracking system, and wherein the captured effort level is a length of time required or spent in generating said proposed change;

determining, by the source control management system, whether to make said proposed change based, at least in part, on the captured effort level;

in response to determining that said proposed change should be made, performing the steps of;

making said proposed change;

storing data that indicates a task ID associated with the proposed change; and

storing data, in association with the task lD, that indicates the captured effort level;

wherein determining whether to make said proposed change includes comparing the captured effort level associated with said proposed change to a range of acceptable effort levels associated with the task ID, and said proposed change is committed to the source control management system only after determining that the captured effort level associated with said proposed change is within the range of acceptable effort levels, and wherein the range of acceptable effort levels is retrieved from a policy database storing a plurality of ranges of acceptable effort levels, and wherein each range of the plurality of ranges of acceptable effort levels is associated with a particular task ID;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein determining that the proposed change should be made includes validating the captured effort level to ensure that the captured effort level is within a valid range.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving input representing a proposed change to a software source file includes intercepting the proposed change that is being submitted to a source control management system using a change capture component.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein:

receiving said proposed change input includes receiving a changed version of the software source file, and making said proposed change includes committing the changed version to the source control management system that currently contains a prior version of the software source file.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising in response to the input, capturing a root cause associated with said proposed change, and wherein determining whether to make said proposed change is based, at least in part, on the captured effort level and the root cause.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the source control management system capturing an effort level comprises the source control management system capturing a task ID associated with the proposed change by receiving, from the user, a user-specified task ID; and

validating the captured effort level comprises validating the task ID to ensure that the task ID is a valid task ID.

7. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions for:

receiving, at a source control management system, an input representing a proposed change to a software source file;

in response to the input, the source control management system capturing an effort level associated with the proposed change by receiving, from a user, a user-specified effort level;

wherein the effort level is a measure of how much effort required in making said proposed change, and wherein the captured effort level is a length of time required or spent in generating said proposed change;

determining, by the source control management system, whether to make said proposed change based, at least in part, on the captured effort level;

in response to determining that said proposed change should be made,

performing the steps of;

making said proposed change;

storing data that indicates a task ID associated with the proposed change; and

storing data, in association with the task ID, that indicates the captured effort level;

causing to be displayed, to a user, prior to receiving the input representing said proposed change, a template that allows the user to enter information that represents the effort level required for said proposed change, and wherein the instructions for causing the template to be displayed to the user include instructions for inserting the template into a source control management system commit form;

wherein the instructions for determining whether to make said proposed change include instructions for comparing the captured effort level associated with said proposed change to a range of acceptable effort levels associated with the task ID, and wherein said proposed change is committed to the source control management system only after determining that the captured effort level is within the range of acceptable effort levels;

receiving, from a policy database, the range of acceptable effort levels, and wherein the policy database contains a plurality of ranges of acceptable effort levels and each range of the plurality of ranges of acceptable effort level is associated with a particular task ID.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the instructions that cause determining that the proposed change should he made include validating the captured effort level to ensure that the captured effort level is within a valid range.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7 wherein the instructions that cause receiving input representing a proposed change to a software source file include intercepting the proposed change that is being submitted to a source code management system, with a change capture component.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein:

the instructions that cause receiving said input include instructions for receiving a changed version of the software source file, and making said proposed change includes committing the changed version to the source control management system that currently contains a prior version of the software source file.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, further comprising instructions for in response to the input, capturing a root cause associated with the proposed change, and wherein determining whether to make said proposed change is based, at least in part, on the captured effort level and the root cause.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein:

the source control management system capturing the effort level includes the source control management system capturing a task ID associated with the proposed change by receiving, from the user, a user-specified task ID; and

validating the captured effort level includes validating the task ID to ensure that the task ID is a valid task ID.