Bug tracker integration API?

[tomt84]

Hi

I am wondering if Vault Client supports 3rd party plugins of any description.

Reason I ask is that I would like to write a plugin to allow integration between Vault's check in file dialogue, and our OnTime bug tracking software from Axosoft.

I.e. I would like to be able to type/browse for a bug number in the Update Bugs section of the Check In dialogue, and for that bug to be marked as "Fix ready for testing" in OnTime. This would make our workflow more convenient.

OnTime ships with a pretty comprehensive SDK so getting the data in at the other end is no problem.

Thanks
Tom

[Beth]

You can use the Vault API to tie things together I think. There is a Development Tips area in the center of the forum main page what would have examples and you can ask more detailed questions.

[jeremy_sg]

I'm going to bust in and disagree with Beth on this one. The client API is an API for writing your own Vault clients. There are no hooks to implement your own bug tracker. For the moment, your best bet is to implement a web page that mimics the FogBugz page that we call with bug updates, and enable FogBugz integration in Vault. See:

http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=581

for more information.

[tomt84]

Okay, I'll look into doing just that. Thanks for the lead Jeremy - it must conflict with your business model somewhat to allow this, what with Fortress doing bug tracking.

I'll investigate the feasibility of doing this over the next few days. In the long term, I think it'd be great to have this as a supported extensibility point in Vault. Is there any chance of this happening?

Kind regards
Tom

[jeremy_sg]

I'll never say never, but my feeling is that the integration that we get in Fortress is beyond what we could get from any other bug tracking system. At the moment, we have no plans to improve our 3rd party bug tracking integration.

[tomt84]

Well I have knocked up a simple ASP.NET page that masquerades as Fogbugz' cvsSubmit.asp and does the job I need it to.

When I get it to production quality I'll post it here, if that's ok?

How would one persuade the various checkboxes and the browse button on the Check In form to spring to life, and what exactly do they do? Are they Fortress-related only? I have got the Bugs textbox working just fine and passing strings to my "glue" code. I'm thinking I'm going to end up writing a simple parser to pass instructions over to the glue code I've written:

Example - one might enter in the Bugs textbox in Vault's checkin dialogue:
"b205 fix" - the current checkin fixes bug 205. The bug tracker would insert a comment to this effect and mark the bug as "fixed ready for testing".

"f173 complete" - if the current checkin completes feature 173. The bug tracker would insert a comment and mark the bug as "feature completed, awaiting testing"

"f150" - if the current checkin contributes towards feature 150 but does not complete it. Just a comment would be added to the feature, e.g. "File path/to/file.cs version 123 checked in on 2008-10-05 09:30"

And so on. Would be nicer to use the "Mark complete" checkbox on that form to this effect. Possible?

[avonwyss]

Just for the record, this used to work just perfectly with V3.x when Dragnet was still supported - I did build up a Dragnet mock page using ASP.NET which took very little effort to be done, but this stopped working when V4 dropped Dragnet support.

Having a generic plug-in concept on the Vault server and on the Windows clients (GUI, MSSCI and VSIP) so that certain events (especially information about commits and their contents) can trigger external code would be nice. I understand that this may influence the stability of the SourceGear application, but there are technical means to greatly reduce such risks (loading and using the plug-in assembly only through a separate AppDomain).

From the business point of view, it may make the Vault community become active and enhance the product "for free", making it a even more attractive choice over other products.

[mskrobul]

You are correct. The options you are referring to are only available and enabled in the Fortress client. Fortress bug tracking system integration is much tighter and more robust than Vaults/Dragnet integration. Pretty much all bug tracking functionality (query, add, edit, recent and at-a-glance views etc. etc) is available via the Fortress GUI Client and VSIP IDE clients, not just "browse, mark fixed, and add comment".

The upgrade to Fortress is free to users who have both Vault and Dragnet. We assumed all users who had both would upgrade to Fortress. We really didn't think of the case where people were using a mock up of Dragnet for bug tracking inside Vault That is very innovative of you!

We will note your request.

We appreciate your feedback!