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Tracklet Overview

Built for complex project-driven organizations, Tracklet offers the latest in advanced Web-based project management and collaboration. Organizations will increase productivity because the people and information critical to project and process success are seamlessly connected in Tracklet's shared environment.

Tracklet was developed with three key components in mind; intuitive and easy to use, simple and rapid to deploy, and low total cost of ownership allowing customers to seize a greater ROI.

Because Tracklet can be easily configured to map to an organization's needs and customized to capture unique relevant project data, it becomes more than a project management tool. Tracklet allows businesses to seamlessly implement and automate methodologies and business processes across the organization. Automating methodologies and business processes streamlines how work is accomplished by leveraging knowledge and best practices and enabling on-demand information sharing.

User Administration

The first step toward building your professional online project management tool is to add Users to your account. Users are the people (Project Managers, Employees, etc.) related to your Organization and are assigned a Userid and Password to enter Tracklet to submit new Issues, view the progress of Issues they have reported or update Workflow Stages currently assigned to them. Users who have been assigned Administrative privilages are authorized to manage Issues and make changes to any Tracklet features.

Once Users are added, you will need to create Groups, which is a collection of Users who are used joined together by some criteria. A User can belong to multiple Groups (e.g. Software Developers, Sales Team, etc.) at the same time. When adding a new Group, you add also one or more Users to the it from the Users List. Tracklet was built on Group-based security from the ground-up. Tracklet distinguishes a special Group called the Public Users (anonymous Users from the World Wide Web) who can submit and track Tracklet Issues from a public URL without logging on first with a User Id and Password.

Issue Questionnaire

The basic component of Tracklet is the Issue. An Issue may be a project, a request, a bug or any single entity on which a predefined set of steps can be performed. In order for your Users to be able to submit and report new Issues, you will need to design the Issue Submission Form which is basically a questionnaire form template which helps you collect any information from your Users about the Issue they submit. You have total control over the look and feel of this questionnaie, what and how many questions you will display to your Users. You can add Selectable questions where Users will select from a list of predefined choices, or you can add open-ended questions where users type their answers manually. You can mark a question as required, specify default value(s) and do data validation. You assign Question to a Group, thus you are in full control of what questions on the Questionnaire will be displayed to which Group. By being able to assign a Group to a question, you can basically horizontally partition your Questionnaire form.

Issue Workflow

The other important component is the Issue Workflow. Each Issue needs to have a Workflow setup before they can be launched and started. Each Tracklet Issue can have its own unique Workflow, since unlike other Project Managment tools, Tracklet does not restrict you to use the same Workflow for all Issues. You can setup a Workflow manually for each new Issue, or create Default Workflow Templates and assign them to the new issue either manually or through Issue Escalation Rules which are triggered when a new Issue is reported. Default Workflows are not required but strongly advised in an environment where multiple Issues may be reported that will need to go through the same Workflow logic. You may create as many Default Workflows as you wish.

Tracklet features the world's most advanced industry leading Workflow engine. The Tracklet Issue Workflow is:

Multi-threaded: as opposed to linear Workflow systems, in a multi-threaded Workflow architecture several stages may be open at any given time, therefore multiple execution threads may be active and running in parallel with each other. The execution thread is a theoritical thread, which consists of stages executed in a pre-defined order.
Automated: once the Workflow is configured, no manual intervention is needed from the Tracklet administrator. The Workflow stages are automatically opened, closed, re-opened based on the conditions specified.
Event-Based: when a Workflow stage is updated, an event is fired that notifies Tracklet to checks what to do next, i.e. which Workflow Stages it should open, close or restart. If Tracklet finds no Open Stages in the Workflow, it marks the Issue as Closed. There are 2 stage events: Succeeds or Fails.
Conditional: a stage becomes open when either its start or restart condition is met. A stage can be started with a single or multiple criterias concatenated with either of the AND or OR boolean operators: e.g. Stage F starts: when Stage D Succeeds AND Stage C fails AND Stages B,E complete.
Recursive: a stage can be restarted if its restart condition becomes true and it has not been restarted more than specified in its Max Restart value.
Open: there are times when we need to manually intervene in the automated process of the Workflow we configured for our issue, e.g. we need to add more stages, or change assignation. Even when an Issue is Open or Closed, its Workflow can be re-edited, re-assigned, start-restart conditions changed, stage completion types adjusted, new stages added, stages deleted, planned/final time and cost values modified, etc. Only administrators can adjust Workflow, and all modifications are logged.

Tracklet Workflow is also enabled with the following features:

Workload-Balancing: with Tracklet Workflow management, we can allocate human resources evenly throughout the system making sure that everybody is always assigned something to work on.
Decision Tree: you can make any kind of custom decisions in our Workflow using the Kill Stages and Automatic Update Workflow flags.
Time and Cost Efficiency Calculation: for each stage, we can specify the planned time and planned cost we think the stage will need to finish. Each assignee can specify the final time and cost the stage needed to finish. These planned and final values will be used to calculate time and cost efficiency.
Conditional Email Notification: When the Issue is started or closed the Tracklet Administrators will automatically receive email notifications, however, the Tracklet Administratos also can specify individual Users and/or a Group for each Workflow Stage event (Workflow Start, Re-start, Close) to receive email notifications when the specified Workflow Stage event occurs.
Unlimited Number of Workflow Stages: there is no limit as to how many number of stages a Workflow may have.

Auto-Escalation Rules

The Issue Escalation Rules are the most convenient tool for you to automate the Issue setup process and delegate the new Issues to the right Group to work on. The Escalation Rule automatically assignings the newly reported Issue a Default Workflow based on the answers the submitting User gave on the Issue Questionnaire form and starts the Issue without any user interaction. You can setup multiple Escalation Rules and each time a new Issue is reported, Tracklet evaluates the list of all available Issue Escalation Rules to see if any of them matches the form values Users reported on the Issue Submission Page. If it finds one, it automatically loads the Default Workflow - specied in the Escalation Rule - for the Issue, then it starts the Issue and the Issue Status becomes Open.

Issue Lifecycle

Submit New Issue: Issue are submitted through the Issue Submission Page where the Issue Questionnaire Form is prompted to the User with Questions the User submitting the Issue is authorized to see since only Questions assigned to Group(s) the User submitting the Issue belongs to will be displayed to the User. When the Users submits the Issue, the Tracklet automatically assigns it a unique Issue Tracking ID.
Assign Workflow to New Issue: When the Issues is reported, Tracklet runs a quick check to see if any of the Issue Escalation Rules are met, and if it finds one, it assigns the Default Workflow specified in the Escalation Rule to the new Issue. If no Issue Escalation Rules are found, then the Tracklet Administrator will have to create a Workflow for this new Issue before it can be Started. The Workflow can be created manually from scratch or can be loaded from the Default Workflows list for the new Issue with a click of a button.
Start New Issue: If an Issue Escalation Rule was trigger, then the new Issue will be started automatically. With no Escalation Rule triggered, the Issue will need to be started manually by the Tracklet Administrator. Before starting the new Issue manually, any Fields assigned to the Administrators Group may need to be filled out by a Tracklet Administrator. Once filled out, the Issue can be started. When the new Issue is started, its status becomes Open and email notification will be sent out to the current Stage Owners and to all Users subscribed for this Issue notifications.
Update Workflow Stages: The Tracklet Workflow consists of one or more Workflow Stages. Each Workflow Stage is assigned to an individual User or a Group. When the Workflow Stage becomes active, the Stage Owner(s) can update the Issue Workflow Stage assigned to them. When a Workflow Stage is updated, Tracklet runs a quick check on all Workflow Stage conditions for the Issue to see which Workflow Stages need to be activated (Started or Re-Started) or deactivated (Closed). Tracklet may active or deactivate one or more Workflow Stages based on the Start and Re-start Conditions you specified for the Issue's Workflow Stages. If Tracklet finds a Workflow Stage to activate, it will send out email notification to its Stage Owner(s). If the Workflow Stage is assigned to a Group, all members of that Group will receive an email notification and the first one to update that Stage will take ownership of it. When a Stage Owner updates the Stage, s/he can specify the Time and Cost it took to work on this Workflow Stage, and also upload one or more files that will be attached to the Issue Stage Messages log for this Workflow Stage. The Stage Owner can mark the updated Stage as Success, Failed or In Progress. If In Progress is specified for an updated Stage, the Stage will stay intact and Tracklet won't move evaluate the Workflow to activate/deactivate other Stages. Tracklet workflow is conditional workflow, it follows the rules and stage start and re-start conditions you define.
Close Issue: When the Workflow Stage is updated, Tracklet checks to see which Stages need to be actived or deactivated. If Tracklet finds no Worfklow Stages to activate, the Issue becomes Closed.

Issue Tracking and Reporting

An Issue can be viewed only by Tracklet Administrators, the Issue Submitter and the Users who are specified assigned Workflow Stages in the Issue Workflow. Administrators can see pending, completed or future Workflow Stages for any User, see all Open, Closed or Newly reported Issues thus they can make sure that human resources are utilized properly.

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