Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 15-11.
Features Progress Log tab
Milestones
Milestones are used to define and track event dates for both scheduled and one-time happenings. On the surface, this
appears to be a simple concept; however, it can be a confusing area because milestone functionality overlaps with
releases and can be confused with the due dates associated with features, to-dos, and bugs. Fortunately, the confusion
can be mitigated with a bit of planning and organization.
One strategy you can use to organize milestones and releases is to create one of each for the same release event.
The milestone contains the metadata associated with the release: the date, a type, the owner, a description, and
tags. The release is defined as a configurable LOV that is shared by all Team Development entities, but it contains no
descriptive metadata. Also, releases are one of the handy high-level filters associated with features, to-dos, and bugs.
The need for both metadata and the high-level filters is the reason a milestone and a release must be used to describe
the same event. Happily, the overhead in doing this is low.
Another suggestion for workspaces that contain multiple applications is to prefix features, milestones, releases,
to-dos, and feedback with the name or code of their associated application. In many cases, this isn't strictly necessary;
but it can make some of the dashboards more readable, because they often contain only an entity's name without any
supporting data.
Milestones, of course, are used to define and track other events in the software-development lifecycle. Important
meetings, tool software upgrades, and requirement deliveries are just a few examples.
The Milestones interface contains a number of tabs. The Dashboard and Calendar tabs are common to all entities
and were discussed earlier.
Milestones Tab
The Milestones tab in Figure
15-12
displays an interactive report that contains a list of milestones. The high-level
filters let you select all or only future events as well as individual releases. The Edit link in the interactive report takes
you to the milestone's Edit page, which contains intuitive items that are documented under their labels.
