Question

We've used the Workflow plugin to define new states for our code review process, "Pending Review" and "Pending Merge (Approve)". The workflow is that the bug fixer assigns the case to the reviewer and sets it to "Pending Review" when they have a proposed fix, and the reviewer assigns the case back to the fixer and marks it either "Pending Merge (Approved)" if the fix is okay, or "Active" if it's not.

However, our users often forget to assign the case back to the fixer after reviewing it and marking it "Pending Merge" or "Active". In the workflow plugin for the default assignee, it doesn't look like there is a placeholder for "previous owner", which is what I'd probably put in here.

I have considered changing the "Pending Review" and "Pending Merge" states into "Resolved" statuses (instead of "Active" statuses), but that seems like it would mess with EBS. It would also be confusing to our users since they would have to click "Resolve" instead of "Edit" to mark the case "Pending Review". However, that would make the bug fixer into the "case resolver", so I'd be able to auto-assign the case back to them when it's marked Pending Merge or reactivated.

Answer 1

Here's an idea for setting up a review process for multiple reviewers via a plugin. It uses tables joined on Bug instead of a status-based process like Workflow.

We also have a case open to consider adding "last assignee" to the choices of people to assign to in the workflow plugin. Please up-vote this question to show your support.

Answer 2

For Kiln, our deeply integrated Mercurial product, we ended up spinning off cases for code reviews, rather than running the original case through a set of steps. This indicates to me that the complexities of what can happen during code review are maybe a bit beyond the current capabilities of the workflow plug-in, which is intended to be lightweight. I think we're just going to have to ask for your patience here.