Software development is a complex and varied process involving multiple roles, tools and environments. In order to improve the efficiency and quality of software development, automated workflow is an important means. Automated workflow refers to the automatic execution and coordination of various stages and tasks of software development through predefined rules and logic, thereby reducing human intervention and errors.
In terms of specific value, for example, automated workflow can save developers time and energy, allowing the team to focus on core business logic and innovation, rather than repetitive and tedious work, such as creating tasks, modifying status, notifying progress, and finding documents wait. Automated workflows can also in some ways speed up software development, shorten lead times, and improve customer satisfaction. In addition, there are quality assurance, enhanced collaboration, adaptation to change, and more.
In short, automated workflow is an indispensable part of software development, which can bring many benefits and improve the level and competitiveness of software development.
In order to better solve your problems, you can try the automation capabilities provided by PingCode, which assists you in customizing rules through the mode of "discovering problems-designing rules-executing rules-measuring results-improving improvements" to realize automatic status flow, Scenarios such as automatic assignment of tasks, automatic reminders, and connection to third-party platforms.
Below we will introduce some applications of PingCode automation in the development process in detail.
1. Open PingCode automation in 8 steps
PingCode automation becomes a "multiplier" of productivity, helping production and research teams:
- Improve efficiency: manual transfer to automation, reduce tedious and repetitive work, and improve communication and teamwork efficiency
- Reduce errors: Avoid errors and negligence caused by human errors, making R&D work compliant and efficient
- Trustworthy: Team members can check the latest progress of work at any time to enhance team trust
- R&D management: Automate the daily work of the R&D team so that they can focus on creative work
- Efficient communication: promptly, accurately, and automatically notify relevant personnel to reduce waiting time
- DevOps: Integrate and connect third-party system tools to realize R&D automation workflow and improve R&D efficiency
- Personnel management: When personnel change, automatically add or delete related items, test databases, knowledge base permissions, etc., shortening manual adjustment time
So, how to automate the process? Through the following 8 steps, let PingCode help you build an automated workflow, improve team collaboration efficiency, and improve R&D efficiency.
Step One: Create Your Automation Rules
The main role of automation tools is to change repetitive work from manual execution to automatic execution, which can greatly improve the development efficiency of the R&D team, save labor costs, and reduce work errors. To this end, you can start to create your automation rules, scheduled rules, and instant rules according to different usage scenarios, as follows:
1. Create rules
automation rules
Through automation rules, you can help you get rid of repetitive manual work and automate tasks by connecting the applications you are already using.
- Enter PingCode, select "Automation";
- In the main interface, select "+ New Rule", select "Automation Rule";
- Define the rule name and select the trigger to configure the rule;
- Finish creating.
program rules
Through the planning rules, you can choose when and how often to execute the predefined rules, without the interference of transactional work, and focus on the most important work.
- Enter PingCode, select "Automation";
- In the main interface, select "+ New Rule", select "Planning Rule";
- Define the rule name, select the start time and set the running frequency and running time of the rule, and configure the rule;
- Finish creating.
instant rule
With instant rules, you can set and save a sequence of actions in a rule, and use manual triggers to initiate and execute them. Save yourself having to manually perform these operations every time.
- Enter PingCode, select "Automation";
- In the main interface, select "+ New Rule" and select "Real Time Rule";
- Define the rule name and set the trigger person to configure the rule;
- Finish creating.
Tips：
- Instant rules allow only designated team members to initiate.
- Triggered by: Set the current team members, departments or user groups who have permission to execute this rule.
2. Create a rule from a template
You can create new rules yourself, or create rules from templates. When you or other team members are configuring automation rules, you can directly select the recommendation or organization template, and you can quickly create a new automation rule with a little modification, which greatly saves the time for configuring rules.
3. Import from file
When you want to reuse a large number of rules, you find that manual creation is inefficient. You can import the description files of the configured rules, import the files into the rule library in batches, reduce the creation cost, and quickly generate automated rules.
Step 2: Visually configure your automation rules
1. Automation components
You can configure your automation rules in a visual way, in which triggers, actions, conditions, and process control are the components of automation, and you only need to combine them to complete the rule creation.
trigger
Every rule begins with a trigger, whose job it is to initiate the execution of the rule. Each automation rule requires an event to be triggered. You can enter the trigger name to search or filter different types of triggers through "connectors" and "groups" to choose to add. Of course, you can also choose timing trigger or manual trigger, and 94 kinds of triggers have been provided for you to configure rules.
action
Actions are the enforcers of rules, and you can use actions to automate tasks and make changes within the system. There are many tasks that automation rules can perform. You can enter the action name to search or filter different types of actions through "connectors" and "groups" to select to add, and then set the action data type. When the step conditions are met, the rule executes the next step. 157 actions have been provided for you to configure rules.
condition
You can use conditions to narrow the scope of your rules. You can enter the condition name to search or filter different types of conditions through "Connector" and "Grouping" to select Add, and then set the condition data type. When the conditions you set are met, the rule will execute the next steps; if the conditions you set are not met, the rule will stop running, and the system will not perform actions that meet the conditions. 18 conditions have been provided for you to configure the rules.
process control
You can control the execution sequence of each statement in the process through five methods: parallel, judgment, condition, loop, and one by one, and you can combine statements into logical modules that can complete certain functions.
2. Examples of automation rules
R&D Management Example: Automatically Setting Work Item Owners
Background: In the R&D process, each job needs to have a clear person in charge. This will not only clarify responsibilities, but also objectively show the progress of the current work. However, no matter whether the members are careless or the project is tight and the tasks are heavy, there will often be no corresponding responsible person for the work item in progress.
Solution: You can set up a rule to automatically set the current operator as the work item owner who is "in progress".
Configuration:
Tips: If you need to limit the project, add a "work item property condition" after the trigger and select the project property as a specific project.
- [Select trigger] Create a new automation rule, click "+ New Rule", select "Automation Rule" and fill in the rule name "Automatically set work item responsible person", you can enter the name of "Create work item" to search, select "Create work item " trigger, click "OK" to create it.
- [Add Condition] To determine whether the person in charge of the current work item is in the unset state, select "Add Condition" at the bottom of the editing interface, filter out the "Work Item Attribute Condition" through the "Connector", and click "Work Item Attribute Condition" In the configuration of , select the attribute as "person in charge" and the operation as "empty".
- [Add Action] After the attribute conditions of the work item are judged, the next step is to set the person in charge of the requirement. Select "Add Action" at the bottom of the editing interface, and you can enter the name of "Set Requirement Person in Charge" to search, and select "Set the Person in Charge of Requirement". In the configuration of "Set Requirement Responsible Person", select the operation as "Assign Responsible Person", the data as "System Data", and the field as "Rule Trigger".
With such three simple steps, you have perfectly solved the problem of "team members forgot to set the responsible person".
Effective Communication Example: Notifying Blocked Work Items
Background: In the R&D team and the communication and collaboration between teams, it is inevitable that some tasks must wait for the completion of other tasks before starting. How to synchronize work progress and results in a timely and rapid manner not only affects the efficiency of production and research, but also affects customer satisfaction and company revenue.
Solution: You can configure rules to automatically find blocked work items and post comments after the work item status changes to completed, and notify the person in charge of the blocked work items to start the follow-up tasks as soon as possible.
Configuration:
- [Select Trigger] Create a new automation rule, click "+ New Rule", select "Automation Rule" and fill in the rule name "Notify Blocked Work Item", you can enter the name "Change Work Item Status" to search, select "Change Work Item Status" trigger, click OK to create it.
- [Add Action] Select "Add Action" at the bottom of the editing interface, you can enter the name of "Get Associated Work Item" to search, select "Get Associated Work Item", and select the association type as "Block" in the configuration of "Get Associated Work Item" .
- Add action steps as above, select "Publish comments to work items" to add dynamic content. Send a comment to these work items to inform owners and followers that the blocked work item status has changed.
After enabling this rule, team members do not need to manually remind the person in charge of the follow-up task, and the team manager does not need to spend time checking the relevant progress every day. Team collaboration and communication will be performed automatically, timely and accurately.
Devops example: Automatically notify the relevant personnel of the corresponding work item after the GitHub Pull Request Review status changes
Background: In addition to process, the R&D team also has a lot of engineering work, which is what we often call DevOps-related work. This means that R&D personnel need to frequently switch between code hosting platforms, project management, IM and other tools, which is extremely inefficient. For example, Code Review is an essential job for every R&D team that pursues quality. However, how to efficiently communicate relevant information on the same platform is a major challenge for every team.
Solution: When the development team conducts Code Review for a work item, when the status of the Pull Request Review changes, find the corresponding work item through the configuration rule Pull Request name or source branch name containing "#work item number", and send a comment prompt Code Review status change.
Configuration:
- [Select trigger] Create a new automation rule, click "+ New Rule", select "Automation Rule" and fill in the rule name "Automatically notify the relevant personnel of the corresponding work item after the GitHub Pull Request Review status changes", you can enter "change" to search, Select the "Change GitHub Pull Request Review Status" trigger and click "OK" to create it.
- [Flow Control] Select "Parallel" in "Flow Control" at the bottom of the editing interface to add 2 branches.
- [Add Action] Select "Add Action" at the bottom of the first branch editing interface, you can enter "by number" to search, select "get multiple work items by number", and configure in "get multiple work items by number" Select the source as "From other steps", the step as "S1 Change GitHub Pull Request Review Status", and the field as "Pull Request Title".
- The second branch is the same as above to add action steps, the difference is that the field selection is "Pull Request source branch name".
Select "Add Action" at the bottom of the editing interface, you can enter the name "post comment to work item" to search, and select "post comment to work item" to add dynamic content. Send a comment to these work items to inform owners and followers that the Pull Request Review status has changed.
Through the above rules, the operation process of the R&D team in the process of Code Review is simplified, the communication is smoother, and the status of work items reflects the real development status in a timely manner.
Example of people management: automatically add new members to a designated space
Background: With the expansion of the R&D team, knowledge base management has accumulated many project PRD documents, development specification documents and other documents. However, whenever the team welcomes new members, the team leader needs to manually add them to the project knowledge base. Although the operation time may not be too long each time, it is a cumbersome job, and once Mistakes and omissions will cause new members to be unable to obtain information at the first time, and even doubt the formality of the team and organization.
Solution: You can configure rules to automatically add new members to the specified knowledge space after joining the team.
Configuration:
- [Select trigger] Create a new automation rule, click "+ New Rule", select "Automation Rule" and fill in the rule name "Automatically add new members to the specified space", you can enter "member" to search, select "member joins the team", Click OK to create.
- [Add Condition] Select "Add Condition" at the bottom of the editing interface, you can enter the name of "Member Attribute Condition" to search, select "Member Attribute Condition" as "team", the operation is "include", the object is "specified team", The team is the "development product group".
- [Add Action] Select "Add Action" at the bottom of the editing interface, you can enter the name of "Member Join Space" to search, select "Member Join Space", and in the "Member Join Space" configuration, select the data as "Specified Space", and the space as "Production Research Management".
The above steps will allow new members to understand the situation of the whole team at the first time, and quickly integrate into the team.
Step Three: Track How Your Automated Rules Are Running
After configuring a Flow rule, once you trigger the rule, the system will generate a record of the running time and status. If the operation fails, you can quickly locate the problem and modify the configuration by viewing the record details.
Step 4: Rule template, out of the box
At this point, you have some understanding of Flow and are ready to try using it in your team. You can browse the templates currently recommended by the system, which can help you create some targeted rules. When introducing automation tools to your team for the first time, you can start with the scenarios in the template and work your way up.
Scenario example: When your work item changes, the message is automatically forwarded to notify relevant personnel of the work item change in time. You can modify work item properties, send notifications, and customize notification content by customizing automation rules as needed.
For ease of understanding, examples of business scenarios are as follows:
Step 5: Group and categorize management automation rules
You can use automation categories to help you organize rules into different groups. Later, when viewing a list of all automation rules, you can sort, search, and group the rules in the list. You can also add Emoji expressions to the rule category to make your work easier and more interesting.
Step 6: Rule management for more operations
You can manage all the created rules in a unified way. The list view on the homepage can clearly see the title, type, category, status, creator, updater and last running time of each rule. You can also re-edit the rules, Export, save as template, copy, enable, delete, etc.
Step Seven: Connect Teams Tools
You can establish associations with other modules of PingCode through automation, such as product management, project management, test management, knowledge management, collaboration space, system, notification, general, etc., turning more manual scenarios into automated execution and improving team work efficiency .
Step Eight: External Connectors
While connecting PingCode's existing sub-products, you can connect third-party custom applications through automation. Such as GitLab, GitHub, HTTP, Jenkins, office email, etc. Extend the scope of automation to the entire R&D process, reducing the time and communication costs for users switching back and forth between multiple tools.
1. Connect to GitLab
You can access GitLab through the GitLab connector. For details, see the configuration instructions . Rules are automatically triggered when you create branches, submit, and merge Merge Requests on GitLab. At the same time, you can store, branch, and Merge Requests on GitLab.
Example: When a "task" is created in PingCode project management, a branch is automatically created in GitHub/GitLab.
Tips：
The GitLab rules used by the PingCode R&D team are as follows:
Step1: Create a GitLab branch when the development task becomes "in development";
Step2: Create a GitLab branch to automatically comment on related work items;
Step3: Create GitLab MR to automatically set the work item to CR status;
Step4: Comment on GitLab MR to automatically notify the corresponding work item;
Step5: Merge GitLab MR to automatically update the work item status;
Step6: Set the work item to be released to automatically trigger the build;
Step7: Complete the build and automatically update the work item as released;
Step8: Change version status is automatically built and notified.
2. Connect to Jenkins
You can access Jenkins through the Jenkins connector, trigger rules when the status of the Jenkins Job changes, and start the Jenkins Job.
Example: Notify project members when a Jenkins Job fails to build.
Update the work item status when the Jenkins Job build is successful.
2. Introduce PingCode automation to the team
With the above content, it's time to introduce PingCode automation tools to your team.
- Positioning: PingCode automation can help enterprises build automated R&D workflows, automate repetitive work through custom rules, standardize R&D processes, and easily connect internal and external systems, so that your team can have more time and energy to take over more big project
- ability:
- Efficiency improvement: Calculate the time saved by automation tools through man-hour statistics and other methods.
- Powerful, easy-to-use: You can quickly create and edit rules that apply to your team in an interactive way without a lot of learning costs and setup work.
- No code, visualization: no development is required, and the setting of the rule process can be completed through visual operations.
- Security: PingCode automation strictly follows relevant data security policies, and has measures such as international information security system certification, data encryption and backup, and account protection, which can fully guarantee the information security of your organization.
- Deployment: PingCode automation supports a variety of deployment methods, including public cloud, private cloud, and local deployment; among them, the SaaS version can purchase accounts on demand, and a professional team provides operation and maintenance guarantee services. The biweekly version iteration is more lightweight, low-cost, and easy to maintain.
- Service: PingCode automation is serving various teams of many first-line companies. PingCode has the experience and ability to serve tens of thousands of members. In addition to better understanding of domestic production and research models, it also has more complete, timely and effective customers service system.
Reference: https://blog.pingcode.com/5fen-zhong-dai-ni-wan-zhuan-pingcode-flow/