Defining Product Settings

In addition to tracking issues for specific products, Issue Manager also tracks issues for the following:
  • Specific versions of products.
  • Specific platforms that product versions are associated with.
  • Specific product components.

Product teams often have more than one person writing code for a given application. Issue Manager enables you to link products and components with specific inboxes. Additionally, Issue Manager automatically assigns new issues to the appropriate developers based on the product, the component, the release and the platform.

Note: You can create and edit products, components, versions, builds, and platforms in the Administration unit of Silk Central. The only properties that you can configure through Issue Manager are product inbox settings.
It is up to you to define how you want to distinguish products from components. A product in one organization might be defined as a component in another organization. The following basic definitions might help you:
Product
A product is a piece of software that can be run separately from other software that may be delivered with it. It can be sold separately if required. In a product the executable program is separated from the code base. A product may consist of multiple components.
Component
A component is a functional area of a product. A component cannot be sold separately, and users do not see a component as a distinct product. A product may have one or more components associated with it.
Release
A release is a specific version or a specific software build of a specific product. A release can be an internal development build or a build that is shipped to customers. A product might have multiple releases associated with it. A specific release of a product might be available on more than one platform.
Platform
A platform is an environment in which a product runs. A platform consists of a combination of any of the following elements:
  • Hardware.
  • Operating system, for example Microsoft Windows.
  • Operating system release, for example 8.1.
Many of the values that are defined for products, releases, platforms, and components are displayed on the Products page in Issues > Configuration > Products.