Associate roles with timelines

Once you have associated roles with document types, you can associate them with timelines.

The various members of a documentation team are associated with each document type at a different point in the documentation life cycle. For example, while both writers and editors are associated with topics during the Authoring cycle, their tasks, statuses, and timelines differ.

To associate roles with timelines:

  1. Open the Role Manager window.
  2. In the Roles list, select the role to configure.
    The document types assigned to the selected role are displayed under Document type.
  3. Under Document type, select a document type.
  4. Right-click in the Time Lines list and select New Time Line.
  5. Select the timeline you wish to add, which may be:
    • Active, to configure the tasks that will be active for this user role at this point in the document cycle.
    • Incoming, to configure tasks that are pending for this user role at this point in the document cycle.
    • Retained, to configure tasks that will be passed back to this user once another user has finished them. (For example, when Authors change a topic's status to edit review, the topic becomes Active for SMEs and goes to Retained status for the Authors.)
  6. In the Time lines list, select a time line.
    The statuses defined in your configuration appear in the Status list.

    Figure: Configuring the Active status options for an Editor user



    Note: The * in the Status list of the screenshot above means "All Cycles"; use it to select statuses that will be applied to all cycles.
  7. Click the statuses to add for this role, document type, and timeline.
    For example, in the configuration illustrated above, Editor users will be Active for topics that have the Authoring: edit review status.
  8. To select another timeline for this role and document type, repeat from Step 4 to configure its status.
    For example, you might want to configure the Editor role to have an Incoming timeline for topics that have draft status, so that Editor users can anticipate their pending workload.
    Note: Depending on the role, you may configure one, two, or all three possible timelines. For example, a graphic artist might have statuses associated only with the Active timeline and only for image document types; whereas a Resource Manager who wants to keep abreast of the entire project would likely have statuses associated with all document types and all three possible timelines.
  9. Repeat from Step 2 to associate additional roles and timelines.
  10. Save your changes locally (CTRL+s).
  11. Click Check In Document (check in manager icon) to commit your changes.
  12. Inform users of the changes.
    The changes will be applied automatically once users close and then reopen their . Users can also apply the changes without restarting their IXIASOFT CCMS Desktop by clicking DITA CMS > Synchronize Configuration.