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MANTIS/400    ORIGIN    FEATURES    FLAVORS       1. Issue Tracker       2. Software Design Change Requests       3. Implementation Tracker    SCREEN SHOTS ORIGIN Kenzaburo Ito and a friend originally created a bugtracker as an internal tool for their pet project. A search for good, free packages came up with nothing suitable so they wrote their own. After a rewrite and cleanup it was made available to the public via the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL was chosen partly because of his belief that development tools should be cheap or free. In 2002, Ken was joined by Jeroen Latour, Victor Boctor and Julian Fitzell to be the administrators and the core development team of Mantis. This marks a new era in Mantis lifetime where it is now a team project. Mantis (feature list) is written in the PHP scripting language and works with DB2/400, MySQL, MS SQL, and PostgreSQL databases and a webserver. Almost any web browser should be able to function as a client. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). For years, Curbstone has used Mantis Open Source software to run our Online Issue Tracker for our customers, as a customer Implementation tracker, and to manage internal software development. Thanks to the efforts of Zend (the PHP company, Jim Dillard, Ed Kietlinski...), Victor Boctor from Mantis, Alan Seiden, IBM's Jon Rush, and Ira Chandler from Curbstone. All of the data is stored in DB2 files that are easily accessible from RPG or COBOL. Read a great article on Mantis/400 by Alex Woodie at IT Jungle. FEATURES - First open source PHP app to be ported to use native DB2/400 on the System i - The app, language layer, database, web server, and support are all FREE:         *Mantis Help Desk open source FREE PHP application         *PHP language for the System i as FREE "Zend Core"         *FREE Apache web server, included with Zend Core         *Standard System i DB2 database (included with OS/400) System i Specifics - Supported on i5/OS V5R3 and V5R4 - No AS/400 sessions or User profiles are involved in user access - Native database is easily accessible from RPG, COBOL, Query, SQL, etc... - Full support for IBM's SOA initiative with SOAP Web Services in MantisConnect - Support for PDAs and cell phones with optional MantisWAP - Individual Projects, Issues, Notes, and News can be made Public OR Private Mantis Standard Features - Internal and external browser access to create, manage, and track Support Issues - Works with any web browser, any operating system - Provides e-mail notification to all as Issues go through their life cycle - Self-service user password reset - Customizable Issue workflow - Track issue through its (customizable) life cycle with full reporting and graphs - Export to csv, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word - Powerful, extensive Search and Filtering functions - Can track software Design Change Requests - Easily modified with customer fields Community Features - Personal installation support is provided for FREE by Curbstone Corporation - Curbstone is maintaining a live demo of the software on a System i Model 520 - Curbstone will be publishing FREE "flavors," cosmetically changed versions:         *"Issue Tracker" for user issue reporting and management         *"Design Change Request" tracker to manage software change requests         *"Implementation Tracker" to manage individual customer records           (all three within 45 days after release of generic version) Detailed MantisBT.org official feature list... FLAVORS Here at Curbstone, a commerical AS/400 software vendor for five years, we use Mantis for three different things. Here are some idea of how Mantis can be customized for your needs: 1. Customer Issue Tracker - Each customer receives a login and password and can submit support requests into this publicly-accessible Mantis. This results in one issue per Mantis record. Customers can use the "Upload Attachment" function to post documents related to the issue. We often use the attachments to provide software PTFs and configuration files to the customer. That function is more reliable than e-mail for large files. Each issue is tracked through its life cycle, New -> Assigned -> Accepted -> In process -> Converted to DCR -> Resolved - > Closed. If the issue requires a change to our software, we use another version of Mantis, our DCR system. 2. Design Change Requests (DCRs) - This is just another flavor of Mantis, used internally, where we create one Mantis record for each software bug fix or enhancement. Since the reported issue are usually not required to have a software change, we have two seperate databases. In the Issue Tracker we use a status of "Converted to DCR" to show that the issue required a software change. The software is tracked through its life cycle: Assess -> Design -> h-o-l-d -> Assigned -> Production -> Test -> Closed. This is also used to generate the internal change log. 3. Implementations (IMPs) - This database is used internally to track each customer's implementation. One record is created per customer and remains forever. We add notes to the record as the customer makes any changes to the way they use our software, or licensing changes. We also have one dedicated record where we make a date/time stamped note for each software shipment, so we know who got what version when. SCREEN SHOTS To see the general screens of these flavors, click here.