What is a dependent attribute?

The ability for some attributes to control the behavior of other attributes is known as attribute dependency. An attribute dependency rule defines the effect that a source attribute value has on one or more target attribute values.

You can configure artifacts in Project Tracker so that when a user specifies a value for an attribute or has a particular role, other attributes are affected. For example, in a project that contains a Defect artifact type, you may want users to always enter a value for the Priority attribute when entering a new defect. Also, if the user selects the Component attribute, you may want the Subcomponent, Version, and Target Milestone attributes to be filtered so that the user can only choose options that are relevant to that component.

Attribute dependency rules may be of two types:

• Rules that perform an action
• Rules that use an attribute option filter

For example, suppose that you define a Defect artifact type with the following attributes:

Attribute name	Possible values
Status	New, Open, Code Change, Verified
Resolution	None, Fixed, Duplicate, Closed, Reopened

You can define a rule for these attributes as follows:

If	Then
Status=New	Resolution=None, Duplicate or Closed
Status=Open	Resolution=None, Duplicate or Closed
Status=Code Change	Resolution=Fixed
Status=Verified	Resolution=Closed or Reopened

You can define an attribute dependency rule that references specific users at the project level. Rules that reference specific users cannot be created at the global (administrative) level.