Publication agents

A publication agent is a software agent designed to publish updates to designs automatically It runs the publication as an automation, which allows synchronization of data from an authoring tool to a SECollab design.

Creating a Mantis agent

Required parameters:

• A name to assign the agent
• The URL to the Mantis REST API (example : https://mantis.acme.com/mantis/api/rest/)
• A Mantis API key

Note: The Mantis API key is only displayed at creation time, and can never be displayed again at a later time.

The user whose identity will be used to perform the publication of the Mantis design is determined by Establishing cross-server communication and associating a user to the consumer key created in SECollab. The consumer key as well as the password will be used for Mantis to authenticate against SECollab and request for an update to the design.

You will always need to test the agent's connection details before submitting an update to the agents configuration.

Creating a TestLink agent

Required parameters

• A name to assign the agent
• TestLink's web URL (example: https://testlink.acme.com/testlink) to open links inside the authoring tool
• TestLink's database URL (example with a MySql databse: jdbc:mysql://testlink-database-server:3306/testlink")
• The user allowed to connect to the database server
• The password for the above user to connect to the database server
• The SECollab user under whose identity all publication will be performed

Optional parameters

• The agent's refresh rate, which determines each TestLink project is checked for an update and eventually trigger a publication (defaults to 5 minutes)

You will always need to test the agent's connection details before submitting an update to the agents configuration.

Enabling/Disabling an agent

The activation column gives out the current state of the agent, and allows for enabling or disabling the agent.

Mantis agent

Enabling a Mantis agent is required to trigger a manual publication. However the automated publication isn't dependant upon this column. This is because the Mantis server is triggering the interaction. It is possible to disable Agent associations individually.

TestLink agent

• Enabling a Testlink agent is required to enable the automatic publication of a TestLink project into SECollab.
• Disabling the agent will prevent all future publication and cancel any planned synchronization.

Publication permissions

For a user to be allowed to trigger a manual publication through an agent, he needs to be a member of the project and be assigned the following permission: Publish or modify designs.

For an automatic publication, that same user also needs to be assigned the permission Trigger publishing event by agent. In such cases, the user attached to the agent (TestLink) or the consumer key (Mantis) is usually a service account.