Order transitions

Prerequisite: You must be familiar with the Syntax used in Tutorials and have already created an extension.

The iTop 3.1 brings new capabilities to order the Transitions or objects with lifecycle

Before 3.1 version, transitions on a given state were displayed by XML declaration order

Now, you can specify in the iTop configuration parameter lifecycle.transitions_sort_type, which ordering method you want amongst

lifecycle.transitions_sort_type	Meaning
xml	default value, same behavior as before iTop 3.1
alphabetical	transitions are displayed by alphabetical order of labels (this means that the order can be different depending on the user language)
fixed	the transitions will be ordered based on the order of the “transition arrival state” Order is always the same, regardless of the user language or the current object state
relative	the transitions will be ordered based on the order of the “transition arrival state”, from above the current state, then the current state and below - Order is always changing based on the object current state - The idea is that, the first transitions proposed are expected to be the most frequently used

When you set this parameter it automatically applies to all iTop objects having transitions
This was decided on purpose to simplify user experience

Fixed versus relative order

In order to use those logic, it's recommended to have defined rank on the states (states are values of an enum attribute).
From iTop 3.1, in the standard datamodel, all objects with lifecycle, have their states ranked.

Let's imagine a small example to show the difference between fixed and relative

We have a class with those states ranked: 1:New, 2:Distpatch, 3:Assign, 4:Resolve, 5:Close
We have the classical transitions between those 5 states, their name saying in which state they end.

lifecycle.transitions_sort_type:	relative	fixed
Current State	Transitions order:
New	Dispatch Assign Resolve Close	Dispatch Assign Resolve Close
Dispatch	Assign Resolve Close Re-dispatch Re-open	Re-open Re-dispatch Assign Resolve Close
Assign	Resolve Close Re-assign Re-dispatch Re-open	Re-open Re-dispatch Re-assign Resolve Close
Resolved	Close Re-assign Re-dispatch Re-open	Re-open Re-dispatch Re-assign Close
Closed