Pipeline fundamentals

Japanese version

A pipeline is used to structure work done on complex tasks that may have dependencies. It is made up of pipeline tasks, each of which represents a step in the pipeline. Tasks are then connected, to represent the dependencies that exist, enabling a wide variety of possible pipelines that can have both sequential and parallel chains.

The following image shows a pipeline with sequential and parallel work.

Pipelines can be set up with default behaviors for assignment, work estimates, and restrictions for if and how tasks can be broken down into further subtasks.

When a pipeline is applied to a task in the project schedule, subtasks will automatically be generated. Any tasks that can be worked on will be indicated, and appear in the To Do List of the users who the pipeline tasks have been assigned to. Beyond this point, pipeline tasks behave much like regular tasks, with a few restrictions such as the inability to set priority as everything in the pipeline will have the same priority. Completing a pipeline task will progress the pipeline, activating dependent tasks.

Building a pipeline

Pipelines are built by inserting pipeline tasks, and connecting them to illustrate the flow of work through the pipeline. In addition to adding pipeline tasks, references to other pipelines can also be inserted.

Pipeline tasks

See Pipeline task settings.

Pipeline references

In a pipeline you can make a reference to another pipeline. This is very useful when building more complex pipeline structures.

In the screenshot above pipeline "Level" is a reference in pipeline "Cutscene". This is reflected when selecting pipeline "Cutscene" in the Planning section:

Pipeline "Level" can also be used as a standalone pipeline (board view):

A powerful visualization of and a way of working with pipelines is through the board view. If you go back to the "Pipelines and workflows" window you go can go to the board view directly:

Exporting and importing pipelines

Under the More menu you can export and import your pipelines as XML. This is useful when transferring pipelines between projects or databases.

Pipeline settings

In the More menu, under Pipeline settings, you can decide on settings affecting the whole pipeline (but not pipeline references).

Here you can decide if the pipeline must be completed in sequential order or not.

If a pipeline must be completed in sequential order team members will not be able to change item status before it can start.