Patent ID: 8548967

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for querying a data store of information regarding at least one software development effort, the method comprising: A) displaying to a user a graphical interface comprising at least one graphical element, each graphical element of the at least one graphical element being associated with at least one field of a record stored in the data store, the record being associated with the at least one software development effort, at least one first graphical element being associated with at least one software component related to the at least one software development effort and/or with at least one developer related to the at least one software development effort, and at least one second graphical element being associated with a workflow stage of a workflow related to the at least one software development effort; B) detecting a selection by the user of at least one selected graphical element, the selection indicating a desired search to be performed; C) assembling, from a set of one or more previously-identified query elements, a search query to be carried out, based at least in part on the user's selection of graphical elements; D) querying the data store of information regarding the at least one software development effort based on the search query; and E) presenting results of the querying to the user, whereby a user, without having knowledge of the fields of records stored in the data store, graphically defines a search of the data store regarding one or more issues related to the at least one software development effort, the records that can be searched comprising information regarding at least one attribute from a group of attributes consisting of one or more developers assigned to the issue, a target release for the issue, and a workflow stage of the issue.