How to create and manage Enhancement Requests in the Rational RFE Community

IBM Rational Software announces that you can now create and manage your own requests for enhancement (RFEs).

RFEs are your way to tell the Rational team what features you would like to see within Rational products.

With the Rational RFE Community you can collaborate with Rational development teams and other product users through your ability to search, view, comment on, submit, and track RFEs.

---

Rational RFE Community now Preferred Method for Requests for Enhancements

---

RFE Community

Available Products

Benefits of RFE Community

Closed-loop RFE Process

IBM Web Identity

RFE Statuses

Submit RFE Community Enhancements

Send General Comments

---

RFE Community

The Rational RFE Community, hosted by IBM developerWorks is available using this URL:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/support/rational/rfe/


Available Products

This portal allows RFEs to be created for several Rational products, Please visit the site to see if your product is listed under Browse RFEs .

IMPORTANT: The list of products is updated periodically to include additional products, so it is advised that you refer to the drop-down menu (under Browse RFEs) for the most recent list of products that have been enabled in this tool.

You also can go to Search submitted RFEs in order to Search by attributes or Search by RFE IDs or RATLC numbers.

Benefits of RFE Community

Clients using these Rational Software products are encouraged to use the RFE Community Portal to take advantage of the following benefits:

• Avoids the need to open a support ticket (PMR) with Rational Client Support for a simple enhancement request*
  
  
• Avoids the need to call Rational Client Support to determine the status of a given RFE.
  
  
• Comment on and provide workarounds for RFEs created by other clients - as well as see comments provided by other clients.
  

*Note: The RFE Community portal is intended for enhancement requests only. That is, it is limited to those cases where it is clear that the product is working as designed, but additional functionality is desired. It is not intended as a substitute for troubleshooting product issues or creating / submitting defects.


Closed-loop RFE Process

All RFEs created on the portal have disposition within the standard IBM Rational RFE process. More information about that process and client expectations located here:



IBM Web Identity

To get started, set up an IBM Web identity and an RFE Community screen name. You will be prompted to create both before you can create a RFE.

When setting up an identity, you can choose what information in addition to your screen name will be visible to others on the portal. This decision might be driven by personal preference or your company's guidelines.


RFE Statuses

All RFEs on the portal have a range of statuses at a given time. These statuses are explained here:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/support/rational/rfe/execute?use_case=changeRequestDefs

If you have already created RFEs with IBM Rational Client Support and would like them to be visible to the RFE Community, contact Rational Client Support to have them made visible in the portal.


Submit RFE Community Enhancements

If you would like to suggest an enhancement or change to the portal itself, you may create an RFE through the portal and choose "RFE Community" as the product.


Send General Comments

Submit comments to ratlrfe@us.ibm.com