Before you enable configuration management capabilities for a project area, you should
understand how this affects it and its links to artifacts in other project areas. After you enable
these capabilities, you cannot disable them.
Read a guidance
article for links to videos, considerations, and other resources
to help you decide if using configuration management tools is right
for your team.
In version 6.0, only integrations with the following products support versioned artifacts:
IBM Rational® DOORS® Next
Generation,
IBM Rational Quality Manager,
IBM Rational Rhapsody® Design
Manager,
and IBM Rational Team Concert™. External
integrations to Rational Team Concert work items
continue to work as expected, because work items are not versioned.
After you understand the behaviors and limitations that are associated with enabling
configuration management, and you have an activation key, you can activate configuration management for the
Requirements Management (RM) or Quality Management (QM) applications. Then, you can enable the configuration management capabilities
in RM and QM project areas. There is no way to reverse the action after you enable a project
area. Back up existing repositories before you enable configuration management capabilities. If you
restore from a backup, you will lose any changes that were made in all project areas managed by that
server.
See the following sections for application or product-specific considerations.
All CLM applications
- If you require that some applications remain at a version earlier than 6.0, defer enabling
configuration management until they all can be upgraded.
Rational Team Concert
and Rational Rhapsody Design Manager do not require an activation key to support configuration-enabled projects, but must be at
version 6.0. If you use these products stand-alone (without linking to other applications), the
information on this page does not apply. If you plan to use either product in global configurations
with other products, the considerations in this topic do apply.
- For linked RM or QM project areas, if you cannot enable configuration management for all of
them, do not enable any of them. Projects that are enabled for configurations cannot be
associated with those that are not. For example, if your RM project links to a QM project, or even
to another RM project, you cannot enable one and not the other. Links between the projects become
uneditable, and links to any artifacts in the enabled project will only resolve to the default
configuration. This behavior does not apply if you link from RM or QM projects to either Rational Team Concert or
Rational Rhapsody Design Manager,
which do not require any enablement to support configuration management. You must make the decision
holistically for related project areas. Project areas that are not associated are not affected, and
do not have to be enabled.
Ensure that you have considered all project relationships, because
there could be cascading links (for example, RM Project A links to RM Project B, which links to QM
Project C).
- Back links are removed and links across project areas are managed by the Link Index
Provider. In projects that are not enabled for configurations, links across project areas are
managed by each application storing a copy of the link to the other's artifact, which is sometimes
referred to as back linking. When you enable configuration management, only one
application stores a link to the other's artifact, and that link goes only in one direction. Links
are managed by the Link Index Provider. If RM or QM artifacts have links to artifacts in other
applications, and then you enable configuration management, to see the links across project areas
you must set the current configuration to a
global configuration. For more information, see Links across project areas after enabling configuration management.
- Links to tools outside of CLM are inconsistent until those integrations are updated to be
compatible with configuration-enabled projects. This includes IBM tools, tools from other vendors, and custom OSLC integrations, such as those created by
using the SDK from the Eclipse Lyo project.
RM (Rational DOORS Next Generation)
The following considerations apply to configuration-enabled projects:
- You can migrate baselines from earlier versions of Rational DOORS Next Generation. In
version 6.0, if you start your project without configuration management enabled but enable it later,
you can use the baselines that you created.
- You
can create, display, and delete these link types from Rational Rhapsody Design Manager project
areas: Derives Architecture Element, Refined by Architecture Element, Traced by Architecture
Element, and Satisfied by Architecture Element.
- There are two ways to use change sets:
- Simple scenario, using automatic change sets:
Rational DOORS Next Generation
provides automatic change sets that are created by the system when a change to an artifact or link
is saved. You do not have to manually create and name a change set before making changes. You can
make changes to links across applications and to RM artifacts, because when you edit a link, you are
not in a change set. The system creates and delivers the change set in one atomic action. You can
deliver a potentially large set of these changes to another stream, but this is a complex operation
in version 6.0.
- Complex reuse scenario, using named change sets: You can create explicit, named change
sets to more easily group related changes and deliver changes across streams. For some
organizations, this practice is required as part of the development process. If you are editing
links to artifacts in other RM, QM, or Rational Rhapsody Design Manager
repositories, then you need to add your change set to a personal stream in the GCM application so
that links to artifacts in other applications can resolve. In version 6.0, adding a change set to a
personal stream is a manual operation.
Conflicting change sets will need to be resolved with
manual edits. This includes any two change sets that change a module structure (add, remove, or
reorder the artifacts in a module). The following actions minimize conflicts:
- Use many small change sets and deliver them quickly.
- Make changes in a separate stream, then deliver all changes at once to the original stream.
- Assign one person to make edits to each module.
For more information about change sets, see Managing changes to artifacts in RM configurations.
- In the current release, suspect links do not work as expected. Do the following to work around
this problem:
- For RM project areas, consider the last-modified date or compare to a prior baseline.
- For QM project areas, use links from modified requirements to determine which tests need to be
reviewed.
For more information, see Reporting in
the RM application and Running data warehouse reports.
- RQM requirements reconciliation with Rational DOORS Next Generation is not
supported.
- If you click a link stored elsewhere (for example, on a wiki page), this link does not specify
the configuration context. Rational DOORS Next Generation shows the
artifact at the other end of the link in the default configuration. If the default configuration
does not include that artifact, an error is shown indicating that the artifact was not found.
- You cannot add CLM links within a rich-text artifact because the resolution mechanism uses back
links, which are not used after you enable configuration management. If a project already has such
links when configuration is enabled, they won't work. To remove the links, use the Links side bar of
the artifact or the "remove link" option in the rich text editor.
- CLM lifecycle filters and queries, for example, "show test cases that have failed", are not
supported. Similarly, you cannot filter QM artifacts by their links to Development Items.
- Dashboard widgets show data from only from the initial stream only. You cannot select a specific
configuration.
- Rational DOORS Next Generation does not provide versioned data to the lifecycle index for reporting. For more information, see
Reporting in the RM application and Running data warehouse reports.
- You cannot create a link to a work item from a baseline. You can create
this link from a stream. To create a link between a work item and a baseline, create the link from
the Change and Configuration Management (CCM) application. For more information about link
management and link ownership, see Links across project areas after enabling configuration management.
- Links between Rational DOORS version
9 objects and objects in the RM or QM applications do not work as expected because Rational DOORS does not
support configurations. Instead of linking, use ReqIF to transfer requirements into specific streams
or link to work items, which are not versioned.
For more information about these behaviors, see the
Rational DOORS Next Generation release
notes on Jazz.net.
In project areas that are not enabled for configurations, you should understand the following
information about the default configuration:
- It is the stream that the "New project" wizard creates by default, and it is the only stream in
a project.
- If the project was migrated from a previous release, the current contents of the project are in
this stream.
- In this release, it is the only configuration where suspect links work properly.
- The data warehouse contains information only from the default configuration.
- The default configuration is used in all cases to resolve an incoming link that does not contain
configuration information, such as links from a QM project area that is not configuration-enabled,
or Hewlett-Packard Quality Center Synchronizer.
QM (Rational Quality Manager)
The following considerations apply to configuration-enabled projects:
DM (Rational Rhapsody Design Manager)
- Configurations created in Rational Rhapsody Design Manager are
available after you enable configuration management in RM or QM.
- If you are using explicit Rational Rhapsody Design Manager change
sets and you are editing links to artifacts in other Rational Rhapsody Design Manager, RM, and
QM repositories, then you need to add your change set to a personal stream in the GCM application so
that links to artifacts in other applications can resolve. In version 6.0, adding a change set to a
personal stream is a manual operation.
CCM (Rational Team Concert)
- To navigate links to versioned artifacts, you must use the web client, the Rational Team Concert™ client for Microsoft Visual Studio IDE, or the 6.0 (or greater) version of the Rational Team Concert client for Eclipse IDE.
- To create links to versioned artifacts, you must use the web client, the 6.0 (or greater)
version of the Rational Team Concert client for Eclipse IDE, or the 6.0 (or greater) version of the Rational Team Concert client for Microsoft Visual Studio IDE.
- In general, linking Rational Team Concert plans to versioned artifacts is not supported. It is possible to create a link from a versioned
artifact to a plan; however, when you navigate the link from within the plan, Rational Team Concert uses the default configuration for the target project area. The default configuration might not
be the same configuration from which the link to the plan was created.
- In a work item that has links to versioned artifacts, if you change the value of the release
(deliverable attribute type) field, the links are not updated until you save the work item.
- Links to versioned artifacts are not supported in the following views:
- History tab of the work item editor
- My Activities / My Subscriptions tab in the Quick Planner
- Dashboard viewlets that show change events
- Feeds (Rational Team Concert client for Eclipse IDE and Rational Team Concert client for Microsoft Visual Studio IDE)
- Links tab of a plan
- You can link work items to versioned artifacts only if the configurations that contain those
versioned artifacts belong to global configurations.
- To specify the mapping of OSLC link types to attributes, and to associate releases with global
configurations, you must use the web client.
- While working in Rational Quality Manager or
Rational DOORS Next Generation,
you cannot create a link from a baseline to a work item. The workaround is to create the link from
within the work item.
- In the Rational Team Concert client for Eclipse IDE, you can perform a bulk edit of work items to change the target link of
versioned artifacts. If the selected work items belong to different releases and have different
associated global configurations, Rational Team Concert uses the target artifact versions that belong to the global configuration associated with the
first work item in the selected collection.
- In the web client plan editor, you can perform a bulk edit of work items to change the target
link of versioned artifacts. If the selected work items belong to different releases and have
different associated global configurations, Rational Team Concert uses the target artifact versions that belong to the global configuration associated with the
work item from which the context menu was activated.
- The Rational solution for CLM includes
a set of predefined lifecycle work item queries, which retrieve work items based on their links to
artifacts in other applications, such as Requirements Management (RM) and Quality Management (QM).
See Using lifecycle queries for the complete list of these queries. For work items
that are linked to versioned RM and QM artifacts that do not belong to default configurations, the
lifecycle query results might not be accurate.
- Data warehouse reporting is not supported for links to versioned artifacts.
For more information about configuring your project so that you can link work items to specific
versions of artifacts in other applications such as QM and RM, see Enabling linking of work items to versioned artifacts.
GCM application
In the following points, a
GC provider is
the GCM application that your deployment uses.
Reporting
In version 6.0, the only supported reporting option for configuration-enabled projects is
document generation, which is provided by built-in, template-based reporting in the CLM application
or by the
IBM Rational Publishing Engine. All
other reporting options for configuration-enabled projects in this release are considered Technology
Preview features and are intended for non-production use.
- For RM and QM project areas, enabling configuration management stops all feeds to the CLM data
warehouse, and archives the existing project data in the warehouse. Rational Team Concert does populate the data warehouse, but that data does not include configuration-related
information.
- All configuration-specific data is stored in the lifecycle index and is accessed by using the
Lifecycle
Query Engine
(LQE) application. The Jazz Reporting Service
Report
Builder
and IBM Rational Engineering Lifecycle Manager can
report from the lifecycle index by using a LQE+Configurations data source. Reporting on
configuration data from the lifecycle index is a Technology Preview feature in 6.0.
- For configuration-enabled projects, the following items are not supported:
- Reporting on metrics or trending
- Reporting on RM configurations or on links between RM and RM, or RM and QM project areas that
are enabled for configurations. Only RM data from the initial, default stream is available to report
on.
For more information, see these pages:
