IBM Rational ClearCase and IBM Rational ClearQuest evaluation guide

Page 3 of 8  Document options PDF - Fits A4 and Letter 896 KB (31 pages) Get Adobe® Reader® My developerWorks needs you! Connect to your technical community Rate this tutorial Help us improve this content

Find and assign high-priority defect reports

GC's remote development sites are smaller then the rest of the organization, so you'll be doing some tasks that are more typical for a project lead. Our projects are organized by the project lead back in the States and broken down into multiple components. You'll start with these tasks.

• Logging on to the ClearCase Remote Client and running a query
• Examining charts to gauge the team's workload
• Modifying a record and assigning a new owner for a defect report

Log on and run a query

1. Select the ClearCase menu and then click Connect.
2. Enter the user name and password: alex, alex
3. If the server URL is not listed, enter this: http://localhost:12080/TeamWeb/Services/Team

On the left, there is a menu named the ClearCase Navigator (Figure 2). Data is broken into two sections: one named My Views and one named for the connection.

4. Click the plus sign to expand the connection group, and you will see a heading for ClearCase and one for ClearQuest.
5. Click the plus sign for ClearQuest to expand the schema repository connections available Under ClearQuest there will be a database icon labeled 7.1. This represents your schema connection. A Rational ClearQuest schema is a complete description of the process model for one type of change request. It includes a description of the states and actions of the model, the structure of the data, hook code, forms, reports, and queries.
6. Click the plus sign next to 7.1. Under 7.1 you will find another database icon labeled CLSIC. This icon represents the Rational ClearQuest database, which is where the actual records, queries, and more are stored.
7. Click the plus sign next to CLISIC.
8. In the navigation pane, expand Public Queries > Classics PointOfSale Project > Submitted High Severity Defects.

Performing bug triage has never been easier. By running saved queries, the project lead can quickly identify which change requests or defects need immediate attention. And by looking at distribution charts, you can identify the workloads of your teammates and assign the defects to those who have the time available to resolve them.

View a chart of defects by owner

1. From the left-hand menu, select Submitted High Severity Defects. These are the defects that have been submitted but not yet opened by Engineering.
2. In the ClearCase Details pane (Figure 4), you see that the defect report for "Fix spelling error in Readme.html" has yet to be assigned, because it is still in the Submitted state.

3. Next, run the query Distribution Charts > Defects by Priority > Owner, which brings up a chart of the defects assigned to each engineer. You can use this information to decide to whom this defect can be assigned.
4. Select Public Queries > ClassicsPointOfSaleProject > Distribution Charts > Defects by Priority > Owner.

On the chart shown in Figure 5, you see that team member Alex only has a few activities that are in the Opened or Assigned state, so you can assign this defect to Alex.

Modify a record to assign a new owner

Now that you've found a high-priority defect, you can modify the record and set the appropriate fields on the change request form. All of the fields on a Rational ClearQuest form are completely customizable.

You will use the Assign action to enter Alex as the Owner and then set the Priority field and enter a note saying to further explain the change request. After you have recorded all of this information, you will save the changes to update the record:

1. In ClearCase Navigator pane, double-click Submitted High Severity Defects again.
2. Right-click on the CLSIC00000058 record, and select Show ClearQuest Record.
3. In the top-right pane, click the Change button and select Assign.
4. Under Priority, select 1 - Resolve immediately.
5. Under Owner, select alex.

Figure 6. Modify (record) dialog box, Main tab

6. Click the Notes tab.
7. Under New Note, type meaningful descriptive text for the new owner.
8. Click in the Notes Log area to see your note added to this field.

ClearQuest hooks can fire when an action is performed. One very important hook is the e-mail notification hook. In this example, after the Modify action is complete, the notification hook could run any e-mail rules associated with the change request. For example, you may want the e-mail rules set to watch for changes made to the Owner field and, when the value changes, to automatically generate and send e-mail to the new owner about the change.

9. Click the Audit Trail tab.
10. Verify that all of the the audit information is captured in this record.
11. Click Commit to save your changes.

To comply with regulatory requirements, ClearQuest keeps a record of every action performed on a defect report. The audit trail tab automatically keeps this information as long as the defect exists.

In summary, in this section you have seen several ways that you can use Rational ClearQuest:

• Assess the project status and progress through standard and customized queries and charts
• Effectively allocate change requests to engineering resources
• Use customizable solutions or "hooks" to assign changes requests and automatically communicate project status to the team

As a developer, identifying and managing the work that you are expected to do and informing others of the work that you have done can be one of the biggest challenges in team-based development. With strong organization and communication channels, the development team can stay in sync and react quickly to new information.

	Page 3 of 8