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IBM Rational® Focal Point™ integrates with the Rational solution for Collaborative Lifecycle Management (CLM) through its support of the Open Services Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) change management and requirement management specifications.
The product manager (PM) captures and describes high-level stakeholders' requests (business requirements and needs) in Rational Focal Point and determines prioritization of these requests by using the Rational Focal Point Prioritization feature. Then the PM selects business requirements or needs that need to be analyzed further by a business analyst and creates new requirements in IBM® Rational® Requirements Composer, which elaborates on them further. The requirements are then added to IBM® Rational Team Concert™ collaborative change and project management software.
The reporting capability implemented in this release is very useful for PMs. They can use it at any point to generate traceability reports to find out the current status of a Rational Focal Point requirement or business need in relationship to requirements in Rational Requirements Composer (used for elaboration of requirements), as well as to the related work item in Rational Team Concert (implementation phase), and to test cases and execution records with related defects in IBM® Rational® Quality Manager (testing phase).
Configure Rational Focal Point and CLM application links
The first step is to register Rational Focal Point as an incoming consumer in the CLM application server. In the CLM applications, the consumer key is generated for each application (Rational Requirements Composer, Rational Team Concert, Rational Quality Manager. It identifies Focal Point to the CLM application server.
Register the OAuth consumer in the CLM server
- Log in to the CLM sever with administrator credentials.
- Go to CLM application server configuration page (for example, for the requirements management application for CLM. For Rational Requirements Composer, go to https://example.com:9443/jts/admin, and click Jazz Team Server - Server Administration.
- In the navigation bar, click Consumers (Inbound).
- Provide the Consumer Name and Consumer Secret (password), and click Register.
- The software will generate a consumer key. Make a note of the consumer secret and consumer key, because you need them to add the application server as a friend in Rational Focal Point.
Figure 1. Register consumers (inbound) in Rational Requirements Composer
Register a friend (outbound) in the CLM server
- This is required for viewing rich hover data in the CLM server.
- In the navigation bar, click Friend (Outbound), and then click Add.
- Register the consumer by providing values for Name, Root Services URI (for example, http://example.com:8080/fp/resources/rootservices), and OAuth Secret, and then click Create Friend.
- The software will generate a consumer key and add an entry in Focal Point under Application > Consumer (Inbound).
Figure 2. Register friend (outbound) in Rational Requirements Composer
Configure the CLM server as a friend
Using OAuth-based authentication, configure the CLM server as a friend in Rational Focal Point:
- Select Application > Friends (Outbound), and click Add Friend.
- Provide:
- A connection name
- CLM Root Services URI (for Rational Requirements Composer, for example: http://example.com:9443/jts/rootservices)
- OAuth consumer key and secret that you got from CLM, as in the previous section.
- Use the Test Connection button to validate CLM server credentials.
- Save the connection.
Note:
You can configure more than one CLM server as a friend.
Figure 3. Add Rational Requirements Composer as a friend
- Select Configure > Attributes > CALM link.
- In Allowed service providers, click the friend's server name (for example, FP-RRC, for Focal Point-Rational Requirements Composer) to get list of CLM projects, and select the project where you want to publish business needs.
Note:
Selected CLM projects will be shown as choices while you are creating requirements. - Select the Include Description check box. This enables populating of the business needs description in the Publish dialog with the CLM application.
- Select the Log Changes check box to enable history logging. This is required for enabling the View command for restoring links.
Figure 4. Configure the CALM link
These tasks are prerequisites for publishing business needs to CLM:
- A view, My Projects, is defined for the module.
- The CALM link is configured.
- The List Link attribute is configured and contains the list of business needs to publish. .
- The Preview view is selected (selected Configure > Module).
After these prerequisites are met, you are ready to Publish business needs to CLM server. You can do this in either of two ways:
- Publish a single business need from Rational Focal Point to the CLM server.
- Bulk publish multiple business needs together to the CLM server by using the Publish elements to the CLM server button in the toolbar.
The next sections describe both methods.
Publish a single business need from Rational Focal Point to CLM
- Load the My Projects view.
- Go to CALM link and edit it.
- Select a CLM project where you want to publish business needs and click Create button. This opens up a Artifact Creation dialog window.
- Provide the Artifact Name, Type, and Format, and click Finish.
- Save the CALM link attribute.
- The artifact will be created under the selected project with a link from Rational Focal Point to the CLM application (Rational Requirements Composer in this example)
Figure 5. Select artifact properties to publish a single element to a CLM application
Bulk publish business needs to a CLM server
Follow this procedure to publish multiple business needs.
Configure the view command for bulk publishing
- Select Configure > View Commands.
- On the Add, edit or remove view commands page, select the view.
- Select Publish elements to the CLM server for the appropriate CALM link and List link, and click the Create button.
- Similarly, create View commands for Remove links from the published elements on the CLM server and Restore the links that were last removed from the published elements on the CLM server.
Figure 6. Add a view command
Publish multiple business needs to a CLM server
- Load the My Projects view.
- Click the Publish elements to the CLM server toolbar button.
- On the Select elements to publish page, choose the respective CALM link, CLM Server, and CLM Project options.
- From Available elements, select the business needs to publish, and click the Add >> button to move them to the Elements to publish pane.
- Click Next.
Figure 7. Select the elements to publish in bulk
- From the Artifact Creation pop-up dialog window (Figure 8), provide an appropriate Name, Artifact Type, Artifact Format, and Description, , and click Finish.
Figure 8. Select artifact properties for bulk publishing to Rational Requirements Composer
- The Bulk Publishing Result pop-up window (Figure 9) shows details of all Focal Point business needs published to CLM server.
Figure 9. Bulk Publish Result window
Remove or restore links for business needs already published to the CLM server
- Load the My Projects view.
- Click the Remove links from the published elements on the CLM server toolbar button.
- On the Select elements to remove link from pop-up window (Figure 10), choose the appropriate CALM Link and CLM Server.
- From Available elements, select the business needs links that need to be removed, and click the Add >> button to move them to Elements to update links on the CLM server pane.
- Click Next.
The links for selected business needs will be removed.
Tip:
You can restore links for already-published business needs from CLM server in the same manner.
Figure 10. Remove the link to elements from CLM
Check rich hover views from Rational Focal Point
When you hover your cursor over a published business need in Focal Point, the software loads the respective requirement from the CLM server through a rich hover pop-up window.
Figure 11. Rich hover view in Rational Focal Point
Rich hover view from a CLM server
Similarly, you can get rich hover data when you hover your cursor over a requirement link in a CLM server.
Figure 12. Rich hover view from a Rational Requirements Composer requirement link
Generate a traceability report
Rational Focal Point provides three predefined templates for traceability report, which can be run for the IT Portfolio Management Workspace only. An IBM® Rational® Publishing Engine license is required to configure these templates according to the current integration with CLM applications, but it is not required to run the reports from Rational Focal Point. At any time, PMs can generate a traceability report to find out the current status of a Rational Focal Point requirement or business need related to a requirement in Rational Requirements Composer (requirement elaboration), to related project status in Rational Team Concert (implementation), and for test cases and execution records with related defects in Rational Quality Manager (testing).
The following predefined report templates are bundled with Rational Focal Point (location: Rational Focal Point installation directory\reporttemplates\):
- Statement of Compliance
- Statement of Verification
- Release Readiness Report
To generate a traceability report:
- Open the reports in Rational Publishing Engine, and update your credentials for the CLM server.
- Upload the reports into Rational Focal Point from General > Report Templates > Add Templates.
- Now click Reports > Generate Report.
- Click Add Report Type.
- In the Select report target window, select the report target, Rational Publishing Engine, and click Next.
- In Add report type:
- Browse to the traceability report template location, and provide details such as title, description, and report formats for the report.
- Select the My Projects view available for mapping, and click Next.
- In Report, click Select view.
- From the displayed views, select a view (My Projects) for the data source that displays elements with links to other elements in Rational Focal Point.
- Leave the settings for the other data sources intact, and click Next.
- In Edit Report Access, select All Members, and click Finish.
- Download the generated report.
- Review your generated report.
Figure 13. Sample traceability report
Learn
- Find out more about Rational Focal Point:
- Browse the Rational Focal Point overview page, as well as the developerWorks page, where you'll find data sheets, system requirements, specific benefits, and related articles and white papers. Watch the five-minute demo on the IBM Rational Focal Point overview page to know about it more. Visit Rational Focal Point 6.5 Information Center for the user guide and links to other useful resources.
- Watch these Focal Point demos:
- A 7-minute demo, Project portfolio management using IBM Rational Focal Point, about methods for analyzing and collectively managing a group of current or proposed projects based on numerous key characteristics, including each project's total expected cost, required resources, expected timeline, benefits, and relationship or interdependencies with other projects.
- A 5-minute demo called Developing the right products for the right markets, at the right time to see how Focal Point helps promote successful products by helping your product teams and stakeholders focus on what is most important to your customers and to your business.
- Get more information on the Rational solution to Collaborative Lifecycle Management.
- Visit the Rational software area on developerWorks for technical resources and best practices for other Rational Software Delivery Platform products.
- Stay current with developerWorks technical events and webcasts focused on a variety of IBM products and IT industry topics.
- Attend a free developerWorks Live! briefing to get up-to-speed quickly on IBM products and tools, as well as IT industry trends.
- Watch developerWorks on-demand demos, ranging from product installation and setup demos for beginners to advanced functionality for experienced developers.
- Improve your skills. Check the Rational training and certification catalog, which includes many types of courses on a wide range of topics. You can take some of them anywhere, any time, and many of the "Getting Started" ones are free.
Get products and technologies
- Download a free trial version of Rational software.
- Evaluate other IBM software in the way that suits you best: Download it for a trial, try it online, use it in a cloud environment, or spend a few hours in the SOA Sandbox learning how to implement service-oriented architecture efficiently.
Discuss
- Join the Rational Focal Point forum to ask questions and participate in discussions.
- Rate and write a review of Rational Focal Point. It's quick and easy. Really.
- Share your knowledge and help others who use Rational software by writing a developerWorks article. Find out what makes a good developerWorks article and how to proceed.
- Follow Rational software on Facebook, Twitter (@ibmrational), and YouTube, and add your comments and requests.
- Ask and answer questions and increase your expertise when you get involved in the Rational forums, cafés, and wikis.
- Get social about thought leadership. Join the Rational community to share your Rational software expertise and get connected with your peers.
Vipin Agrawal works in quality assurance for the Rational Focal Point Functional Verification Test team. He has been with IBM Rational software for five years. He has worked in the portfolio management domain for Rational Portfolio Manager, Rational Project Conductor, and Rational Team Concert. Vipan has also helped clients at their sites with getting started with Rational software, and he submitted articles to the Agile 2010 Whole Team Interlock and Rational Software Conference 2010 and has visited client site for customer enablement. His hobbies are badminton and music.
