Linking to development plans

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You can improve overall collaboration by linking test plans to the various development plans used by the development team.

Before you begin

You must configure the integration between the test project and the development project before you can create the link to the development plan. See Running the setup wizard for details.
Limitations: If you do not enable configuration management, when you create a link to external artifacts in the Engineering Lifecycle Management application, a link is automatically created back to the source artifact, which is called a back link. However, the synchronization between bidirectional links and the traceability between source and target artifacts might be unavailable depending on certain transactional operations in the source or target application.
Learn more about bi-directional links:

When you can navigate from the target of a link back to the source of the link, this is known as bidirectional linking.

If the configuration management is enabled in the Quality Management project, the links are stored in the source artifact repository and back-links are discovered by the target artifact server making queries on the source artifact servers or LDX.

If configuration management is not enabled, the source and target applications store their links in separate databases, and the source application does not have access to the database in the target application. Certain transactional operations, such as when artifacts are copied or deleted, can occur on the source application server. In these cases, corresponding back links in artifacts in the target application are not automatically added or removed. Also, instances occur where back links are intentionally removed from the target application without removing the corresponding link from the source application. As a result, if bidirectional links are not in a state of synchronization, traceability between the source and target artifacts can appear different based on your starting viewpoint.

To add or remove target artifact links to or from the source artifact, you do not need permission to save the target artifacts.

Procedure

  1. Open a test plan or create a new one.
  2. Add the Development Plan Links section to the test plan if it is not already included.
    1. In the area above the table of contents, click Manage Sections.
    2. Select Show all sections to display all of the available sections.
    3. In the Available Sections list, select Development Plan Links and move the item to the Selected Sections list by clicking the Add (Add) icon.
    4. Click OK to close the Manage Sections window.
  3. Open the Development Plan Links section in a test plan.
  4. Click the Add new links icon (Add).
  5. Select a plan from the list or type some words from the test plan name and click OK.

    A link to the development plan is displayed under the Summary column.

  6. Point the cursor over one of the links.

    Information about the development plan is displayed in rich hover text.

  7. Click Show More to see additional information about the development plan.
  8. Close the rich hover text.
  9. Click the link itself to open the development plan in the Change Management application.
  10. After the development plan opens, you can review the work items in the plan and return to the test plan by clicking the link in the Links tab.