Permissions for Requirements Management (RM) projects

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Permissions to complete operations in the Requirements Management (RM) application are assigned to individual roles on the Permissions page of the project area. You can assign permissions at the project level, or for more granular control, at a team level. Then, use the project area process sharing feature to standardize and reuse across projects. After you assign permissions, you can view or change the permissions in the Team Ownership Overview window.

Note: To know more about setting permissions for projects in which configuration management is enabled, see Setting permissions for configurations in lifecycle management products.
You can assign create, modify, and delete permissions that are based on artifact types, artifact attributes, link types, and on locations such as a folder, artifact, or module. As shown in the following table, two classes of permissions exist: project configuration and team configuration.
Table 1. Permission classes in the Requirements Management application
Permission class Description
Project configuration This class is for setting high-level project permissions. The permissions in this class enable these operations:
  • Setting project-level permissions
  • Modifying types
  • Creating templates
  • Creating baselines
  • Creating change sets
Team configuration This class is for setting permissions on a more granular level. You can use this permission class to set location-based permissions. The permissions in this class enable these operations:
Artifact operations
Create, delete, or modify artifacts by type.
Modify artifacts by attribute.
Folder operations
Create, delete, or modify folders.
Link operations
Create, delete, or modify links by type.
Team ownership operations
Modify team ownership.
Lock operations
Manually lock artifacts and override locks of other users.
View operations
Create, delete, or modify shared views.

Permissions on a project level

To set permissions on a project level, you define role actions at the project level. For a description of the project process roles for requirements management, see roles. For detailed instructions on how to set permissions, see modifying permissions.

Permissions on a team level for location-based granular control

To set permissions on a team level for more granular control, you must first create a team area. For a detailed example, see Workflow for setting location-based permissions.

When you create team areas, remember this information:
  • Team areas are created as children of the project.
  • Multiple team areas can be created in each project.
  • Team areas are hierarchical. Users who are members of the parent project or team area are effectively members of the child team areas. If users need to have permissions set in multiple team areas, you can add them to a parent team area.
    Graphic of team area hierarchy
    Tip: Because project-level permissions take precedence over team level permissions, in certain situations you might want to forgo adding users at the project level and add them to team areas only.
  • Team areas are optional. If you do not need to set permissions on a granular level, you can set security at the project level.

Workflow for setting location-based permissions

General workflow to create location-based permissions by using a team area is as follows:
  1. Create a team area.
  2. Add users to the team area.
  3. Assign process roles to the users in the team area.
  4. Modify the process roles for the roles in that team area.
  5. Assign team ownership based on location in the folder hierarchy or to specific artifacts or modules.

Permissions on a project level for process sharing

IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next (DOORS Next) supports process sharing between projects. You can share the following between projects:
  • User roles
  • Workflow
  • Permissions
To enable process sharing:
  1. Select the project for sharing the project's permissions, user roles, and workflow.
  2. On the Administration menu, click Manage This Project Area.
  3. On the Overview page, in Process Sharing, select Allow other project areas to use the process configuration from this project area.
See the tutorial on Creating a provider project area. You can use the process configuration of the modified project in new and updated projects. To know about details on how to use the standard process across other projects, see the tutorial on Creating a consumer project area. If you update existing projects, go to the Workflow page and the Roles page and clear the overrides.

For permissions specific to individual types, you can import types from projects by using the process configuration. To import project properties, on the Administration menu, click Import Project Properties.

Example - Giving a group of users exclusive permission to create a specific artifact type

Suppose that you have a Business Goals folder in your requirements project, and you want to give a group of users exclusive permission to create Business Goal artifacts in that folder. To do so, complete the following steps:
  1. Remove the permission to create business goals for everyone in the Administrator role.
  2. Enable that permission for a team area.
  3. Assign team ownership of the team area to the folder.
The following procedure provides more details about this example. It also describes how to see an overview of the team ownership of folders and artifacts in a project in the Team Ownership Overview window.
  1. Log in to the Administration page of Jazz® Team Server.
  2. In the Manage Application Artifacts section, click Manage Project Areas.
  3. Click an active project area.
  4. Click Permissions and then click Administrator role.
  5. Under Permissions For Administrator, expand Save Artifact. To Create Business Goal artifact, click the Revoke Permissions icon.
    Revoke Permissions icon
  6. Click Save. The permission to create a business goal is removed from all Administrators. However, that permission is enabled by default for the Author role.
  7. Click Overview.
  8. In the Team Area Hierarchy section, click the Create Team icon create team and create a team area named Business Group.
    team area hierarchy
  9. Add members to the Business Group team area, and assign the Author process role to each member, and click Save.
    members
  10. Assign team ownership of the Business Group team area to the Business Goals folder:
    1. Open the RM application, and click the Context menu icon context menu..
    2. Click Assign Team Ownership.
      ownership
      The Associate Project/Team Area window opens.
    3. Select the Business Group team area, and then click OK.
      Graphic of Associate Project Team Area
Now only the members of the Business Group team area have permission to create Business Goal artifacts in the Business Goal folder. You can assign team ownership to modules and to artifacts in a similar manner.
To see an overview of the team ownership of folders and artifacts in a project:
  1. From the Administration menu Administration icon, click Manage Project Properties.
  2. Click the Team Ownership Overview tab. The Team Ownership Overview window opens.
    ownership overview
You can change the ownership in this window by clicking the Set Ownership iconset ownership.

If you enabled configuration management for your project, see Creating global configuration process templates.