Creating a baseline staging stream from a stream hierarchy

Teams might create a baseline staging stream from a stream hierarchy if they are part of a larger team that is working on an upcoming milestone, and each team creates baselines in their applications at different times.

Before you begin

You must have the Baseline Maker or Configuration Lead role to create baseline staging streams and manage their contributions.
Note: To control who can replace contributions or add, remove, and move contributions in baseline staging streams, administrators can set finer-grained permissions. For details, see "Baseline Maker" in Role-based permissions for Global Configuration Management.
In the global configuration tree view, the root refers to the global configuration at the top of the tree. The root might be a member of another global configuration, so root does not necessarily mean the top-most global configuration.

About this task

Recall that a stream is modifiable, while a baseline is frozen.

Create a baseline staging stream to prepare a stream hierarchy to become a baseline. As each team produces the baseline for their components at different points, you can replace streams with baselines as the baselines become available, in preparation for committing the baseline.

If you want to capture a baseline at a specific time, and you have permission to create baselines in the contributing applications, see Creating a baseline to save a milestone, to create a baseline in one step. If you attempt to create a baseline in one step, but cannot, a baseline staging stream is created automatically for you to finish creating your baseline.

In the following steps, first create or use a baseline staging stream, which is a copy of a stream that you want to preserve. Next, replace the streams from contributing applications with baselines created by the application team leads, as the baselines become available. Last, commit the changes, which freezes all of the configurations that are a part of the baseline staging stream, and then becomes the baseline.

Before you commit the baseline staging stream, you must replace all streams from contributing applications with baselines. After you commit the baseline staging stream, you can no longer change it.

In the Global Configuration Management application, you can create a baseline of a stream contributed by another IBM® Engineering Lifecycle Management application (Requirements Management, Engineering Test Management, Architecture Management, and IBM Engineering Workflow Management source control management applications), if you have permission to create baselines in that application. This automation removes the need to replace streams with baselines manually in the different Engineering Lifecycle Management applications. If you do not have permission to create baselines automatically in the Engineering Lifecycle Management applications or your team follows a process that does not allow automatic baseline creation, then you can create a baseline in a baseline staging stream.

Procedure

Create a baseline staging stream to prepare a stream hierarchy to become a baseline. Right-click a stream in the tree view and select Stage Baseline.

Use the baseline staging stream as a staging area in preparation for a milestone. The baseline staging stream is a copy of the stream hierarchy and serves as your staging area where you can replace all streams with baselines from contributing applications.

If your team must begin work for the next milestone, they can work in the original stream while you work in the copy, the baseline staging stream.

Communication with team leads or other configuration leads in the contributing applications is important to help you understand when you can replace streams from contributing applications with baselines in your global configuration.
Enter a name suffix that describes the reason why you are capturing the milestone. The name suffix is used to form new baseline names by appending it to global configuration stream names. Use a logical description, for example, milestone 1 or weekly build.
Add or remove tags, as needed. (Tags is displayed only if you are in the Stage Baselines dialog box.)

After the baseline staging stream is created, you can modify tag and attribute values, add or remove tag and attribute values, and add or remove links. Learn about adopting changes made to attribute and link labels or values after they were added to a global configuration in Tags, attribute values, and links.
Notify the team leads from contributing applications that the baseline staging stream is available. Then, for each stream from contributing applications, ask team leads to tell you after they created baselines in their application.
After the contributing application team leads declare that a baseline is frozen in their application, right-click the stream or baseline, and select Replace. Ensure that you replaced each stream in the baseline staging stream with a baseline.

For details, see "Replace a configuration" in Managing configurations.
Commit the baseline. You can commit the entire baseline hierarchy or a part of it.

Enter a name suffix only if your baseline staging stream contains local configurations (streams). The default name suffix is the same as the one you entered in step 2. The name suffix is used to form new baseline names by appending it to stream names.

What to do next

If you committed the baseline successfully, your work is done for this task.

If you created the baseline to branch to create a variant product, see Creating a variant by branching.

If you attempted to commit the baseline, but received an error message, follow the directions in the message. You cannot commit a baseline if it contains modifiable streams. Return to step 3 and work through the steps, and then try committing the baseline again.