Limiting Global Configuration Management contributions by enforcing project area associations

To limit which project areas team members see when they add local or global configurations to global streams or set their configuration context in applications such as the IBM® DOORS® Next or Engineering Test Management applications, you can configure the Global Configuration Management application to enforce project area associations.

Before you begin

  • The Global Configuration Management application must have a friend relationship with each application that contains project areas that teams need to access. By default, all applications that are registered to the same Jazz® Team Server are automatically friends, and Global Configuration Management shows the configuration-enabled project areas of its friends.
  • Applications that provide configurations must be at the same version as the Global Configuration Management application.

    If other applications that contribute configurations to Global Configuration Management hierarchies are at earlier versions than the Global Configuration Management application, the configuration pickers in those applications do not filter the list of project areas that team members see. However, the Global Configuration Management application still enforces project area associations, so team members might select a local configuration that is not valid for the Global Configuration Management associations.

About this task

By default, project area associations are not enforced and all accessible configuration-enabled project areas of friend servers are shown. When team members set their configuration context or add configurations to global streams (if they have permission), they can choose configurations from any project area that they belong to.

Consider a scenario where Team1 is working in a Global Configuration Management project area for a car. Separate components represent items in the car, such as cruise control, engine, and infotainment system.

Team2 is working in a separate Global Configuration Management project area for a truck, and Team3 is working in a separate Global Configuration Management project area for a hybrid-powered car.

In this example, the following applications are registered to a Jazz Team Server, and each application has several project areas:
Shows a sample JTS configuration that contains 6 Engineering Lifecycle Management project areas from different applications

For each IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management application, the configuration leads confirm which project areas contain configurations that their teams need.

Not all the project areas are relevant to each other. For example, the team that works on the hybrid-powered car doesn't need configurations from the truck. To limit the options that team members have when they build configuration hierarchies, in each Global Configuration Management project area (Global Configuration Management-Car, Global Configuration Management-Truck, and Global Configuration Management-Hybrid), you can define the following project area associations (Uses - Configurations) to each project area that contributes or might contribute configurations.
Shows a Global Configuration Management instance that has 3 project areas
Note: When you add the Uses - Configurations association from a Global Configuration Management project area to another project area, the corresponding Provides - Configurations is added automatically in the other project area.
After you set up the project area associations and configure the Global Configuration Management instance to enforce the associations, these changes occur:
  • The Add Configurations dialog box in Global Configuration Management shows only the project areas that have a Provides - Configurations association to the project area of the selected configuration.
  • The Select the Configuration Context dialog box for setting a global configuration context in other applications (such as the Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next and Engineering Test Management applications) shows Global Configuration Management project areas where there is a direct or indirect (transitive) Uses - Configurations association to the current project area.

Procedure

  1. Go to the Global Configuration Management application's Administration page at https://hostname:port/gc/admin, and click Project Areas > Active Project Areas on the banner.
  2. For each project area in the list, determine the project area associations that you must create based on present and anticipated contributions.
    1. To identify the project area associations based on the present contributions between project areas, run the SPARQL query that is provided on the Global Configuration Management - Project Area Associations wiki.
    2. Ask configuration leads which project areas might contribute configurations to the current project area in the future.
  3. For each project area in the list, add the project area associations based on your findings from step 2.
    Note: You must complete this step before you complete step 5. Otherwise, team members cannot see the configurations that they need in configuration pickers, and in the Select the Configuration Context dialog box when they set the configuration context.
    1. Click a project area name.
    2. In the Associations section, click Add.
    3. In the Add Association dialog box, select the application that contains the project areas to access.
    4. On the Association menu, click Uses - Configurations.
      A corresponding Provides - Configurations association is added in the other project area.
    5. Select a project area and click OK.
    6. Repeat steps 3.b to 3.e to add more project areas.
    7. Click Save.
  4. Open the Global Configuration Management application's Advanced Properties page. On the banner, click Application, and then click Advanced Properties.
  5. Set the Project area associations are required for contributions property to true, and then click Save.
  6. Stop and restart the Global Configuration Management application.
  7. Stop and restart each application that you added in step 3.c.

    You must restart this Global Configuration Management and all Jazz applications that use it when you change the Project area associations are required for contributions property as described in step 5. You must not restart an application when you add or remove only project area association from the list.

    Note: If you install other applications that contribute to global configurations and the Project area associations are required for contributions property is not set to its default value (false), you must restart those new applications after you register them.

Results

  • The Add Configurations dialog box in Global Configuration Management shows only the project areas that have a Provides - Configurations association to the project area of the selected configuration.
  • The Select the Configuration Context dialog box for setting a global configuration context in applications such as the Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next and Engineering Test Management applications shows Global Configuration Management project areas where there is a direct or indirect (transitive) Uses - Configurations association to the current project area.
  • The Global Configuration Management server enforces the constraint that the selected configuration's project area has a Uses - Configurations association with the contribution's project area.
  • Team members can see the project area associations on the All Projects page. On the banner, click Home menu, and in the Global Configuration Management section, click All Projects.
  • Administrators can see the associations on the Overview tab of the project area editor. On the banner, click Administration Shows the Administration icon > Manage Project Areas > project_area, and on the Overview tab, scroll to the Associations section.