Application reportable REST APIs

Representational state transfer (REST) is an architecture that allows data to be accessed through a set of requests. The API (application programming interface), or web service, that is provided with each application uses HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) to make these requests. The web requests are in the form of HTTP URLs (uniform resource locator). Each IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management application datum has a specific URL associated with it, and depending on the syntax of the URL, that datum can be accessed and represented in variety of ways. Each application REST schema defines the types and specific points of data that can be requested and the syntax that must be used in order to access them in a particular way. For example, the Engineering Test Management REST API schema includes test plans, test cases, and so on as reportable points of data and includes a set of rules about how the request URL must be formed in order to determine exactly what and how the data should be accessed.

Because the application data can be accessed using HTTP web requests, any tool that can form and run these web requests can report on the data (assuming that it has privileged access to it). The IBM Engineering Lifecycle Optimization - Publishing document-style report authoring tools (Document Studio) can form and run these requests.

Each Engineering Lifecycle Management application has a unique reportable REST APIs. Requirements Management, Engineering Workflow Management , and Engineering Test Management, and the Jazz® Team Server each have a REST API that can be used to access the data that is created using the applications. Each application also has one or more associated data collection jobs, which use the HTTP web requests to access the data. For more information, see Engineering Lifecycle Management APIs.