Considerations for reporting on data in configurations

When you report on data in configurations, the facts listed in this article provide additional information about the behavior of the Report Builder. Use this information to understand what you see on the screen.

Personal streams
If you create a personal stream in a Global Configuration Management project area, all project members can see your personal stream. Access to artifacts is determined by project membership. In a specific project area, all members can access the configurations, including personal streams.
Local configurations
Report Builder hides local configurations so that you cannot create cross-project or cross-component traceability reports, which wouldn’t show any results if you selected a local configuration. For example, when you run a report, you don’t see local IBM® DOORS® Next or Engineering Test Management configurations that are associated with a global configuration. Local configurations are listed only if they have baselines, but you can’t select them.
Project selections
The projects that you select when you create a report affect what projects users can select when they run the report.
Table 1. Project selections
Limit the scope setting when you build the report Limit the scope list when you run the report
No selected projects All available projects
Specific projects Only the projects that contain the artifact types that are in the report
For example, when you run a report that includes only requirements and test cases, you see only Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next and Engineering Test Management projects even if other projects were selected when the report was created. The Engineering Test Management and RM projects are already selected when you run the report.
List of configurations
When you run a report, the configurations listed when you click Choose a configuration are determined by the scope and component selections that you just made. The project scope that you chose when you created the report is already selected when you run the report.
Global configurations
The list of configurations includes all the Global Configuration Management project areas that you are a member of, regardless of what projects you select when you run the report. This way you can find all the global configurations that you need.
Finding the right configuration
When you run a report and you choose a configuration, you might see the same one listed several times, depending on which projects the configuration is associated with. Report Builder runs a query to find configurations. It returns multiple rows for each global configuration it finds: one for the global configuration project itself, and one for each project or component of each application that has a local configuration associated with that global configuration.
Streams
When you run a report, the configurations listed under Streams don’t have any associated component or project. You can run reports against these configurations.
Lifecycle Query Engine scoped by a configuration
If your data source is Lifecycle Query Engine scoped by a configuration, Report Builder remembers the last configuration that you used when you ran the report. This way, you can refine your report, and you can run the report without selecting the same configuration again. If you run a different report, and then return to your initial report, you have to choose a configuration.