Technical overview of Engineering Insights

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IBM Engineering Lifecycle Optimization Engineering Insights unlocks engineering data from IBM and other lifecycle management applications. It shows data associations in views and impact analysis diagrams to help you improve your business processes and accelerate product delivery.
Note: If you are not familiar with Engineering Insights, see Engineering Insights terminology and concepts.

Linked data from lifecycle management applications

Lifecycle Query Engine indexes data from your lifecycle management applications that support the Tracked Resource Set (TRS) specification.

When you search for artifacts, you use the linked data in the Lifecycle Query Engine index. The data, such as work items with child work items reside in specific applications. The work items are linked to or from other artifacts that reside in other applications. For example, a task or a story includes several links to requirements, work items, design models, and test cases. The links to artifacts come from linked lifecycle data. Linking is possible by using the Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) standard that enables lifecycle data integrations. The following image shows artifacts from different lifecycle applications that are linked by OSLC and are retrievable by the Lifecycle Query Engine.
The image shows how artifacts from different lifecycle applications are linked together using OSLC and retrieved using the index.
Note: Starting from 7.0 release, the Design Management (DM) application is no longer part of the IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management solution. If you use a previous version, use custom artifact elements to show DM artifacts in Engineering Insights views.
Note: Starting from the Engineering Insights 7.0.3 release, the Design Management (DM) artifacts are removed from the custom artifact elements and predefined views. Also, all the CAEs from the DM directory are deleted.
The link definitions that are pointing to CAEs from the DM directory are deleted. Hence, the following CAEs are updated:
  • Asset
  • DOORS Requirement
  • Change Request
  • Defect
  • Enhancement
  • Story
  • Task
  • Task - Completed
  • Task - Not Completed
  • Use Case
  • Test Case
  • Test Plan
  • Requirement
  • Requirement Collection
The following views that have only CAE containers from the DM directory are no longer available:
  • Model Coverage for Requirements
  • Model Diagram Explorer
  • Model Element Allocation
  • Model Element Dependency
  • Model Element Explorer
  • Modeling Project Explorer
  • Modeling Projects and Levels of Packages
The following views that have some CAE containers from the DM directory are updated:
  • Artifact Statistics
  • Requirement Explorer
  • Test Case Explorer
  • Test Plan Explorer
  • Asset Explorer
  • Change Request Explorer - All Related Artifacts
Remember:

When you upgrade the Engineering Lifecycle Management server to v 7.0.3, the DM-specific CAEs and views that were created before the upgrade might be available in the existing project areas.

However, as Engineering Insights does not support DM-specific CAEs, they are removed in v 7.0.3. Hence, the use of DM-specific CAEs and views is discouraged.

Note:

Starting from the Engineering Insights 7.0.3 release, the IBM Rhapsody Model Manager (RMM) artifacts are available as system artifact types in a view. Engineering Insights supports all the RMM artifact definitions that are supported by Report Builder.

Representational State Transfer (REST) is a set of principles that define how web standards, such as HTTP and URIs, are to be used. REST is the basis for linked data, so that all artifacts that have IDs can link together, have multiple representations, and communicate.

Although the index is an important component of the application, teams use the index transparently to retrieve information through operations such as views, analysis, or search. The index is the datapool, but it is not visible to users. Linked artifacts are stored in it, and data is retrieved from it.

To easily query data from several data sources across your lifecycle applications and project areas, use the Report Builder from the Queries menu. Create Jazz Reporting Service reports and publish them on a Jazz® dashboard.

Reports

To easily query data from several data sources across your lifecycle applications and project areas, use the Report Builder from the Queries menu. Create reports with graphs and charts. Publish them on a Jazz dashboard or export them to other formats. See Authoring reports with Report Builder.

To create templates to generate other document-style reports or to produce high-quality printable documents with front and back matter, you need IBM Engineering Lifecycle Optimization - Publishing (Authoring document-style reports.

PUB is not included in Engineering Insights. A separate installation and license are required. Contact your server administrator to verify that the installation is completed and that you can connect to the license server.

Collaborative use of Engineering Insights

The following image shows an overview of how teams use Engineering Insights.
The image shows an overview. Teams use views to visually navigate information, use reports, the Report Builder, and analysis to find artifacts and their relationships to other artifacts.
First, a team lead, or product manager configures projects and organizes artifacts in a way that makes sense for the product and the project team. During the product development cycle, the team creates artifacts, such as work items, requirements, design models, and test cases. The linking relationships are established among these artifacts.

An administrator creates special views for the team. The views provide a structured and dynamic look inside the product development work that enables team to view engineering data across all engineering disciplines. For example, a V-process view shows the lifecycle of a product that starts with system design, moving through software architecture and development, and ending with integration and testing.

The team runs search, Report Builder queries, and analysis, to find artifacts and the relationships among them. Relationships are important when a component must be repaired or replaced, or if you work with multiple versions of products.