Managing artifacts in projects enabled only for baselines

This topic applies only to the Engineering Test Management application. In projects enabled for baselines, you create baselines as needed to capture artifact versions at milestones or critical points in a release. Typically, a configuration lead or application administrator manages the baselines for your team, but team members might also compare baselines or merge content into the current version.

Before you begin

  • The Engineering Test Management project area must be enabled for baselines. For details, see the related topic.
  • To create baselines or modify their properties, you must be assigned the corresponding permission.
  • To merge the contents of a baseline into the stream, you must have permission to merge configurations.

About this task

A baseline is a frozen collection of artifacts. Baselines are useful for capturing the state of a project area at a specific time. Neither the set of versions nor the artifacts can be changed. You can switch your view to a baseline, but you can't delete any items within the baseline. If you permanently delete an item in the Trash view, that item is deleted from the baseline (as it is for snapshots). A stream is a modifiable collection of artifacts.

In the Engineering Test Management application, baselines capture the version of many Engineering Test Management artifact types, but some artifact types are unversioned, as shown in the following table. For unversioned artifacts, there is only one version. The same artifact is used in all locations, never a different version.
Artifacts that Are Versioned Artifacts that Are Not Versioned
Test plans

Test cases

Test suites

Test scripts

Test Environments*

Keywords

Test case execution records

Test suite execution records

Test case results

Test suite results

Execution schedules*

Execution schedule results*

Note: Artifact types marked with an asterisk (*): You cannot view their version history in a graph.
 Build definition

Build records

Attachments

Category and category values

Custom attributes

Query filters

Quality objectives

Risk types

Lab management:

Catalog (type system)

Test cells

Test adapters

Lab resources

Lab resource groups

Lab reservations

Requests

Procedure

  1. Click Administration Administration menu icon > Manage Project Baselines.
  2. Work with baselines:
    • Create baselines

      Click Create Baseline from the list.

    For the following tasks, select the corresponding action from the Action Menu.
    • Delete or archive a baseline

      Select Delete Baseline. Deleting (archiving) a baseline removes it from view and you can no longer use it. It is moved to the Trash view, but not permanently deleted; you can restore it again when you need it.

      Archived items are not included in search and query results and Report Builder reports.

    • Edit baseline properties

      Select Baseline Properties. Then, change the baseline name and description to make baselines easy to identify.

    • Compare the current versions of artifacts with those in a baseline
      1. Click Compare with Current Version.
      2. In the Compare view, click an artifact type to see which artifacts differ.
      3. To view the differences between specific artifacts, in the list near the end of the page, click Action Menu > Show Details of artifact_type Comparison.
      4. In the Compare pane that opens, click through each artifact section and look for the differences.
      5. Repeat steps b, c, and d as needed.

      You cannot merge changes from this view; see merging in the next option.

    • Merge entire artifacts or only specific changes

      Example: You made incorrect updates to a test case and you want to revert to an earlier version in the most recent baseline. Merge that baseline and stream, but select only the artifact to replace. If you simply copy the artifact from the baseline, you lose its history.

      1. Click Merge into the Current Version.
      2. In the Merge view, click an artifact type to merge.
      3. In the list near the end of the page, click Action Menu next to the artifacts to work with, and choose an action:
        • Replace with source: Replace the current artifact version with the version from the baseline.
        • Manually merge: Open a detailed comparison between the two versions of an artifact. Review and accept differences or make manual edits. Save your changes when you finish.
        • Keep target version: No changes to the current version.
      4. Repeat steps b and c as needed.

    • View artifacts in a baseline

      Click Switch to This Baseline. Browse the artifact versions that were used at a specific time, for example, at a milestone in a release. You cannot edit artifacts in a baseline.

      After you view a baseline, you might discover you need to merge changes from a baseline into the current artifact version. To merge differences, merge as in the previous option.

      To resume working with artifacts, click current version link on the page.

    • Comparing baselines
      1. Switch to a baseline: Next to one of the baselines to compare, click Switch to This Baseline.
      2. Open the list of baselines again: Click Administration Administration menu icon > Manage Project Baselines.
      3. Next to the other baseline to compare, click Action Menu > Compare to baseline_name.
      4. In the Compare view, click an artifact type to see which artifacts differ.
      5. To view the differences between specific artifacts, in the list near the end of the page, click Action Menu > Show Details of artifact_type Comparison.
      6. In the Compare pane that opens, click through each artifact section and look for the differences.
      7. Repeat steps d, e, and f as needed.
      8. To resume working with artifacts, click current version link on the page.