Managing artifacts by using configurations

Learn how to manage changes to artifacts and work in a parallel, multi-stream environment by using configuration management capabilities. These capabilities include setting up unique working environments for individuals or teams, creating baselines of projects at specific points in time, reviewing and approving changes to resources, and making changes visible to other teams or individuals.

Note: This topic applies only to projects enabled for full configuration management capabilities. If your project is enabled for baselines only, not all the same feature are supported, and the steps for working with and managing baselines are different. See the related tasks.

After an application administrator enables configuration management for a project area, teams can work in a parallel, multi-stream environment.

If an application administrator also installs the Global Configuration Management application, team members assigned as configuration leads can create global configurations and add local configurations (streams and baselines) to them.

After a configuration lead creates global configurations, when you switch to a global configuration, you can create and view links to artifacts in other Engineering Lifecycle Management project areas that support configuration management. You can also view of all the artifacts that make up a version of a product or system. To work in the context of a global configuration, select one from the Current Configuration menu.

Versioned artifacts in configurations

Many test artifacts in the Engineering Test Management application can be versioned, which means that one configuration can have one version of the artifact, and another configuration can have another. For unversioned artifacts, wherever the artifact is used, the same artifact is used, never a different version of it.

For example, consider a versioned artifact in a stream named Stream 1. If you create a descendant stream, Stream 2, from the first stream, and you modify the artifact in Stream 1, it does not affect the version in Stream 2. The artifacts remain at different versions in the different streams. Alternatively, for unversioned artifacts, the same version always remains in both configurations.
Tip: To receive an email when artifacts are changed in specific streams, on the product banner click User Profile; then, in the Preferences window, click Change Notifications > Send an email notification and select the streams.

The following table lists versioned artifacts and unversioned test artifacts.

Versioned Artifacts Unversioned Artifacts
Test plans

Test cases

Test data

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

Versioned artifacts in dashboards
If your project area has configuration management capabilities enabled, you can report on versioned artifacts in configurations in and across Engineering Lifecycle Management applications. You can configure a widget to always report on a specific configuration, or use the current configuration indicated on the toolbar.
Selecting a component and configuration to work
The name of the configuration that you are working in is shown on the toolbar, as part of the Current Configuration menu. Use this menu to switch configurations and to complete configuration-related tasks, based on your permissions or role. To see and create links to artifacts in related project areas in other Engineering Lifecycle Management applications, select a global configuration.
Managing configuration details
You can open a configuration to see related configurations, manage its details, compare configurations, and create related configurations.
Creating streams
A stream is modifiable set of versioned artifacts. You can add, edit, and delete versions of artifacts in a stream. All team members who have access to the project area can access its streams.
Creating baselines from streams
A baseline is a read-only set of artifacts and their versions. Create baselines to capture the state of a stream at a specific point in time, and to define a starting point for new work. For example, create a baseline of a stream and use it as the basis of a new stream for new work. You can create a baseline of a stream at any point during the project lifecycle, such as before or after a project milestone is reached.
Showing and setting link validity and validity summary information
Link validity is the status of links between artifacts to indicate whether the contents of two artifacts meet the intended meaning of the link between them. You can use the link validity status to achieve consistency across artifacts and links as you make changes that propagate through the linked data.
Cloning artifacts between Engineering Test Management components
Reorganize how artifacts are grouped in your project by cloning them from one component into another. When you clone an artifact, a new version is added to the component that you clone into.

To learn more about configuration management, see this video.