Getting started with Engineering Workflow Management source control

Engineering Workflow Management source control is a component-based version control system that is built on the Jazz platform. You can use Engineering Workflow Management source control to manage source code, documents, and other artifacts that you want to place under version control and share with a team.

Engineering Workflow Management source control is closely integrated with the other application development lifecycle tools that are included in Engineering Workflow Management.

The Jazz® Build Engine and Build System Toolkit have built-in support for the following tasks:
- Loading files from Engineering Workflow Management source control.
- Capturing snapshots of build input so that a build can be reproduced exactly.
- Accessing rich set of tools that you can use to view the component versions in a specific build. You can also compare the components with their versions in other builds, streams, and workspaces.
For more information, see Working with builds in Engineering Workflow Management Build.
You can link change sets to work items, which enables traceability for individual changes and provides insight into why they were made. For more information, see Tracking work by using work items.
You can use process pre-conditions to control the flow of change sets. For example, you can configure a process so that a change set must be reviewed and approved before it can be delivered to an integration stream. For more information, see https://www.ibm.com/docs/SSUC3U_7.1/com.ibm.jazz.platform.doc/topics/t_projects_teams_process.html.

Workspaces, change sets, and change flow

Engineering Workflow Management source control stores artifacts such as files and folders in the Jazz repository. You create a repository workspace to hold your private copies of the files and folders that you want to work with. Then, you load the contents of your repository workspace into a sandbox (a directory in your computer's file system). The files and folders in the sandbox are accessible to tools, such as editors, compilers, and integrated development environments. As you make changes to the contents of your sandbox, you periodically check them in to the repository workspace so that the changes are backed up on the server. In the repository workspace, related changes are collected as change sets, which deliver changes to multiple files and folders in a single operation.

Figure 1 illustrates a simple configuration of a repository workspace and a single component. A check in operation copies changes from the sandbox to the repository workspace. A load operation loads the sandbox with the contents of the repository workspace.

Figure 1. Check in work from your sandbox to your repository workspace

When you work as part of a team, your workspace and the workspaces of other team members are configured to deliver the changes to a shared repository object called a stream. Figure 2 shows how change sets created in a sandbox and then checked in to a repository workspace can be shared by delivering them to a stream that all team members use. Because the stream is a flow target of all team members' repository workspaces, the change sets it contains are accessible to all team members.

Figure 2. Change sets checked in to a repository workspace can be delivered to a stream to make them available to other team members

First steps with Engineering Workflow Management source control

You can use Engineering Workflow Management source control on your own, or as part of a team.

When you work on your own, you typically create a project in your Eclipse workspace, share it to put it under Engineering Workflow Management source control, and proceed to check in your changes. As needed, you can create workspace snapshots that preserve important configurations so that you can re-create them if you need to. For more information, see Working independently in Engineering Workflow Management source control.
When you work as part of a team, you might start by accepting a team invitation, or you might create a new repository workspace from one of the team's streams.

The following diagram demonstrates a sample source control workflow. The diagram is provided only as an example. Although you can complete many of the steps in either the Web client or the Eclipse client, these steps link to topics for the Eclipse client.

Example source control work flow for Engineering Workflow Management