Enabling linking of work items to versioned artifacts

If your organization uses the Global Configuration Management application to manage versioned artifacts in other applications, such as Quality Management (QM) and Requirements Management (RM), you can link work items to specific versions of those artifacts. To enable this linking, you must configure your project area accordingly.

Before you begin

You must have permission to modify the Change and Configuration Management (CCM) project area. You must also be a member of the Global Configuration Management project area that contains the global configuration that contains the target artifact versions.

About this task

Project areas that have associations with each other support linking artifacts between those project areas. For example, you can link an RM requirement to a CCM work item, which tracks the work needed to implement the requirement, and you can link the requirement and the work item to a QM test case, which tests the implementation and verifies that the requirement has been met.

Some applications support versioning of their artifacts by tracking the versions in configurations. A global configuration tracks multiple configurations. For example, a global configuration might include configurations from RM, QM, and Design Management (DM) project areas.

To enable linking of work items to specific versions of artifacts in other applications, you must associate a release with a global configuration, and you must map link types to a work item attribute of type deliverable on the OSLC Link/Attribute Mapping page of the project area editor. The deliverable work item attribute values correspond to the releases that you define for the project area. The Found In attribute is a deliverable type attribute. You can also create a custom attribute of type deliverable. Alternatively, you can map the link types to Derived From Planned For. The Planned For attribute values correspond to the iterations that you define for the project area. If you map link types to Derived From Planned For, you must also associate a release with an iteration.

At runtime, Rational Team Concert™ looks at the OSLC Link/Attribute Mapping setting for the link type that you want to use.

If the link type is mapped to the Found In attribute or a custom attribute of type deliverable:

Rational Team Concert gets the value of the deliverable attribute type field in the work item. The deliverable attribute type field is populated with the releases that are defined on the Releases page of the project area editor.
Rational Team Concert looks at the Release definition to retrieve the global configuration that is associated with the release.
You can link to the target versioned artifacts that belong to a configuration that belongs to the global configuration.

If the link type is mapped to Derived From Planned For:

Rational Team Concert gets the value of the Planned For field from the work item. The Planned For field is populated with the iterations that are defined on the Timelines page of the project area editor.
Rational Team Concert finds the release that is associated with that iteration. If the iteration is not associated with a release, then the release that is associated with the iteration's nearest parent in the timeline tree is used.
Rational Team Concert looks at the Release definition to retrieve the global configuration that is associated with the release.
You can link to the target versioned artifacts that belong to a configuration that belongs to the global configuration.

Table 1 lists the default attribute mappings for all of the supported OSLC link types. The Tested By Test Case, Implements Requirement, and Tracks Requirement link types are mapped to Derived From Planned For because they are typically used to link to Story type work items. The default work item editor presentation for the Story work item type in the predefined process templates does not contain the Found In attribute but does contain the Planned For attribute.

Table 1. Default link type/attribute settings
Link type	Attribute
Affects Test Case Result	Found In
Blocks Test Execution	Found In
Tested By Test Case	Derived From Planned For
Implements Requirement	Derived From Planned For
Related Test Case	Found In
Related Test Script	Found In
Related Test Execution Record	Found In
Related Test Plan	Found In
Tracks Requirement	Derived From Planned For
Affects Requirement	Found In

Note: When you create a link from a versioned artifact, such as an RM requirement or a QM test case, if the target CCM project area has multiple releases associated with the same global configuration, the work items for all those releases appear in the selection list. When you create a work item from a versioned artifact, if the target CCM project area has multiple releases associated with the same global configuration, all of those releases appear as choices in the Found In field. The release values appear in the inverse order in which they were created in the CCM project area. You can see releases that are not associated with the global configuration by clicking

, the Click for more values icon. If you select one of those releases, you cannot navigate the link from the work item to the versioned artifact.

Procedure

Navigate to the project area editor in the web client.
1. In the web client, open the Home menu and select All Projects in the Change and Configuration Management section project areas list.
2. In the All Projects page, click the Manage Project button next to the name of the project area that you want to configure.
Map link types to deliverable attributes.
1. Click Configuration Management > OSLC Link/Attribute Mapping.
2. If no mappings have been set, click No mappings detected. Click here to use default link mappings. If you have defined a custom attribute of type deliverable, it is available in the Attribute column list. For each link type, select Found In, Derived From Planned For, or a custom attribute. Click Save to save the changes to your project area.
Associate a release with a global configuration.
1. Click Releases.
2. If no releases are defined for the project area, add one by clicking , the Add Release icon.
3. For the release that you want to associate with a global configuration, click , the Actions Menu icon in the Actions column, then select Select Global Configuration.
4. In the Select the Configuration Context window, select the type of global configuration: Streams, Personal Streams, Baselines, or Baseline Staging Streams. To see all global configurations of the selected type, enter * in the Search field. Alternatively, enter text in the Search field. Select a global configuration from the results, then click OK.
5. Click Save to save your changes to the project area.
Associate an iteration with a release. This step is required only if you map link types to Derived From Planned For in the previous step.
1. Click Releases.
2. For the release that you want to associate with an iteration, click , the Actions Menu icon in the Actions column, then select Edit Release.
3. Click the Select iteration icon; select one of the iterations defined for the project area; click OK; then click OK again.
4. Click Save to save your changes to the project area.
Add the mapped deliverable attribute to work item editor presentations. Because the deliverable type attribute is used to determine which versions of target artifacts are available for linking to the work item, be sure that all of the work item editor presentations contain the deliverable type attribute. See Customizing the work item editor in the web client for details about adding an attribute to an editor presentation.

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