Using Engineering Insights views

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Views help you visualize artifacts from various project lifecycle management applications (requirements, design models, work items, change requests, test artifacts, and so on), and explore the relationships among them. Use predefined views, or views that are customized by your administrator.

About this task

Views help teams visualize the work to be completed for a product release. By visualizing work from all engineering disciplines (requirements, change requests, test plans, test cases, and more), teams remain focused to meet the project goals by specific milestones. In the views, arrows indicate the direction of the work flow among artifacts.

  • Private views are in Views > My Views.
  • Shared views are in Views > Shared Views.

For more information, see the "Views tour" video.

Procedure

  1. Go to Views > Shared Views.

    Explore the list of views available to your team. For example, in the predefined views folder, Change request activities by type and status shows change request artifacts. Use this view to monitor the project status. Use the filters to show links to child artifacts, or to blocked artifacts.

    If the Shared Views folder is empty, contact your administrator. If you're the administrator, ensure that you installed the view samples from the Samples administration page. You can also import views. Click the Import icon to open the wizard. For more information, see Importing views and custom artifact elements
  2. Run the view by clicking it.
  3. Optional: Specify a parameter value, if required.
    To narrow down the scope of the view, click Set parameter value for the view, and edit the parameters.
  4. Optional: If your project teams use local or global configurations, you can select a configuration to work in.
    After you select a configuration, the view reloads automatically, updated for the selected configuration. In your view, you see only the artifacts and properties that are associated with the selected configuration.
    Tip: Archived global configurations and components are included in views. If you want to exclude them, read About archived global configurations and components.
  5. Explore the information.
    1. Hover over, and read information for the artifacts that are of interest to you. View the details in the preview window.
    2. Click Show links to artifacts.
    3. Select an artifact. The check box is selected. The node is highlighted, and the links to related artifacts are highlighted in the view. You can easily find the dependent artifacts.
      Note: If you can't select artifacts, contact your administrator. If you’re the administrator, read about configuring how users select nodes in a view.
    Selecting an artifact in a view
    In complex views, such as in the following traceability view, run dependency analysis to explore artifacts that are related to a specific test environment. For example, select the Firefox_Db2_WAS_Windows node, and click Dependency Analysis > Traverse upstream.
    Running dependency analysis to explore upstream artifacts
    Tip: In a complex view, if you don't need the outline, you can right-click at any empty point on the canvas to turn it off.
    Tip: Right-click the canvas, and select Show count to see the number of artifacts in each container in a view. To see how many artifacts are in one container, right-click the container, and select Show count. To see the artifacts again, select Show artifacts.
    You can see only the selected artifact and the related upstream artifacts in the view.
    Dependency analysis result in a view
    The dependency analysis traverses your linked artifacts in the following directions:
    • Upstream: The analysis explores artifacts leading to the focus artifact.
    • Downstream: The analysis explores artifacts leading away from the focus artifact.
    • Upstream and Downstream: The analysis explores artifacts in both directions.
    • Full Traceability: The analysis explores both upstream and downstream artifacts on every node. For more information, read about full traceability.
    Note: The dependency analysis traverses only the links that are shown in the view. If links aren’t displaying in the view, contact your administrator. In several predefined views, you can click the Show Links filter to draw the links among the artifacts in the view.
  6. Adjust the view to show only the artifacts that you want to focus on. For example:
    1. Select specific artifacts in the view.
      Note: If you can't select artifacts, or if you can select only one node in the view, contact your administrator. If you're the administrator, read about configuring how users select nodes in a view.
    2. Click Dependency Analysis > Display Current Selections.
      Displaying selected artifacts in a view
      Only the selected artifacts are now shown in the view:
      Displaying selected artifacts in a view
    • Click Show all to restore the original view. The artifacts that you selected, are still highlighted in the view.
    • Click Reset to restore the original view. None of the artifacts are selected in the view.
    • Click Save Snapshot to record the selected artifacts, and the links among them. You can share the snapshot of a shared view with other users, or you can set the snapshot to be a personal view. The snapshot is saved as a child of the original view.
      Note: If you open the snapshot later, some artifacts or relationships might have changed. To see the current data, click the Reload icon: Refresh. To go back to the snapshot as it was saved, click Reset.
  7. Act on an artifact.
    Right-click an artifact to show the menu.
    The following actions are available regardless of the type of artifact you select:
    • Open Artifact starts the original tool that the artifact was created in, and displays the artifact in the tool. You can modify the artifact, save it, and refresh the view to see your changes.
    • Show Query Result runs the query for the focus artifact, and displays the results in the Query Result window. You can view the query result without moving away from your current view context.
    • Show Properties displays the properties of the focus artifact. You can view the artifact properties without moving away from your view context.
    • Start Analysis Loads the default impact analysis profile. Click Run to start the analysis.
    • Open View shows you other views that are available for the focus artifact. Select a view in the list and click OK to run it.
    • Select helps you find and select related artifacts. Select your focus artifact, right-click Select, choose the link relationship that you want to explore, and pick an artifact from the list. The view adjusts to show the selected artifact in the appropriate view container. The check box in the node is selected.
    The following actions are available in the sample views for new users, depending on the type of artifact you select:
    • Open Resource with Children opens the focus artifact in the Task Hierarchy view, which is a hierarchical layout.
    • Open Traceability View opens the focus artifact in the Traceability from Task to Requirement view, which maps the selected artifact to its child tasks and requirements.
    The following actions are available if administrators right-click an artifact container in the editor:
    • Edit Node opens the Nodes editor so that you can modify the node definition.
    • Refine Container Content gives you control over what to show in the container:
      • Edit conditions: Set conditions to limit the content of your container.
      • Edit scope: Select specific projects that contain the artifacts that you want to show in the view.
      • Sort: Arrange the data in the container by one or more attributes.
      Tip:
      • When you drag a container onto an empty canvas, you don't have link types yet. Use Show Links To for linking to related artifacts, and then select the link types.
      • Link types are listed only if the artifacts have outgoing links.
      • When you build Engineering Insights views, containers with a large number of artifacts might take a long time to load. You can now preview the artifacts when you define the content of a container. When you drag an artifact type onto the canvas, click the Show Query Results button to see the artifacts that will be included in the view container. To avoid loading the container with artifacts that you don't need, you can add or refine the conditions.
    • Change Artifact Type opens the Select artifact type dialog box. You can select an artifact type from the same application, to show in the container. For example, you can modify a Change and Configuration Management container to show stories instead of defects.
    • Show Count displays the number of artifacts in a container. To see the artifacts again, click Show Artifacts.
    • Calculate Percent calculates percentage of artifacts in a container based on conditions that you define.
    • Show current links information displays the list of current links and their count for the selected node container.
    • Show Links To opens the wizard. You can use the wizard to select the artifact and relationship types to link the related artifact containers.
    Context menu options that are displayed when you right-click the artifact container
    The following actions are available if administrators right-click a custom artifact container in the editor:
    • Edit Node opens the Nodes editor so that you can modify the node definition.
    • Edit Parameters opens the Set Parameters dialog box. Setting parameters isn’t required, but can be useful because parameters allow view users to refine the content of the container by entering values. Based on the selected values, the container shows a specific set of artifacts.
    • Show Count displays the number of artifacts in a container. To see the artifacts again, click Show Artifacts.
    • Calculate Percent displays the percentage of artifacts in a container based on the defined conditions. To see the artifacts again, click Show Artifacts.
    • Show current links information displays the list of current links and their count for the selected node container. It helps you to verify whether every possible link is considered in dependency analysis. You can fill gaps in the views, if any
    • Show Links To opens the wizard. You can use the wizard to select the artifact and relationship types to link the related artifact containers.
  8. Share a private view with your team.
    1. In the My Views screen, find the view that you want to share, and click the Move or Copy Selected Views icon.
    2. In the Move or Copy Selected Views dialog box, click Move, and then select a shared folder where you want to save the view, and click OK.
  9. Print a view.
    1. On the My Views or Shared Views page, select a view that you want to print.
    2. Click the Print toolbar icon.
      Displaying Print toolbar icon in a view
      The view to be printed opens in a new web browser window, along with the Print window.
    3. Select a printer in the Print window, and then click OK.
  10. Export a view, and save it outside of the tool.
    1. On the My Views or Shared Views page, select a view that you want to export, and click the Export Views icon.
    2. In the Opening Views dialog box, click Save File, and then specify where you want to save the view, and click OK.

Example

Look at the Change request activities by type and status view.

The image shows the Change request activities by type and status.

Click the Show Links to Child Artifacts filter to see the relationships among artifacts. Notice that some artifacts have child artifacts and some don't. Also, notice the decorators next to the task numbers. Use the decorators to understand the status of the artifact at a glance.

If you need more information about a task, right-click it, and click Open Artifact. In the example, right-click Task 80, and click Open Artifact, to open the task in the original lifecycle management application, IBM Engineering Workflow Management.