Associating change sets in the RM application to work items

To increase traceability in the development lifecycle and prevent the delivery of unauthorized changes, you can track your work in change sets and create links between change sets in the Requirements Management (RM) application and work items in the Change and Configuration Management (CCM) application. Links to work items are shown on the Current Configuration menu and in the change set editor.

Before you begin

  • Ensure that you are familiar with project areas, components (if supported), baselines, streams, and change sets (if supported).
  • Ensure that you are familiar with global configurations and personal streams (if your organization uses them).
  • Ensure that you are logged in to a project.
  • You must have permission to manage change sets.
  • A change set must exist.

About this task

You can link a change set to one or more work items.

An administrator can further control changes to artifacts by requiring team members to link change sets to work items or change requests that have at least one approval. The governance of your project or organization determines when this option is enabled. For example, at the start of a project or release, this option might not be enabled so that team members can easily deliver many changes. Toward the end of a milestone or release, the option might be enforced so that only authorized changes are delivered. If this option is enabled, review the work item to ensure that it is approved (as defined by the application that manages work items) before you deliver your change set. Dependent change sets must also be linked to approved work items.

Procedure

  1. On the toolbar:
    • If the configuration context is set to the change set, click Current Configuration > Link to a Work Item.
    • If the configuration is set to a global configuration or the stream that contains the change set:
      1. Click Current Configuration > Local Configuration > RM_stream_name, and in the stream editor, on the Change Sets tab, click the change set name.
        Note: If the configuration context is set to another configuration, click Current Configuration > Switch, and select the change set.
      2. Click Add link to work item Link to work item.
  2. Follow the instructions in the Link to a Work Item dialog box.

Results

You can see the link in these places:
  • RM application: Click the Current Configuration menu on the toolbar when you're working in a change set, or open the change set editor.
  • CCM application: Go to the Links tab of the work item. People can follow the link to the change set to see its contents and compare it to the stream it originated from.

You can delete the link from either the work item in the CCM application or from the change set editor in the RM application.