Adding release links in global configurations

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Associate global configurations with releases to ensure that versioned artifacts show incoming work item links. Releases are defined and managed in the IBM Engineering Workflow Management application, but can be added within global configurations in the Global Configuration Management (GCM) application. A global configuration's release links are used for viewing incoming links in IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS® Next (DOORS Next) and IBM Engineering Test Management from work items to versioned artifacts, such as requirements and test cases.

Before you begin

To add or remove release links in global configurations:

You must be a member of the Global Configuration Management (GCM) project area that contains the global configurations that you want to associate with the releases.
For a shared (non-personal) global configuration, you must have the Configuration Lead role or higher, or Add or remove links write access privilege for that project or team area.
You must have at least read access to the Engineering Workflow Management project areas that contain the releases.

About this task

To view or manage incoming links in the Engineering Lifecycle Management applications (such as Engineering Test Management and DOORS Next) from Engineering Workflow Management work items to specific versions of the artifacts, such as requirements or test cases, you must add release links in global configurations.

You can also set a corresponding global configuration on a release definition in the Engineering Workflow Management application. For more information, see Enabling linking of work items to versioned artifacts..

To enable linking of work items to versioned artifacts, you must configure your GCM and Engineering Workflow Management project areas.

In the Engineering Workflow Management application, ensure that the following are true:
- Releases are defined.
- The Configuration Management > OSLC Link/Attribute Mapping is enabled by clicking Enable global configuration resolution for remote resources with versions in the Engineering Workflow Management project area editor. To show or hide the global configuration picker in the banner, a project area administrator can select or clear the Enable user selection of the configuration context checkbox in the editor.
  After you enable, you can only customize the OSLC mappings, but you cannot disable it. Existing projects that use the OSLC Link/Attribute Mapping page are automatically enabled for configurations.
- A global configuration value is set on each release definition.
For more information, see the steps in Enabling linking of work items to versioned artifacts..
In the GCM application, ensure that the Global Configuration artifact type includes the Release link type. For more information about managing type definitions, see Managing type definitions.

By default, the release values of a newly created global configuration are the same as the configuration from which it is derived. For example, if you create a baseline of a stream, the release values of the stream are copied to that baseline.

For a personal stream, the release values are copied from the underlying global stream in the following scenarios:

When a personal stream is created.
When an archived personal stream is automatically unarchived if a change set is created in the context of a shared stream.

A personal stream can be linked explicitly to any release as set by the owner. If the release links of the underlying global stream are changed, owners must update their personal streams to match the associated release link, or else versioned artifacts might show incorrect incoming work item links.

Note: A change to a release value of a global configuration somewhere in a global configuration hierarchy is not automatically propagated to that configuration's parent, child, or sibling global configurations in the hierarchy. You must manually propagate such changes and associate each configuration with an appropriate release link explicitly. If you don't propagate these changes, and you choose some other global configuration in the hierarchy as your configuration context, then versioned artifacts might not show the expected incoming work item links.

Configuration leads must do the following actions at the time of stream creation for a new release cycle to avoid inconsistencies later:

Create a new global stream, typically derived from a baseline of the previous release.
Remove any outdated release links from the newly created stream if the new stream is one of the following types:
- A different variant, and must not be associated with the same old set of releases.
- A stream for a new successor release. If the successor release has one or more predecessors in Engineering Workflow Management, then the new stream is automatically associated with the predecessor releases. If not required, the predecessor releases can be removed from explicit association with the new stream.
Add the appropriate release links to the new stream.

Note: In complex scenarios, the release links can be automatically applied in bulk over many streams through scripting (REST and OSLC APIs).

Procedure

Open a configuration. Go to Links tab, and click Edit.
Click Add Link and select the Release link type.
A dialog box opens.
Select the Engineering Workflow Management project area to see all matching releases.

Note: By default, all accessible Engineering Workflow Management project areas are available for selection. However, if you are seeing any irrelevant Engineering Workflow Management project areas, ask your administrator to limit the list of available project areas by enforcing project area associations.
Select one or more releases to add, and click OK.
Save your changes.
Ensure that you also update other configurations, such as the parent, child, or sibling global configurations in the hierarchy, or any personal streams that are impacted due to this change.

Results

The association is completed. You can hover over a release link to find more details, such as project area, description, iteration, and predecessors.