While participating in the festivities at Innovate 2011 down in Orlando, I had an opportunity to speak with many of our customers about the CLM 2011 solution. Everyone that I spoke with was excited about our new capabilities, and was impressed with the cross product capabilities.  Whether they were our customers or part of an internal team here at IBM, all of them were looking to get the CLM 2011 solution deployed to their organizations as soon as possible. All of them had a similar question, “Where do I start when I want to learn about how to use CLM 2011?”.

CLM 2011 Upgrade Materials

To keep that excitement that started at Innovate 2011 going, we’re glad to provide some useful materials that will help you in your move to the CLM 2011 solution. Before you get into the upgrade, take some time and use the upgrade assessment tool. Answering these questions will help you in determining your best path through the upgrade process, and will allow us to provide some help and guidance to those of you with unique situations.

After doing that, you should run through the CLM 2011 Upgrade Workshop to help you on your way to taking full advantage of all that the great features the CLM 2011 solution has to offer!  If you are considering an upgrade, or are in the process of planning your upgrade, then I would STRONGLY urge you to take a look at this workshop. It will help you understand the upgrade process, and will help you in planning your upgrade to the CLM 2011 solution.  The workshop is a hands on look at the upgrade to CLM 2011, and it has a number of lab exercises that will help the reader become more comfortable with the concepts and the process of the CLM upgrade. In addition, it discusses some of the decisions and architectural choices that you will make during the upgrade process, and it will alert you to the implications of those decisions.  You should also make sure to check out the CLM 2011 Upgrade FAQ, and the Upgrade Reference for CLM 2011, and make sure that you review the latest information and updates on the upgrade process.

Finally you should always use the Jazz Infocenter, and the interactive upgrade guide.  This interactive guide is similar to the interactive installation guide.  You just answer the questions, make your selections, and you’ll generate a customized guide to have for your upgrade.  Just keep these tips in mind:

• Read upgrade directions carefully – Many people get into trouble when they skip steps, or read things out of context!
• Run through the upgrade assessment tool and the upgrade workshop before you plan your upgrade
• Read about URI stability, and the Upgrade FAQ before you plan your upgrade
• Read the Infocenter carefully, and make use of the interactive upgrade guide.  (skipping steps will cause you to have problems!)
• Ask us for help and guidance

CLM 2011 Reporting Workshop

You should also check out the CLM 2011 Reporting Workshop.  This workshop will help you understand the reporting tools, and will save you time and effort in creating the reports that your teams need to have.  This workshop covers some of the key concepts and techniques that you can use to really provide value to your software development organization.  The lab exercises will give you the hands-on experience that you need to be able to write efficient and effective reports.

URI Stability Article

This article on Moving Jazz Servers and URI Stability with CLM 2011 will help you understand some of the things that impact the upgrade process, and is useful even if you are doing a fresh installation of the CLM 2011 solution.  It has some very good advice on how to structure your Jazz deployment to give yourself the most flexibility and to prepare yourself to take advantage of the new capabilities coming in future Jazz releases.  It is structured as an FAQ, but the information is critical for you to consider when planning your CLM 2011 deployment.

Once you’ve looked through all these resources please let us know how we did, and let us know if there are other things you might like to see in the workshops or other materials. We’re always looking for ways to better serve the Jazz community.

Daniel “Tox” Toczala

Jazz Jumpstart Manager