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How do I do custom template upgrading in rtc 4.0


Marc Towersap (481711) | asked Feb 19 '13, 11:36 p.m.
I've been hunting for this, can't find anything specific to RTC 4.0.  I see RTC 2 had a Project Area Updater which I saw got removed for RTC 3.  I saw something about plugins for a class like com.ibm.team.process.server.tests, but not sure what I'm supposed to do.  I downloaded the SDK, installed the plugins, tested out one of them (set a breakpoint, ran it, it stopped at the breakpoint as expected).  But now what?

I want to create my own customized template, export it (as say, blah.1.0), use it for new project areas, and if I need to tweak that template (add new attributes, change enumeration values, change the presentation, etc.), that I can create blah1.1 which I want to have people upgrade their project areas to the new version blah1.1 without having to hack the xml as shown in Process Configuration source tab when I open the project area.

Every time I try to upgrade a project area (via Team Organizer, right-click on work area and 'add new features', I always get 'This project area cannot be updated. The template used to create this project area does not have an updater.

How the heck do I get an updater? How do I make my own process template that's updatable?  I have several independent RTC servers and I want to share particular templates world-wide, and want them to update their project areas to the latest/greatest version of my customized templates, which will be updated as needed to future versions.  Is there some step-by-step that I can follow for RTC 4.0 (not 2.0 nor 3.0).  I don't think sharing is going to work if I have multiple RTC servers in Colorado, China, India, etc., as well as only local machines for testing upgrades.


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Ralph Schoon (63.1k33645) | answered Feb 20 '13, 2:31 a.m.
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / FORUM MODERATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER
Hi Marc,

as far as I can tell it is not possible to upgrade project areas from templates. I think there was a process updater in one version that was used to add some new features, but that was only for that version. Usually you upgrade the server and the processes are upgraded in the process.

I think what you really want to do is using process sharing. See https://jazz.net/library/article/1008 for an example.

This allows to provision a "Master" project from a process template and share that process across servers. The projects that share the process use the "Unconfigured Process". If you develop the process, you can do that on a test server, export it as a new version and create a new Master project area. The project areas that share the process can be pointed to the new master.

There are several limitations currently with this approach. If the sharing project areas overwrite parts of the process, they stop sharing that part. This is progressing, but still limited.

Please note, I have not played with what you would have to do to move from not sharing a process to sharing it. I assume if you just point your old project areas to share another process, they would just override everything and not share. 

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