Closing out an iteration
One answer
You can edit the iteration un-check "A release is scheduled for this iteration". After save the change, you will not see the iteration in "Planned for" when creating a work item.
Comments
That is what were were doing until we noticed it hides plans configured against the iteration and changes the behavior of queries that use the "Planned For" attribute with "is part of" (it does not include work items from these iterations and there is no visual indication in the query editor that they will not be included). So we changed to archiving iterations which also removes the iteration from the planned for drop down and allows us to view archived plans and query archived iterations.
Now we're noticing that the archived iterations can not be included in the "Team Velocity" widget (although we can include them in a full Team Velocity Report).
That's what prompted the question of the definitive way to close out an iteration.
Given the response above, when would it be appropriate to Archive an iteration (vs unckecking "A release is planned for this iteration").
What's RTC version you are using?
For the two issues you mentioned, I can only see the issues in RTC 3.0.1.3. But in RTC 4.0.4, there's no problem to view the plan of the iteration and select the iteration in a query.
I think they are fixed in:
https://jazz.net/jazz/web/projects/Rational%20Team%20Concert#action=com.ibm.team.workitem.viewWorkItem&id=231651
https://jazz.net/jazz/web/projects/Rational%20Team%20Concert#action=com.ibm.team.workitem.viewWorkItem&id=194542
Eclipse Rich Client
Version: 4.0.3
Build id: RTC-I20130517-1856
I read through some of the work items and my client is not working as described, Seems like there were a lot of problems related to this feature. Guess I'll test it again in 4.0.5.
4.0.5 doesn't appear any better