We are migrating a number of projects to JAZZ from their legacy tools.  As part of our corporate (ISO) processes for CM, it currently defines the change management records (aka Mod Requests (MRs)) and workflows .   This basically lays out how changes are reported/tracked and statused.   

In conjunction with the above , the process also defines a "Release record" and a state model defining the status of the release as part of its acceptance testing/certification process.   These processes where defined based on the legacy tool capabilities and divisions in responsibility. 

To clarify the legacy app (BMC Remedy ARS) was used as the "corporate" tool for MRs and for "management" visibility additional artifacts were defined - eg. release records.  This legacy app does not integrate with the multitude of dev environments/scm tools used here.  The "Release record" basically lists all the MRs going into that release and at what stage in the testing it's at.  Also the legacy app is just one big silo - no "project area" division.

The other thing to note pertaining to the legacy Release Record - our product acceptance /certification testing was done by an external group to the project. The "product team" did their normal unit/integration/release testing in their environment. Once good to go, they bubble warp their "release" and threw it over the fence to the external group which used this release record to define their "testing" state.  Now, a re-org has occurred in that this external group has been desolved with  the projects themselves doing the acceptance/cert testing as part of their development cycle.

Now comes JAZZ.    In JAZZ we have a MR PA area - which now basically becomes a ticketing system for the field users to report bugs or enhancements and each "project" now works in their own PA linking their project work items back to relevant MRs.   The problem I'm trying to address is the need for this "Release record" and its associated workflow denoting the "release testing" status.   Does JAZZ/RTC provide a built-in mechanism to emulate this?  I can see parts here and there but nothing noting the "status" of a release.

To clarify - a Release plan defines all the work items targeted to go into the release, and assuming it is maintained , at the end of the day it defines what (MRs) when into the release (inputs to the release notes).  This can also be derived by comparing release snapshots/baselines (what changesets and related work items make up that baseline) however this is not very intuitive for non-developer types to get too.  The final "testing" stages also do not have a status that I can determine.   

How do you show the status of your release/testing states in JAZZ. I'm hoping to avoid creating yet another record type and the user overhead in managing it for something that I thing should be out-of the box functions.