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Defining/statusing "Releases" in JAZZ


Norman Dignard (356688167) | asked Feb 03 '16, 1:52 p.m.

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. 

 

2 answers



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Robert Carter (42928589) | answered Feb 12 '16, 3:28 p.m.
 What about creating a query the would display ALL Open MRs.  You can then add a column to the query that shows linked Work Items.  When the Query is run, the linked Item Column will display the status icon of the work items that are linked.  If it is completed, it will be grey-out or struckthrough.  This lets you know the work have been completed.

As far as the release is concerned, you would need something to tie all of this together.  Right now that is a Release Plan.  This shows all the work items targeted for that release.

As an end user I am not concerned with the entire release, just my MRs.  So I think the MRs query would work for end users.  They can hover over the linked work item and see what release it is scheduled for deployment on, if it has been marked complete.

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Norman Dignard commented May 13 '16, 7:46 a.m.

Thanks for the input, I'll take it into consideration.  While this can help out the  "developers", it is the management types (which are basically non-jazz users) that want a quick "status" on where the project is at. All they really want to know were they are at in the release cycle.


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Ralph Schoon (63.1k33645) | answered May 13 '16, 8:16 a.m.
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / FORUM MODERATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER
See https://jazz.net/wiki/bin/view/Deployment/RTCProcessFundamentals for some basics. 

RTC provides a planning mechanism. The planning is for an iteration. An iteration could have a name line M1 (Release1) or something like that. You can query what work items are planned for that iteration and what are completed.

We have build, Build results can be associated with work items. One use for that is to have build tracking items associated to the build(s) which can be used to track the quality and state of the build until it is release. A Build can also be marked as release which creates a corresponding release item in the project area. The release object in RTC does not have a state machine. You would likely use the mechanisms mentioned above e.g. a special work item type to track the release status/progress. 

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