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RM Project Template - change management/inheritance?


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Adrian Haw (2991242) | asked Sep 12 '16, 9:44 a.m.
Our company is very large and the different parts of the business have slightly different requirements on the attributes required for artifacts in modules BUT there is a lot of commonality across businesses in terms of attributes.

To manage change to the module templates, we had the idea to do the following:
1. Create a company-wide template project containing company-wide modules with company-wide attributes having company-wide types. No 'real' R&D projects would use this template - it serves only as input to sub-organization templates to ensure commonality of approach to using DOORS NG across the entire company but allowing for managed deviations per sub-organization.
2. For any sub-organization, derive a sub-organization project template from the company-wide template project and extend it with the sub-organization specific attributes & types. This is the project template to be used for 'real' R&D projects as they will execute according to their sub-org template.

Is the above approach feasible (point 1&2)? We may need to change the company or sub-org templates, to refine/improve our process - how can we best manage this, so that we can make the changes in the template at the appropriate level (either company-wide or sub-org) and push that change out to all projects which are derived from that respective template project. Eg: A change to the company-wide template should be (capable of being) pushed down/inherited by the sub-org template. If there is a change in the sub-org template this should be (capable of being) pushed down/inherited by the 'real' projects which were created from the sub-org template.
How could this be done in DNG (if at all)?

Thanks


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Kirk Grotjohn (1.2k3) | answered Sep 12 '16, 12:06 p.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER
Yes, this is very feasible, using both Project Templates, and the "Import" option for the type system. 
A project template can define the type system, including artifact types, attributes, etc. (It can optionally include other details, such as initial folder structure and even content; you specify what it should include when you create the project template). 

You can create a project template base on an existing project that includes the type system you want to use for future projects (e.g., your company template).   (Go to Admin (Gear) menu > Manage Project Properties > Templates). 
You can then use that same project template to create your sub-org projects, and after it's created, modify the type system as needed.  If you want, you could create a 2nd sub-org project template based on that project. 

However, the project template is only used when initially creating the project; it cannot be used to update the project after creation.  For that, you can use the the "Import" option within the Manage Project Properties page.  This will import the type system from another project area.  So you might want to keep the projects that you used to create the templates from around for updating purposes.  So if you add or change any of the type system in the "template" project, and you choose to import from that project, it will pull in any new or changed types/values. 

One limitation to this though is that Import is not destructive.  So if you remove any types or values from the original template project, and then import that type system to another project, it will not remove anything from the 2nd project.  In that case you'd have to manually edit the type system of the 2nd project to remove things.

And you do have to do this "Import" option for each project area that needs updating, so if you have a large number of them, this could be a little tedious.  There is no automatic inheritance or "pushing" of changes. 
Adrian Haw selected this answer as the correct answer

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Adrian Haw commented Sep 13 '16, 4:15 a.m.

Thanks for your feedback. We'll go ahead with this approach.

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