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Does RTC provide versioning of work item templates and work items (or artifacts?) created from these templates?


Vijay Reddy (133) | asked Dec 15 '18, 11:54 a.m.

 Is there a good description and examples of work item, work item type, work item template, artifact, versioning of templates vs. versioning of artifacts in RTC?


My understanding:
A process template has certain work item types: For example, in SAFe Process template, we have work item types like: Epic, Feature, Story, etc. What about Business Epics, Enabler Epics, Business Features, Enabler Features, User Stories, Enabler Stories, etc? Do we need to define these "work item types" in the process template?

You create a "work item" by selecting one of the available work item types, filling, and saving it.
For example, if I create "Epic Abc" using work item type "Epic", the result is I created one work item called "Epic". The saved Epic is called an "artifact"?

The 'design' of a given work item type (Epic, Feature, Story, etc.) is captured in the associated 'work item template'. If I want to change how an Epic would look like, I need to change the work item template? Can this be changed by the Scrum Master or PO (as a member of the team) or should this be done by RTC admin outside of the team?

Can we have multiple versions of work item template for a given work item? For example, to create a work item type called "Epic", can have multiple Epic templates called simple Epic, complex Epic, Infrastructure Epic, etc.?

Once we create an Epic (called Epic ABC), it may undergo changes as it passes thru its life cycle (changing 'states', adding / changing / removing content, etc.). If we want to track these changes (and possibly revert back to one of the previous states), we need to "versioning" of Artifacts? Does RTC have any built-in versioning capability for:
- versioning of Work Item templates (simple Epic template v1, complex Epic template 4, Infrastructure Epic template v2, etc.)
- versioning of Artifacts created based on on these work item templates (Epic ABC v1, Feature XYZ v4, etc.)

Thank you!

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Ralph Schoon (63.1k33645) | answered Dec 17 '18, 2:11 a.m.
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / FORUM MODERATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER

 Work item templates have nothing to do with which attributes and names work items have. Work item templates describe how to create a structure of one or more connected work items. 


The work item attributes, types, workflows are defined in the process specification.


The process changes are tracked, and if new attributes are added, the UI allows to apply the change to all existing work items.


Comments
Vijay Reddy commented Dec 17 '18, 2:45 a.m.

Hi Ralph


Thanks a LOT for your answer. I 
Would you please confirm these?
Q1. Can we have 2 or more versions of work item templates (like Epic v1, Epic v2, etc.) displayed under "Work Items" menu (so that users can 'choose' a given template (v1 or v2) to create their Epic? 

Q2: Even if multiple versions of a work item template are not allowed, when we publish new template (replacing an existing one), even though UI allows to apply change to all existing work items, can we choose NOT to apply the new changes to existing artifacts (especially if there are too many changes or mandatory fields involved)?

I am new to RTC; I will go thru the articles you listed above :)
Thanks a lot again!

Best
Vijay


Ralph Schoon commented Dec 17 '18, 3:03 a.m. | edited Dec 17 '18, 3:04 a.m.
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / FORUM MODERATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER

Please READ the answers and documents provided by Arne and me. Understand the terminology and use the correct terminology. I am reasonably sure that you are not understanding the terminology and your question does not ask what you need to ask.


Understand what a work item template is and what a work item type - search the documentation. You can have as many work item templates as you want - which you can use in the "Create work item from template" UI sections. 

Within practical limits you can have multiple work item types e.g. called Epic 1 Epic 2 etc, if you really have a desire to confuse your users. These would be different work item types and not versions of work item types. RTC project areas can always only have one version of a work item type active.

Templates, by the way are never connected to the items created. Once they are used the created items have their own lifecycle unrelated to the one of the template.

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