Is there a preferred method to 'wrap up' a RM project area for external archive with a view to future portability?
One answer
I get asked about this a lot and neither are optimal.
ReqIF
- it's a 'standard' but levels of compliance are really varied so you have mixed success reimporting into other tools, but reimport into DNG is pretty safe
- under the hood, the contents are XML and text so they can be manipulated by external third party tools if needed
- it automatically maintains the original artefact IDs
- it only captures the artefact details, no workflows, roles, permissions, views, comments, tags
- it takes some effort to set up
Project template
- you can choose exactly what in the whole project you want to export, including things that ReqIF can't
- artefact IDs are not automatically captured
- it's totally version dependent and even subminor version changes make it impossible to import the template into a new instance. I've tried to unpack and tweak version IDs with no luck
- it captures workflows, roles, permissions etc
- it's super easy to set up and restore
Both
- only works within a project area, so cross project links need to be handled externally
- no baselines
- no GCM
What is really needed across all the ELM products is a project area export a bit like repotools -export, that captures the entire project area, preserves IDs, and is version independent. Bonus points if it can manage rebuilding links between project areas in some sort of semi automatic way like server rename