Joining a Team in Rational Team Concert 2.0

Summary

This brief article explains how to invite new members to a team and how new members can join a team using Rational Team Concert 2.0.

Introduction

Getting a new team member up and running usually takes some time and effort. They need the server information and their user ID, they need to know where to go on the server and of course what to do. Moreover, once they’ve started working more questions are to be answered: Who is this person? On which team does she work? Who do I talk to about problem X? All these questions need to be answered to allow your new team member to become productive.

With Jazz we tried to address these pain points. In this article we will look into the very first steps: inviting a team member and accepting an invitation.

Inviting a New Team Member

Team members are assigned to a team in the members section of the team area. You can add users that already exist in the repository or you can create new users. Keep in mind that when your server is secured, for example using LDAP, that the userid must correspond to an existing LDAP entry. In the example below you can see that Kim and Rick have been added to the Jazz Process component team. When you save the team area editor, the editor will detect that new team members have been added and will offer an option to send them a team invitation via email.

Option to New Invite Team Members

The presented dialog allows you to select the members that should receive a team invitation. In our example, both, Kim and Rick will receive an invitation. When you choose to send an invitation you will be presented with a wizard that allows you to customize the invitation before it is sent to the new team members.

Sending a Team Invitation

Sending invitations is not limited to the team or project area editors. Everywhere that team members are shown in the context of a team or project area, you can also choose Invite to Join Team from the context menu.

Accepting a Team Invitation

A newly invited team member who has never used Jazz before can easily find out how to accept an invitation (despite the fact that the invitation email usually gives them detailed instructions). When opened for the first time, the Jazz client presents the First Steps welcome page. This page includes a section on accepting a team invitation.

First Steps: Accepting an Invitation

Accept Team Invitation is also available from the File menu.

Accept Team Invitation

In both cases the new team member will see the Accept Team Invitation wizard as shown below for Kim. The user will paste the invitation into the wizard and on Finish the user’s Jazz client will log into the repository, connect to the project area, and open a team area editor. In our example a repository connection to https://jazz.net:9443/jazz/ would be established for the user with the id kimb. When logged in, the client will connect to the Jazz Foundation project area and will open the team area editor for the Process team area that is a child of the Jazz Foundation Development team area.

Accept Team Invitation Wizard

Accepting the team invitation automates the tedious and error prone steps of getting to the right place. In our example, Kim is now connected to the Jazz Foundation project area and sees the team area editor for the Process component team.

Team Area Editor

Using the editor she can now explore her new working environment. Here are a few suggestions:

  • She can see who is on her new team and learn about their roles.
  • She can familiarize herself with the faces of her teammates by switching to the thumbnails view.
  • By hovering over her teammates she can learn in which other teams they work.
  • She can open the User editor by choosing Open from the context menu and see in which locations her team mates work, to which percentage they work on her team, and when they are absent.
  • She can find out what a team member recently worked on by choosing Show Recent Work from the context menu. This opens the Work Item view showing the work items the team members worked on.
  • She can look into what recently happened in the team by opening the All events for this team area feed available in the Artifacts section on the Links tab of the team area editor.
  • Also from the Artifacts section on the Links tab in the editor she can access the team’s iteration plans, recent results of the team’s builds, and predefined work item queries and reports.
  • She can dive into how the team collaborates with other teams by learning how the team’s changes are flowing. She can select one of the streams in the Artifacts section and select Open from the context menu to open a Stream editor. Within the editor she can view the Components and Flow Targets of the stream.
  • She can find how her team fits into the overall team organization and thus find her way to other teams by clicking the Show in Team Organization link in the editor’s header area.

Team Organization

The Generate Team Invitation operation can be customized in the process specification. In our example, the Eclipse Way process is being used. The Eclipse Way process specifies that when a user is invited to join a team, three work items are created. These work items provide guidance to Kim on how to collaborate with her teammates by setting up a repository workspace, how to work with work items, and how to setup instant messaging. Creating a repository workspace is the first step she needs to make in order to accept changes from the team and deliver changes to her team. Work items are the essential means for organizing the team’s work. Instant messaging boosts the communication between the teammates.

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