Type System Manager Part 1

It has taken some time since I published Maintaining the Rational DOORS Next Generation type system in a configuration-management-enabled environment. Part 1: Manual procedures which is about this Jazz.net article.

I was very excited about it, because I was contributing to the effort myself. We finally have made progress and just released the next part. You can now read the article about Maintaining the Rational DOORS Next Generation type system in a configuration-management-enabled environment. Part 2: Automation.

So, what is that all about?

Type System Manager

I did some prototyping, and we experimented with different possible approaches for this automation. What we came up with is explained in the article above.

In summary, I created a prototype, lets name it Type System Manager (TSM), that can be used to automate the type system management, supporting the best practices identified in Part 1.

Example Execution Output

The prototype uses available public Doors Next Generation OSLC/REST API’s to perform the necessary tasks.

So I have been lucky to be able to do some prototyping and learn a lot about OSLC and REST API’s. The result is a prototype, that has a useful application, and is also a demonstrator for how to create automation using OSLC and REST API’s.

Usage of OSLC and REST API’s has been missing on this blog and this prepares the foundation for hopefully more examples, here in this blog, in the future.

Disclaimer and Download

I should not have to write this, but as this is the internet 8), so here goes: Any code downloadable or accessible in this post is provided as is, without support, and used at your own risk.

The code was developed in Java using Eclipse and is based on the Eclipse Lyo Client.

Thanks to IBM approving, the code was published as open source, under
 Eclipse Public License – v 1.0, in the incredible (mostly German speaking) Jazz Community and can be found here.

What is next?

The second part explains how the TSM prototype can be used and what it does and how. The next part is currently under review and will explain the details of the code, how it works, how to re-use and add to it. It also explains how to download and work with the code.

Feedback?

As mentioned in the article Comments, feedback, ideas, and experiences are greatly appreciated.

If you have questions, ask them in the Jazz.net forum instead of commenting on the article or this blog post. Tag the question as a Rational DOORS Next Generation question and add the tag: dng-type-system-management to mark it for the reader.

Summary

As always I hope that the artifacts created for this blog will useful for the Jazz user community out there. Feedback, also usage, is greatly appreciated.

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Work Item Command Line 4.3

I worked with a colleague on the Work Item Command Line ho was adding a feature for usage with a customer. That colleague had also done some changes related to availability and performance running queries. These changes where merged back into the code. WCL was missing some capabilities that I always wanted to have. I had a quick look to understand how much effort hat would be and took the opportunity to implement these capabilities on the way. While doing so, some small enhancements where added and some defects where found and fixed. All that needed to be published as a new version of WCL.

Print a work item

New in Version 4.3

The latest release 4.3 is available here and has the following changes:

• Readme.md updated
• Readme documents for deployment in source code updated
• Refactored the capability to create a string representation for a work item attribute, link or pseudo attribute (e.g. attachments) into a helper class WorkItemExportHelper
• Migrated -exportworkitems to use the new helper class WorkItemExportHelper
• Several fixes in -exportworkitems to
  • Enable error handling and make suppressing errors work
  • Introduce a new flag that exports all supported columns and links
  • If exporting all columns, order the attributes and links (except ID, Type and Summary that are by default at the beginning)
  • Checked functionality with newest OpenCSV
  • Refactoring class to make maintenance easier
• Added a new command -printworkitem that prints the attributes, attachments and supported links of a work item
  • Using the WorkItemExportHelper and its capabilities
  • Also provides switch to print all attributes and links ordered as above
  • Exports the attachments to a provided folder
• Added a new command -printtypeattributes that allows to get the attribute Id’s and Display Names for a given work item type in a project area
• Added a command -validateoslclinks that validates OSLC links and their back links in other applications fixing missing back links
• External library dependencies are added without a version number to allow newer versions

Disclaimer

Please keep in mind that the information in this blog is “as is”, unsupported, and may be outdated or inaccurate.

The Work Item Command Line (WCL) is not an officially supported application.

For information on released products, consult the product documentation, support tech notes, and the Jazz.net library.

Open Items

Some of the API used in the Work Item Command Line becomes deprecated.

• Some changes especially for -importworkitems needed for versions of RTC e.g. 6.0.5 and later
  • These will likely not work with earlier versions of RTC
  • if you need that either try an earlier version of WCL such as 4.0 or 4.1 or open an issue and I could look into a backport
• The Linking API in RTC has evolved and deprecates some API used in WCL
• OpenCSV has evolved and newer versions deprecates some API used in WCL
  • OpenCSV requires a new library commons-lang3-3.1.jar
• Migration to Maven might be something to consider

This is all not problematic yet, but needs to be addressed sooner or later.

License

WCL is released under the MIT License. See the License.txt and the license headers in the individual files.

Compatibility

This code has been used with RTC 4.x, 5.x  and 6.x with no or minimal changes and it is pretty safe to assume, that the code will work with newer versions of RTC to come.

An exception is the -importworkitems command that requires a library to use a mapping file. The capability to use the mapping file was moved into the plain Java Client libraries in RTC 6.0.5 as an internal class. To support work item import with the mapping moved to the Plain Java Client Libraries as internal API, the imports in ImportWorkItemsCommand where changed and the file com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core*.jar was removed from the jar file dependencies in the build path.

See Restore Compatibility to 6.0.4 and before for how to switch this back.

The code requires the RTC Plain Java Client Libraries.

The Export and import commands require additional external libraries that need to be downloaded and installed separately. See the document below.

Restore Compatibility to 6.0.4 and older

To support 6.0.5 and beyond the imports in ImportWorkItemsCommand where changed from:

com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core.internal.bugzilla.mappers.BugzillaMapping*

to: com.ibm.team.workitem.common.internal.importer.bugzilla.mappers.BugzillaMapping*

and the file com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core*.jar was removed from the jar file dependencies in the build path.

Follow the description in the sections beginning with Downloads how to get and rebuild the code. The steps in this section below are required to port WCL back to RTC 4.0.4 and earlier:

The original imports have been put back in past 4.0.3, but commented out. To enable the mapping for earlier versions of RTC, replace the imports *BugzillaMapping* with the versions commented out. Then add the com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core_*.jar file back in to the build path and add the required JAR file as below

From Work Item Command Line 4.1

The import commands of WCL can only provide the capability to use a mapping file by using a JAR file that only ships with the RTC Eclipse client and the SDK. The classes used for the mapping file capability are located in the library com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core.  Open the Install location of the RTC Eclipse client and search for com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core*. You should find a file names similar to this one: com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core_3.1.900.v20141010_0124.jar. The version numbers at the end could be different. Copy the JAR file into the into the libfolder of your version of WCL.

Download

The latest code can be downloaded from this GIT repository. The latest releases can be downloaded from here

There are different ways to download.

• The easiest is to download the latest code as a zip file using the button Clone or download.
  • Use the option Download ZIP to download the code as ZIP file. Once the download finishes, browse the folder structure of the ZIP file. The top level contains the README.md file. An Eclipse project is contained in the folder com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline. This project can be used to develop the code and to generate an executable.
  • It is also possible to clone the repository and import the project using GIT. Clone the GIT project to your local file system. This requires GIT or some GIT GUI to be installed. How to use GIT is out of the scope of this blog. See the help how to set up GIT and how to use it with Eclipse.
• It is also possible to download releases from the releases page. The zip code made available is in the same format as the one above can be used as described above. Note that the releases might be older, and there might be no release available for the latest code version.

See below how to import the enclosed project into Eclipse.

Some releases might contain a prepackaged executable for convenience e.g. named wcl-V4.3-20190117.zip. See the section Deploying the packaged application below for how to use this form of packaging. Please note that the prepackaged executable might not be available for all versions. The following sections explain how to create this executable. See the section Packaging the application for shipping for how to perform the packaging.

Prerequisites

Install a current Eclipse or RTC Eclipse client.

Install a current Java 1.8 JRE or Java 1.8 JDK set it as active in Eclipse as Installed JRE and Execution Environment.

Getting the code, install and deploy

Once you have installed such an environment do the following

Import the Code

• Open the Java Perspective in Eclipse.
• Import the project into Eclipse from the file system.
  • To import the ZIP file use File>Import, select Existing Projects into Workspace. Click Select archive file, browse to and select the ZIP file you downloaded. Import the enclosed Eclipse project com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.
  • To import the GIT repository use the GIT perspective to add the local cloned repository and then import the
    project com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.

Create a User Library for the Plain Java Client Libraries

• Use Window>Preferences>Java>BuildPath>User Libraries and add a user library named PlainJavaApi .
• Add the JAR files of the Plain Java Client Libraries for the version of RTC you are using.

Download and Install openCSV

• Download opencsv from http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencsv/files/opencsv/3.7/
  1. It is possible to use the latest version 4.3.2 from https://sourceforge.net/projects/opencsv/files/opencsv/
     
• Rename the jar file e.g. opencsv-3.7.jar to opencsv.jar
• Copy the library file opencsv.jar into /com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline/lib to be able to run from Eclipse

Download and Install Apache commons-lang

• Download apache commons-lang from https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-lang/download_lang.cgi version 3-3.1 worked for me
• Rename the jar file e.g. commons-lang3-3.1.jar to commons-lang.jar
• Copy the library file commons-lang.jar into /com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline/lib to be able to run from Eclipse

Check the project and recompile

• Select Project>Clean and clean the project that was just imported.
• There should be no compiler errors or issues with the classpath

The project should now have built and compiled and show no errors.

Building the WCL or extract from a Release

Follow the description in the file ReadMe – HowToRelease.txt in the root folder of the project

• To create a wcl.jar file
• To crate a WCL/lib folder
• To provide batch and license files

Follow the description in the file /lib/ReadMe.txt in the lib folder of the project

• To provide the required libraries in the WCL/lib folder

Select the folder, for example C:\Temp\wcl\ and compress the file

• Rename the archive file to wcl-Vx-YYYYMMDD.zip,
  where YYYY is the year, MM is the month and DD is the day
• The file is now ready for publishing

Use the file wcl-Vx-YYYYMMDD.zip for shipping similar to the next section.

Deploying the packaged application

Assume a file was created following the steps above and the file is called
wcl-V4.3-20190117.zip. This binary contains WCL as JAR file and other information such as licenses and Readme files. It also contains script files to set the environment and run the Jar File.

The folder lacks libraries needed to execute that need to be provided.

To deploy from this file, create a new folder as deploy location for the automation prototype. In the description here we use C:\temp. It is possible to use any other folder. In this case replace the folder in the this description by the folder you chose.

Extract the binary wcl-V4.3-20190117.zip file into the location C:\temp. There should now be a folder C:\temp\WCL. The folder among others contains the files wcl.jar, wcl.bat, wcl.sh.

Get the libraries as described in Download and Install openCSV and Download and Install Apache commons-lang above, and rename them as described in /lib/ReadMe.txt.

Check the script file and make sure to provide a valid path to a folder containing the unzipped Plain Java Client Libraries and a recent Java 1.8 is available over a Java_Home.

Call WCL using the script files or call it as Jar File as described in said script files.

Just starting with extending RTC?

If you just get started with extending Rational Team Concert, or create API based automation, start with the post Learning To Fly: Getting Started with the RTC Java API’sand follow the linked resources.

You should be able to use the following code in this environment and get your own automation or extension working.

Summary

This is only the first blog. I will try to provide a little bit more about the commands and the parameters soon.

As always, I hope this helps users out there. 

Please ask questions on in https://jazz.net/forum/questions/ and tag them rational-team-concert and wcl.

You can create issues in https://github.com/jazz-community/work-item-command-line/issues as well. 

Keep in mind this is off hours work and not officially supported.

RTC Extensions Workshop – How to fix SSL protocol errors preventing connection to Jetty Debug server

Since some time now I started to run into a blocking issue with the Extensions workshop. I was not able to find a solution so far. Today a colleague saw the same and asked for help. Here what I found.

Problem: the browser prevents connecting to the Jetty server

When launching the Jetty Debug server, everything seems to be fine. You can even connect with an Eclipse client to the server. However, if you try to follow the description in the Extensions Workshop and you try to connect with a browser to https://localhost:7443/jazz/admin you see a screen like the one below.

In Chrome the error claims

This site can’t provide a secure connection localhost sent an invalid response.

Try running Windows Network Diagnostics.

ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR

Firefox is even more alarming and says

Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to localhost:7443. Peer reports it experienced an internal error. Error code: SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT

The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.

Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.

Learn more…

Report errors like this to help Mozilla identify and block malicious sites

Edge complains

Can’t connect securely to this page

This might be because the site uses outdated or unsafe TLS security settings. If this keeps happening, try contacting the website’s owner.

Try this:

Go back to the last page

It looks like the usual SSL issue with the standard certificate, but it actually is not. It does not allow you to proceed and add an exception to connect to the web site.

You are basically stuck.

I had the same issue yesterday with 6.0.5 and 6.0.6 and I knew it was working very recently – when I moved to my new laptop. I searched the internet and was not really sure about a solution still. The answers pointed at version issues and certification mismatches. So I decided to switch the Eclipse environment to a current JDK and that solved the problem. I have tried it with RTC 6.0.5 and 6.0.6 but I am pretty sure it would work with other versions as well.

Please note that the Extensions workshop suggests to use the same JDK the Server uses. I think since Browsers have recently increased their security measures, this is no longer true.

Solution

Here how to fix the problem.

• Download and install a recent Java JDK/JRE that is compatible with the version of the RTC SDK you are working with.
  • 6.0.6 is compatible with Java 1.8
  • I use a JDK because there are other development tools that require a JDK
• Open the Eclipse server development workspace
• Open Window>preferences
• Type JRE and navigate to Java>Installed JREs
  • Add the new JDK/JRE
  • Select the JDK/JRE as active click Apply and Close
  • Navigate to Java>Installed JREs>Execution Environments
  • Select the Execution Environment with the matching version
  • Select the new JDK/JRE as active click Apply and Close
• Launch the Jetty debug server

Now try to login to https://localhost:7443/jazz/admin again. You still get an error, however the browser provides the Advanced link to continue connection to the site.

The different browsers display it different, but the concept is the same for all of them.

Summary

Recent increases of browser security checks and invalidation of certificates requires to update to recent versions of the Java JDK/JRE to be used with the Extensions workshop. As always I hope that this helps people out there.

Maintaining the Rational DOORS Next Generation type system in a configuration-management-enabled environment. Part 1: Manual procedures

I have been involved in efforts around the configuration management features in the IBM Collaborative Lifecycle Management and Continuous Engineering Solution. These Configuration Management capabilities are a completely new approach to versioning and variant management across the different disciplines such as Requirements Management, Quality Management, Modeling, and Software Change and Configuration Management. We realize that there is a whole new area for best practices and our subject matter experts have been working on creating necessary information for some time. There is already some content available on Jazz.net. For example from Kathryn and Tim in the Deployment Wiki.

As we learn we try to create more content, involving more SMEs. Today we published the article Maintaining the Rational DOORS Next Generation type system in a configuration-management-enabled environment. Part 1: Manual procedures.

I am currently working on Part 2. If you want to know what that could be, check the article.

I am pretty excited, I hope to publish soon!

Meet at the CE Summit in Munich

I will be attending the Continuous Engineering Summit in Europe and I hope to meet CLM users that I usually only meet on the Jazz Forum or in the comment section of my blog.

The conference will be 14-16 May 2018 in the Westin Grand Hotel, Munich

If you are interested, here the conference details and the registration link.

Hope to see you there!

Work Item Command Line 4.1

I recently had a chat with a colleague who is trying to automate RTC Work Item creation. As a casual user without administration experience they where wondering how to find the IDs for the work item types to be able to create work items of the types in WCL. Today you must know the ID of the work item and look them up in the administration UI.

I always wanted to add the ability to be able to list the available work item types in WCL, but for whatever reason I never got to searching the API and add it to WCL.  Having some time last week I took the opportunity to finally implement it. This closes a last big gap that WCL left open. Users can now print the work item types and with that information print the attributes available on the work item type.

A small description how to use WCL can be found here. WCL prints a help if the command is omitted. The help information is very long. Make sure to redirect it into a file or increase the shell buffer size.

This post provides the code for the latest version of WCL and also a description how to install WCL.

License

WCL is released under the MIT License. See the License.txt and the license headers in the individual files.

Compatibility

This code has been used with RTC 4.x, 5.x  and 6.x with no or minimal changes and it is pretty safe to assume, that the code will work with newer versions of RTC to come. The code requires the RTC Plain Java Client Libraries. The Export and import commands require additional external libraries that need to be downloaded and installed separately. See the document below.

Download

Source Code for Download

The code is available in the Jazz Community. WCL 4.1 is available in this release.

Additional Download

You can also download the latest version 4.1 here:

• The packaged, executable application
  

Changes

Added a command printtypes to list the work item types available for a project area.

wcl -printtypes repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=****** projectArea="JKE Banking (Change Management)"

lists the work item types. The output will look like below:

The Type ID is the work item type ID required to set and get work item information. The type category is an additional information to understand if work item types have the same workflow.

Download the Plain Java Client Libraries

WCL requires at least the RTC Plain Java Client Libraries for your version of RTC. To download that, open the All Downloads tab of the RTC version you are interested in. For example https://jazz.net/downloads/rational-team-concert/releases/6.0.5?p=allDownloads and scroll down to the Plain .zip Files section.

Download the RTC Plain Java Client Libraries file.

Use 7Zip and unzip the RTC Plain Java client Libraries download file (for example named RTC-Client-plainJavaLib-6.0.5.zip). Use 7Zips Extract Files command and provide the extraction Path for example C:\RTCWCL\PlainJavaAPI. Remember the location for later.

Optional: Download the Plain Java Client Libraries API documentation and extract it to the same folder you extracted the RTC Plain Java client Libraries download.

How to Install WCL

There are several ways how the WCL can be set up and run. The two main methods are:

1. As pre-compiled Java e.g in a jar file using a batch file
2. Using launch files to run or debug in Eclipse

The following sections explain the first method.

Create Packaged Version

To package your own version of WCL for release from the source code, setup your development environment as described in the next section. Then follow the document ReadMe – HowToRelease.txt in the eclipse project com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline you can find in the source code to package WCL.

Install Packaged Version

If you download the packaged, executable application latest version 4.1, the download is already packaged and prepared. The downloaded file is compressed and will be named like WCL_V4.1_20180323.zip. Extract the WCL package file e.g. using 7Zip to a folder, for example C:\RTCWCL.

The folders structure should look as below.

Check and Adjust the Script File

To work, the WCL needs a Java JRE or JDK. Open the file wcl.bat or wcl.sh. Provide a JRE or JDK. I Usually use a JRE that comes with the CCM server or a JDK that comes with the Eclipse client. However any compatible JRE should do.

Change the JAVA_HOME variable to point to a location containing a JRE. If needed, remove the path section  JRE from the final call.

If you installed the Plain Java Client Libraries API into a different location, set the variable PLAIN_JAVA to that folder location.

Make sure the files are executable and test WCL e.g. by calling wcl and running one of the commands. For example use the new prittypes command

wcl -printtypes repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=****** projectArea="JKE Banking (Change Management)"

Provide Additional Libraries

The export and the import commands of WCL need two libraries that are not shipped with the downloads.

If you use the packaged WCL and want to use the export/import capability follow the steps below to add the required libraries to the folder lib in the folder lib in the WCL folder.

If you use the Eclipse project for WCL and want to use the export/import capability follow the steps below to add the required libraries to the folder lib in the Eclipse project com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.

The export and the import commands of WCL use the Open CSV Library. I had issues with the newer versions of Open CSV that I could not resolve, so this code assumes the version 3.7. Download the version 3.7 from here. Uncompress and untar the the file opencsv-3.7-src-with-libs.tar.gz you downloaded. Look for the folder opencsv-3.7 deploy\ copy the JAR file opencsv-3.7.jar and put it into the lib folder of your version of WCL.

It is possible to use other such libraries like SuperCSV with minor changes to the source code as well.

The import commands of WCL can only provide the capability to use a mapping file by using a JAR file that only ships with the RTC Eclipse client and the SDK. The classes used for the mapping file capability are located in the library com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core.  Open the Install location of the RTC Eclipse client and search for com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core*. You should find a file names similar to this one: com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core_3.1.900.v20141010_0124.jar. The version numbers at the end could be different. Copy the JAR file into the into the lib folder of your version of WCL.

Installing the Source Code

The best approach to develop for the RTC Java APIs is, to setup the development environment based on the RTC SDK . This provides with the source code for the API and allows to search examples. This saves so much time in the long run that saving the effort of setting the SDK makes no sense. So follow the instructions in the next section.

Just starting with extending RTC?

If you just get started with extending Rational Team Concert, or create API based automation, start with the post Learning To Fly: Getting Started with the RTC Java API’s and follow the linked resources.

Importing the Source Code

Get the source code from the Jazz Community. Use Git to clone the project and import the source project into Eclipse. You can also download the source as a zip file and import the project with the other Eclipse Import wizards. Switch to the Java perspective or the Plug in Development perspective.

The project should look as below

The folders contain the information to build the jar file, to run the and debug the code, folder for additional libraries and the scripts to run the Java application from a shell.

The Eclipse project is a Plug-in development project. This trick provides the access to the SDK and the API source code.

Install The Plain Java Client Libraries

The project references the Plain Java Client Libraries and needs them to run.

So the minimum additional step needed to be able to run the WCL for development in Eclipse is to install the RTC Plain Java Client Libraries as a user library.  The Plain Java Client Libraries have already been downloaded and installed. The same folder with the install can be used in the next steps.

Open Windows>Preferences and type “User lib” into the search window.

In the Java>Build Path User Libraries click the New… button. Type the name that is alreay referenced: PlainJavaAp. Click OK.

Select the new User Library and click Add External JARs…

Browse to the folder containing the Plain Java Client Libraries C:\RTCWCL\PlainJavaAPI in this example. Select all JAR files and click open.

The User Library should now contain the libraries.

Go back to the section “Provide Additional Libraries” and add the libraries to the folder lib. Make sure the libraries are available. Remove and re add the jar files to the build path if needed.

You should now be able to run or debug the WCL from within Eclipse. The debug configurations shipped with the source code in the Launches folder are now available under the Debug>Debug Configuration section.

Change the configurations as needed.

To package your own version of WCL for release from the source code, follow the document ReadMe – HowToRelease.txt in the eclipse project com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline you can find in the source code to package WCL.

Summary

You should now be able to start working on WCL and enhance it if needed. I hope this document helps the many users out there.

Extending RTC to allow coordination of work across multiple work items

RTC allows to organize and track work using work items. However, out of the box, there is very few support to be able to coordinate work across multiple work item. It is possible to use links to create a relationship between work items. However, these relationships don’t have an executable semantic implemented. For example marking a task as dependent on another task does not automate anything. You can still work on both tasks and close them, regardless of the relationship.

It is possible to use the API and methods described in this blog to add more automation. Examples are follow up actions and pre-conditions that look at work items and their relationships when saving them. Some of the examples published here actually look at work item relationships. However, the examples are fairly simplistic and don’t show the full potential.

Greg Hodgkinson created a more complex RTC extension to coordinate work across multiple work items which I found out when he answered to a jazz.net forum question I was following. I think his blog A Solution For Tracking and Monitoring Multi-Stream Processes Using Rational Team Concert is very interesting and an inspiration so I would suggest to read it. Currently there is no code published, because this was done for a customer, however, Greg plans to post about this in more detail in the future and might share snippets. Even if not, often seeing what others have done and how they did it helps developing something similar.

Gregs explanation of the use case and the approach is explained here: A Solution For Tracking and Monitoring Multi-Stream Processes Using Rational Team Concert

Status History Presentation for RTC

Rational Team Concert (RTC) has a built-in feature to view the history of a work item. But especially for work items with many changes, it is hard to follow the Status of a work item over time. That’s why Lukas created the amazing Status History Presentation for RTC and published it in the DACH Jazz Community project. It shows all Status changes since the creation of the work item in form of a timeline in the RTC work item Web UI.

Follow the instructions in the Status History Presentation for RTC project to download and install the editor presentation server extension. The Open Source project also serves as a great example for how to write a custom editor presentation.

After installing this extension plug-in into your RTC instance (server side), you will be able to add a “Status History” presentation on your work item editors (WEB only). You can add this  presentation to a work item editor section for example the Quick Info section. Once the presentation is available it will

• Show all state changes in a timeline
• Show who did the state change
• Show the number of days a work item was or is in a state
• A Rich Hover shows additional information about the changes made together with the state change

Many thanks to the DACH Jazz Community for sharing their amazing work.

Adding a check-in participant to Rational Team Concert source control

Rational Team Concert 6.0.4 tries to make the check-in operation available to advisors and follow up actions.

Michael Valenta recently published an article on Adding a check-in participant to Rational Team Concert source control. on Jazz.net which provides details about this.

If you are interested in advisors and follow up actions, especially for SCM, this is an important article. Have a look and give him a thumbs up.

Please make sure to check with the links in the next section if you are just starting with the RTC Java API.

Just starting with extending RTC?

If you just get started with extending Rational Team Concert, or create API based automation, start with the post Learning To Fly: Getting Started with the RTC Java API’s and follow the linked resources.

You should be able to use the following code in this environment and get your own automation or extension working.

Jazz Community Contributions

The Jazz Community starts sharing their tools here: http://jazz-community.org/. The code for their tools can be found here.

There is a very active Jazz user community of members of several companies in Europe that are heavily using the Jazz products such as Rational Team Concert, Rational Quality Manager and Doors Next Generation.

The community members try to meet to share their experience with using, administrating and running the Jazz tools in their environments. It became clear that the different companies and community members face similar challenges and that it would be beneficial if they could share tools they created to make running such an environment easier.

The community has now started sharing their tools in this community project and in this code repository.

Some of the tools have already been shared on other sites. I have linked the ones I am aware of to the Interesting links page in the ‘Extensions Provided by the Community’ section. These are the ones I am aware of (and the code for some of them is already available in the community repository):

• JAM – Jazz Workallocation Manager A lightweight Web client to manage the Workallocation of users or team within Jazz/RTC
  
• Timebox Planning View – A new widget for RTC to allow iteration planning of work items in a “Tetris-Like” way
  
• New RTC Timebox Planning Widget with SAFe Support
  
• The Work Item Command Line is now available in the community as well
  

I am looking forward to see more community created tools soon. Visit the community to find out what they have to offer. The code for their tools can be found here.

Last but not least, a special thanks to Dani for getting this awesome user groups started and for the members of said community for their spirit, engagement and willingness to contribute and help each other. You know whom I address here!