You can use the IBM® Rational® Team Concert Eclipse
client to create a workflow that a master lifecycle is modeled on,
or modify an existing workflow.
Before you begin
Note: Creating new workflows, or modifying existing workflows
is only available when you are using Enterprise server licenses. A
Standard server license does not support custom workflows; only the
predefined workflows can be used. This task requires web server administrator
credentials.
You can use Rational Team Concert to
create a workflow or modify an existing workflow that you can use
to configure new lifecycles in IBM Rational Asset Manager.
With
the Rational Team Concert version
4.0.1 Eclipse client, you can create a work item and a workflow, bind
them, and save your changes to create a workflow that is available
on Rational Asset Manager.
You can download the Rational Team Concert Eclipse
client from jazz.net.
Prerequisites:
- Rational Team Concert Eclipse
client version 4.0.1 or later must be installed. You can download
the client from jazz.net.
- You must know the server URL. Use the same URL as the one that
is specified in Rational Asset Manager on
the Configuration page for the Rational Team Concert server: . You must use the same server URL for the Rational Team Concert connection
that is set for the instance of the Rational Team Concert server
that was supplied with Rational Asset Manager.
Use the same web server admin credentials to log in to Rational Team Concert when
you create the workflow.
- You must know the user name and password for the web server admin
permissions.
Procedure
To create a workflow:
- From the Rational Team Concert client,
connect to the Rational Team Concert server
that was supplied with Rational Asset Manager.
You must use the same server URL for the Rational Team Concert connection
that is set for the Rational Team Concert server
that was supplied with Rational Asset Manager.
To find the URL, click . You must use the same web server admin credentials to log in
to this new connection. You must connect to the RAM Lifecycle project
area the first time in your Rational Team Concert client.
Afterward, if you are connected, the RAM Lifecycle project
area is displayed.
- Click the tab.
- Create a work item type and category. To modify
a workflow, you select an existing work item type and category. You
do not add new types or categories.
- Under Configuration, select
- Add a work item type to a category. Under Work
Item Types, click Add. The
work item type is what is visible as a workflow in Rational Asset Manager.
- In the Add Type window, enter a Name and ID. For example, enter MyWorkItemType and MyWorkItemTypeID. The workflow item type name can be any name that you specify
but it is displayed as the workflow in Rational Asset Manager (not
the workflow category name or the work item type category). The ID
must be unique.
- In the Add Type window, if you
want to create a work item category, click New Category and
then enter a name for the work item category. The category name must
be unique. To modify a workflow, select an existing type
category.
- In the Attributes section of
the Types and Attributes page, add three required
attribute types:
- Click Add, select Reuse Existing
Attribute, and from the list choose Asset link.
Click OK.
- Click Add, select Reuse Existing
Attribute, and from the list choose Active
state history. Click OK.
- Click Add, select Reuse Existing
Attribute, and from the list choose Repository
id. Click OK.
- Click Save.
- Create a Rational Team Concert workflow. To modify a workflow, you select an existing workflow.
- In Rational Team Concert,
in the Project Area, click
- To create a workflow, under Choose the Workflow
to edit click Add, and enter a
name and ID. To modify a workflow, select an existing
workflow and add or modify states and transitions.
- In the Name field, enter a name
for the workflow.
- Create the state transition model.
- To create a state, under States click Add and
then name the state. Repeat this step for each state in your workflow.
- To create a transition, under Transitions use
the lists to specify an action or to create a action for transitions
from one state to another state. Repeat this step for each transition
in your workflow.
- A Start action is required. From the list,
enter a state for the Start action by choosing
an existing state or creating a new one.
Addtitionally, you can add icons. They are not required but using
icons can help make the asset display in Rational Asset Manager more
understandable to users.
- Click Save.
- Bind the new workflow and new work item category.
- Select .
- Under Work Item Types, select
the name of the work item type that you created or modified in the
previous steps.
- Under Workflow, specify the workflow
that you created or modified in the previous steps.
- Click Save.
You are finished with creating the new or modifying the
existing workflow.
- To make the workflow available in Rational Asset Manager,
restart Rational Asset Manager or
wait 10 minutes for the caches to be cleared. Rational Asset Manager includes
an in-memory cache of workflows. The cache is cleared after 10 minutes,
but if Rational Asset Manager is
restarted, it detects the updated workflows from the Rational Team Concert server.
You can also click . In version 7.2 and later, the cache
is only cleared on the server that the user is logged in to. In a
cluster environment, this feature might cause a problem because it
clears the cache on one server, but does not clear the Rational Team Concert cache
on other servers in the cluster.
- To validate that the new workflow is available, log in
to Rational Asset Manager as
an administrator and select Administration and
under Communities select a community. For the
selected community, click . In
the list of workflows, the name of the workflow that you created or
modified is displayed.
After Rational Asset Manager is
recycled, if the new workflow is not visible, the workflow might not
be configured correctly and you must use the Rational Team Concert client
to make the necessary updates (for example, if you did not specify
a unique ID for your work item, then it will not be displayed). Log
in to Rational Team Concert and
review the details of the new work item and workflow to ensure that
you specified a unique work item type name, the required attributes,
a workflow Start action, and a correct state transition model. Make
changes to the workflow as needed, save them, restart the Rational Asset Manager server
and verify that the workflow is available.