Taking snapshots of workspaces

A snapshot is a read-only list of resources and their versions that are part of a space at a specific point in time. You must use a snapshot as the basis of a new workspace; completing this action defines a starting point for a project. You can take a snapshot of a workspace at any point during the project lifecycle, such as before or after a project milestone is reached. You might also take a snapshot of a default space, such as the Domains space, after you import a profile.

Before you begin

You should be familiar with project areas, configuration spaces, snapshots, workspaces, and change sets, which are described in Management of shared design resources.

You must be logged in to a Design Management project, and you must be in a workspace that is associated with this space.

You must have permissions to create, edit, or delete snapshots. This permission is part of the Team Configuration permissions, and the location of these permissions varies depending on the collaborative lifecycle management (CLM) product that you use. For more information about setting permissions, see the link to the related task at the end of this topic. By default, the Design Management client access licenses (CALs) contain these permissions.

About this task

A snapshot records the current versions of resources in a workspace. A snapshot is a repository object that you can use to return your workspace to an earlier configuration: for example, you can preserve the workspace configuration that was in place when you released a project for testing.

Procedure

  1. Complete one of the following steps:
    • In the Design Management application: From a project dashboard, on the banner, near the top right of the page, from the Current Configuration Context menu, in the Manage Configurations section, select Create New Snapshot.
    • In the Configurations Explorer view: On the Configurations page, hover the cursor in the Actions column beside a configuration name, and click the New Snapshot icon.
  2. On the Overview page that is displayed, type over the New Snapshot Name field to specify a name for the snapshot. Each snapshot name must be unique within the space.
  3. Optional: Type a description for the snapshot. The description helps to identify the snapshot in a list of other snapshots in the same space. Consider adding information about why you are creating the snapshot, or include the names and description of the models that the snapshot contains.
  4. To specify that this new snapshot is based on configurations that are contained in other spaces, click the Dependencies link; then click Add Configurations and select the configuration or configurations.
  5. To save the snapshot, click Create. The system might take a few minutes to create the snapshot.
  6. Optional: Complete one of the following steps:
    • To return to the Configuration Explorer view, click Return to previous page; or, in the breadcrumb trail in the upper left, click Configurations.
    • To return to the Design Management application, in the breadcrumb trail, click Design Management; then use the Current Configuration Context menu in the upper-right corner of the toolbar to select or search for the snapshot.

What to do next

You can now browse the resources in the snapshot, or you might create a workspace for your new work, where you modify and create versions of the shared design resources. At any time during the project lifecycle, you can use the snapshot as a baseline to see how resources have changed. You can also revert to the versions of the resources that are captured in the snapshot.

You can also specify to automatically create a project area snapshot as part of the Rational® Software Architect import process; however, you cannot create snapshots when you import Rational Rhapsody® models. When you specify to create a snapshot as part of the import process, the snapshot is taken after the import process completes. However, the snapshot is taken of the entire project area, not just the new artifacts that you imported. You might consider scheduling the import process to occur at specific times. When you schedule the import process, you can also create snapshots of your project area; you should give these snapshots unique names. For more information about configuring the import operations, see the related task topic.


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