Delivering change sets in the DOORS Next application

After you finish adding or changing artifacts in a change set, you can deliver that change set to its stream. The changes are then available to anyone who uses the stream. You can deliver only one change set at a time.

Before you begin

  • Ensure that you are familiar with project areas, components (if supported), baselines, streams, and change sets (if supported).
  • Ensure that you are familiar with global configurations and personal streams (if your organization uses them).
  • Ensure that you are logged in to a project.
  • You must have permission to deliver change sets.
  • In some projects, an administrator might require you to link change sets to work items that are approved (as defined by the application that manages work items). If this option is enabled, review the work item to ensure that this condition is met before you deliver the change set.

About this task

An administrator can prevent unauthorized changes to artifacts by requiring you to link change sets to work items or change requests that have at least one approval. The governance of your project or organization determines when this option is enabled. For example, at the start of a project or release, the option might not be enabled so that team members can easily deliver many changes. Toward the end of a milestone or release, the option might be enforced so that only authorized changes are delivered. Dependent change sets must also be linked to approved work items.

Procedure

  1. You can deliver a change set to its stream in different ways:
    • If the configuration context is set to the change set to deliver, on the toolbar, click Current Configuration > Deliver Change Set.
    • If the configuration context is set to the stream that contains the change set to deliver:
      Note: To switch to the stream that contains the change set, on the toolbar, click Current Configuration > Switch, and search for the stream.
      1. Click Current Configuration > Local Configuration: > stream name.
      2. In the configuration editor, click the Change Sets tab.
      3. In the Actions column on the left of the change set, click Deliver change set.
    • If your team uses global configurations, you can deliver a change set from your personal stream in the Global Configuration Management (GCM) application. Remember, personal streams contain only one change set at a time. See the related topic about working with personal streams. For more information about working with multiple change sets, see the related topic.
  2. Follow the prompts and complete the steps in the wizard.
    You can review all changes using the Standard delivery of change sets. Additionally, you can speed up or customize the delivery process with the Express or Custom delivery options.
    • Express: You have many changes to deliver and don't need to review them. Automatically deliver all the changes without reviewing them; you are notified for any conflicts.

      Automatically resolve conflicts where possible: Select to resolve conflicts that occur when different attributes of an artifact are modified in each configuration. For instance, the primary text modified in the source and the description modified in the target. If the same attribute is modified in both configurations, delivery stops and you resolve the differences.

    • Custom: You might have many changes or you want to control which ones are delivered. Select all or a subset of them; choose to review them or not; and specify how the system handles conflicts.

      Select Preview changes and manually resolve any conflicts to manually review the changes, or choose from the following options:

      • Notify me: When a conflict occurs between artifacts, the delivery stops and you resolve the conflict.
      • Automatically merge where possible: Select to resolve conflicts that occur when different attributes of an artifact are modified in each configuration. For instance, the primary text modified in the source and the description modified in the target. If the same attribute is modified in both configurations, delivery stops and you resolve the differences.
      • Always overwrite with source: When a conflict occurs between artifacts, the version in the change set automatically overwrites the version in the target stream.
      • Specify dominant source attributes: When a conflict occurs between artifacts, the conflict is resolved by automatically delivering the values of attributes that you selected. When you deliver your changes, if the system detects a conflict between the artifact versions in the source and target configurations, it delivers only the selected attribute values for that artifact version to the target stream.
    If you choose to review your changes, use the controls on the Deliver Change Sets page.
    • View the artifacts in the change set: Expand and collapse the sections on the left side of the page.
      On the Deliver Change Sets page, sections on the left show new, modified, and removed artifacts

    • See differences when artifacts changed in both the change set and the target stream: Expand the Changed in both section, and click an artifact. Changes are color-coded in the changes section.
      Help icon shows how changes are color-coded

      To toggle between a side-by-side comparison and single-pane view of the changed artifacts, click Side-by-side comparison Icon that shows a window split vertically into two panes on the toolbar

    • Deliver the changes for an artifact: Use the Changed in both section and the options that are available on the page for delivering the changes. Shows the controls to deliver the changes to artifacts
      Shows the Mark as Resolved control
    • Select or exclude individual changes for delivery: For each changed attribute, select an option.
      Menu beside an artifact attribute shows the delivery options

    • Manually merge changes using the Primary Text field: When you select the Manually Merge menu option for the Primary Text field, a dialog box opens with an editable Primary Text field. The field is populated with the target value, since that is what you can edit. The dialog box also shows the read-only source value for comparison:
      • You can use either the source or target text as the base to edit and make changes as needed. To use the text of the source artifact as a starting point for your changes, click Start With Source Text. The text of the target artifact moves to the other pane so that you can compare them.
      • You can include existing embedded artifacts, links, and terms from both the source and the target by using copy and paste or drag-and-drop.
      • You can copy a link or an image to the clipboard without selecting the entire link text or image. In the read-only primary text content on the left side of the dialog box, right-click a link or an image and click Copy.
      • You can also click and drag a link or an image from the left side and drop it into the editable Primary Text field on the right.

      Click Apply Changes when you finish.

      Shows details of the Manually Merge dialog box
  3. Click Deliver near the upper right of the page.

Results

The changes are now available in the stream and are visible to team members who use the stream.

If you are working in a personal stream, after you deliver the change set, it is automatically removed from your personal stream.

What to do next

You can now deliver those changes to other streams in the DOORS Next application. You can either deliver all the change sets or only selected ones from one stream to another. For more information, see the related topic.