Cloning test artifacts

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Reorganize how artifacts are grouped in your project area by cloning them from one component into another. When you clone an artifact, a new version is added to the stream of the component that you work in. To avoid adding extra artifacts to stream, when you clone a duplicate artifact, the system does not clone its source artifact.

Before you begin

A Quality Management (QM) project area administrator must enable configuration management for the project.
You must have permission to clone artifacts.
A baseline of the component that contains the artifacts to clone must exist.
Understand how to organize your artifacts so that when you finishing cloning, an artifact and all the ones it references are in the same component.
Decide whether to exclude test results or test execution records. To exclude them, set the corresponding configuration management preference. You might exclude them if the test results or execution records from an earlier baseline do not matter for your work in another stream.

About this task

Each configuration-enabled project area that you create contains an initial component. You can create other components to represent smaller logical or physical pieces of your project. Then, you can reorganize the artifacts across the components by either cloning or copying them. Starting in version 6.0.3 when you enable the project area for configuration management, you can create components and reorganize the artifacts from an earlier project version so that you don't have all the artifacts in one configuration.

For example, you have an Airplane project area in a previous version of IBM® Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM). After you upgrade to a version later than 6.0.3, you might reorganize that project area into components such as Engine, Fuselage, Wing, Cockpit, and other components. Then, you can use the clone task to reorganize the artifacts into the new components.

When you clone a QM artifact, a new version is added to the QM stream that you work in, and that artifact now exists in two different configurations. Although the system does not prevent you from doing so, you should not add those configurations to the same global configuration.

You can clone the following test artifacts:

Test plans
Test cases
Test scripts
Test suites
Test suite execution records
Test case execution records
Test suite results
Test case results
Keywords
Test environments

Note: Remember, after you clone an artifact, you can't clone it again from any baseline in the component you cloned from into any stream in the component you cloned into.

Example: You clone TC1 from Baseline1 of the Airplane component into Stream1 of the Engine component. You cannot clone TC1 again from any Airplane baseline into any Engine stream.

Use the following table to help you decide whether to clone artifacts or duplicate them.

Table 1. Comparison of cloning and copying (duplicating) operations
Decision points	Cloning	Copying (Duplicating)
Create a new version of the artifact (artifact URL stays the same)		A new artifact is created with a new URL.
Preserve artifact history		A new artifact is created; there is no history to preserve.
Preserve outgoing links (the QM application owns links to Architecture Management (AM), QM, and RM artifacts)	If link validity is enabled, the link validity status of links from the cloned artifacts is preserved.	If link validity is enabled, the link validity status of links from the copied artifacts is set to Unknown. You must reset the link validity status. For details, see Viewing and changing link validity status in ELM projects.
Ability to view incoming links (links from upstream artifacts in the Change and Configuration Management (CCM) application) Note: Link validity is not supported on links from QM artifacts to CCM artifacts.	Incoming links from CCM artifacts are not cloned because the CCM application owns the link. However, because the artifact URL does not change when you clone the artifact, you can see incoming links when you work in a global configuration that contains the configuration that contains the cloned artifacts and the configurations from the other applications contain the links.	Copied artifacts have a different URL. You must recreate links to related artifacts in the CCM application.
Ability to work with artifacts in other projects	At this time you can clone artifacts only across components within one project, and the project must be enabled for configuration management.	You can duplicate artifacts across projects when you specify a target stream, but if you duplicate artifacts within one project you can not specify a target stream. Consider these examples: You can duplicate a test artifact from a configuration in Project 1 into a stream of a component in another project. You cannot duplicate a test artifact from a configuration in Project 1 into a stream of another component in Project 1.

Procedure

Optional: Consider taking a baseline of the stream you want to clone artifacts into, so that you can revert to it if you clone the wrong artifacts or the results are not what you expect.
On the toolbar, set the Current Configuration menu to the stream that you want to clone artifacts into and select Clone from a Component.
Select the baseline of the component that contains the artifacts that you want to clone, and click OK.
Click an artifact type in the list (such as Test Plan or Test Case).
The table lists the artifacts that you can clone.
Select the check boxes for the artifacts to clone, then from the menu beside the check box, select Clone artifacts.
If you try to clone an artifact that already exists in the stream you clone into, that artifact is not cloned. Two versions of the same artifact cannot exist in one configuration.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 for each artifact type to clone.
Click Close.

Results

Check that the stream you cloned into contains the artifacts that you expect.

What's cloned:

All the test artifacts that are linked from the artifact that you clone, whether or not they are in the preceding list.
Test data that is referenced by test scripts that you clone.

For details, see Cloning: Referenced artifacts.

Example: Test Plan A contains Test Case A, which is associated with Test Script A. When you clone Test Plan A, all three artifacts (Test Plan A, Test Case A, Test Script A) are also cloned.

Conversely, test artifacts that are linked to the artifact that you clone are not cloned. For example, when you clone Test Case A, only Test Case A and Test Script A are cloned into the stream.

Duplicate artifacts:

If the artifact you clone is a duplicate (copy), its source artifact is not cloned: to reduce the number of redundant artifacts in the new stream, QM does not clone "Copied From" or "Copy Root" artifacts.

Tip: To show these properties, add the corresponding column in a list view, or see the Copies section in an artifact view.

Example: You have a test case named TC1 and you copy it within the stream and name it TC1_copy. When you clone TC1_copy into another stream, TC1 is not cloned.

Link validity: If link validity is enabled, the link validity status of links to QM and RM artifacts is preserved.

Fixing errors: If you clone the wrong artifacts or you get results that you don't expect, delete (archive) the artifacts that you don't need from the stream. You can restore it from the Trash view later if you need it. To get further changes to that artifact from the source baseline, you must manually copy the changes.