Category: Testing

by Christophe Telep

This new release of IBM Engineering Workflow Management (EWM) brings additional capabilities in all the product areas: agile planning, source control, build, Git integration as well as enterprise extensions. Similarly, in this new release of IBM Engineering Test Management (ETM) version 7.0.1, you will find many improvements in several functions including test planning, test execution or the ETM Excel importer. I am delighted to have the opportunity to share a couple of the key enhancements for each of these products.

IBM Engineering Workflow Management (EWM)

Agile Planning

In version 6.0.6.1, a new Program Board graphical view was added to provide enhanced support for iteration planning at the program or team level. The Program Board shows dependencies in a specific scope, such as across programs or teams. With v7.0.1, users can now create multiple Program Boards in a project area and share them with project members, team members or individual users.

Multiple Program Boards

This release adds two predefined process templates that support Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe) version 5.0:

• Essential SAFe 5.0: Use this template to establish a Program/Team tooling environment.
• Full SAFe 5.0: Use this template to establish a Portfolio tooling environment with the Large Solution layer for the Full SAFe 5.0 configuration. This environment is associated with one or more Essential SAFe Program/Team tooling environments.

Source Control

In the code review capability, issue types and resolutions can now be defined to more easily track and report on code review status and outcome. A new preference is available to allow modification of resolved issues after the code review is closed including changing their type or resolution and adding comments. However, resolved issues cannot be reopened. Developers can add a comment when submitting change sets for code review and when resubmitting after modifications. Reviewers can also add a comment when submitting review assessments and they can adjust the automatically calculated time spent on the review.  Code review approvals can be set as conditions for the deliver operation in the “Require Work Item Approval” advisor.

Code Review Issue Types

Build

The new option named “optimized incremental load” will speed up the loading process part of a Jazz or EWM Jenkins build. When enabled, only modified files are fetched from the workspace, local changes are not reverted and untracked files are not deleted.

Git Integration

When submitting Pull Requests in GitHub or Merge Requests in GitLab, links to EWM work items can be created by specifying the work item number in the pull or merge request description. The status of the pull requests and merge requests linked to a work item is now shown on that work item Pull Requests tab.

Enterprise Extensions

A new REST API allows the promotion of z/OS work item packages. If the option to generate a UrbanCode Deploy packages has been configured, the source change set metadata generated on the packages can be used as an input parameter for this Package Promotion API. The deployment system can run customized deployment processes that issue calls to this API to synchronously (or asynchronously) deliver the change sets while their version is being deployed. To validate whether the change sets are not in conflict with the production’s source state before deployment, Package Promotion might be called in the preview mode.

IBM Engineering Test Management (ETM)

Test Planning

A new Suspect Result status for Test Case Execution Records automatically flags tests that may need to be executed again. It is automatically set on the test case execution records when the corresponding test case or the test script has been modified after the last run. Users can get notified by email when execution records are marked suspect.

Suspect Result

Users can link multiple test cases to the same set of lifecycle artifacts, such as requirements, in one single action. They can also associate one Test Script with multiple Test Cases in one gesture.

Test Execution

Two new preconditions – Disallow execution of Test Case/Suite Execution Record without current iteration association – can now be associated to the Execute Test Case/Suite operation in the project area administration page. When one of these preconditions is enabled for a user role, users with that role cannot run the test case/suite execution records which are not associated with the current iteration. The objective is to prevent users from selecting the wrong records by mistake and running tests planned for a past or a future iteration.

ETM Excel importer

The ETM Excel importer has received a large set of enhancements including the ability to link test cases to existing requirements in specific modules, the option to save authentication credentials and more detailed messages displayed in the progress UI when the import operation fails.

Those are only a few of the many enhancements delivered in these new releases of IBM Engineering Workflow Management and IBM Engineering Test Management. To see a complete list of enhancements for EWM v7.0.1, please see https://jazz.net/pub/new-noteworthy/ewm/7.0.1/7.0.1/index.html. To see a complete list of enhancements for ETM v7.0.1, please see https://jazz.net/pub/new-noteworthy/etm/7.0.1/7.0.1/index.html.

Thank you for your continued support and stay safe.

by Richard Watson

Building on the themes of ELM 7.0, our next release is just around the corner. Since 7.0.1 has come so soon after 7.0, we recommend that anyone planning to upgrade should go straight to 7.0.1. This blog covers releases of all Requirements Management tools including:

• IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next 7.0.1
• IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS 9.7.2
• IBM Engineering Requirements Management Requirements Quality Assistant

DOORS Next 7.0.1

One of the themes of DOORS Next V is to extend the overall scale of data that can be managed using a DOORS Next RM server.  Testing has continued in V7.0.1 and we can now support up to 1,000 concurrent users working on a single RM server using an Oracle database.

It is often the case that when using changesets to modify requirements, dependencies between changesets are created when multiple people change the same requirements or are making changes in the same module when there are changes to the structure of the module.  DOORS Next V7.0.1 allows for dependencies to be overruled when selecting changesets for delivery.

Trace column information can be tailored to be more succinct in the information that is displayed, including the use of traversable Link Indicators rather than displaying more verbose URLs.

ReqIF has been improved in the way attachments and graphical elements are used as part of Requirements information. Where possible, DOORS Next will now import OLE elements from applications like DOORS directly into attachments in DOORS Next. DOORS Next will export graphical elements such as Diagrams in a format that can be seen, but not edited in other requirement tools, including DOORS.

DOORS 9.7.2

DOORS V9.7 was introduced to enhance usability while focusing on integrating DOORS more closely with the IBM Engineering (ELM) portfolio as a whole.

• Extending support for collaboration with ELM and Global Configurations, enabling the DOORS user to see and create trace links to ELM (OSLC) data placed under configuration management
• We have made a number of improvements for reporting; most significantly is the ability to report on requirements volatility using the Jazz Reporting System Report Builder.
• ReqIF interaction with IBM Engineering DOORS Next has been improved to allow OLE data from DOORS to be directly sent to DOORS Next as attachments without the need for wrapping elements. It is also possible to see DOORS Next diagrams for review in DOORS.
• The DOORS database explorer shows modules and their baselines to make it easier to open the correct version. Optionally, the module explorer can limit the display to active objects covered by an active filter.

Requirements Quality Assistant

Requirements Quality Assistant is a hosted solution with updates typically released monthly.

• RQA can be added to existing deployments or can now be purchased as part of a dedicated DOORS Next SaaS environment, with the power of AI
• through Requirements Quality Assistant
• Requirement Managers get the full capability of DOORS Next Analyst. to optimize communication & collaboration across teams
• Requirement Authors receive coaching from RQA to improve the quality of a requirement as it is being written

RQA scores requirements against criteria consistent with the INCOSE Guidelines for Writing Good Requirements.  The tool is pre-trained to detect 11 quality issues and can be extended with more through the support of IBM services.

After analyzing requirements, see the issues found by RQA in the list of attributes in DOORS Next & DOORS.  Use the issue guidance to modify requirements and reduce ambiguity.  For more information, see Checking DOORS Next requirements with RQA

In recent releases, we have refined the accuracy and scoring and you can now measure the quality of your project or module and use Dashboard views to provide insights on problem projects.

These are only a few of the improvements introduced with DOORS Next, DOORS and RQA.  A full list can be found in the product documentation: DOORS Next, DOORS, RQA

Thank you for your continued support and stay safe.

by Graham Bleakley

The rising complexity of the products and systems being developed globally is driving engineering teams to seek effective model-based engineering practices, including model-based systems engineering (MBSE). Rising compliance demands such as ISO-26262/ASPICE in automotive and DO-178C and ARP4754 for aerospace and defense are driving the need for rigorous change management and lifecycle traceability. At the same time, engineering teams must maintain or improve their quality and engineering productivity. This approach for digital engineering is further endorsed by INCOSE’s 2025 Vision along with the US Department of Defense’s Digital Engineering Strategy, which places MBSE as an enabling technology for the best systems and software engineering practice.

To achieve these goals, the engineers who create these models must be full participants in the development lifecycle by partaking in activities that span engineering disciplines, such as:

• Planning
• Workflow and progress tracking
• Requirements elaboration and validation
• Change management
• Reporting

The enhancements in this release of Engineering Systems Design Rhapsody Model Manager (ESD RMM) 7.0.1 and ESD Rhapsody 9.0.1 extends and productizes some of the features of the previous release and allows practitioners to work efficiently at scale, with large models and large sets of requirements.

For those of you using Rhapsody Design Manager, make sure you see my comments at the end of this post.

Introducing ESD Rhapsody Model Manager V7.0.1

The biggest new feature of Rhapsody Model Manager in  V7.0 was enabling Rhapsody Model Manager to be an extension to Engineering Workflow Manager(EWM) so  that  engineers can (optionally) configuration manage models in the same components as source code and other files.  As a result of this change in architecture it was necessary to modify the behavior of the EWM Developer and the RMM System and Software Engineer licences so that they matched  the license usage patterns  that were available with Rhapsody Design Manager, this work is now complete in  V7.0.1.

When you install RMM as an extension to an EWM server you have an option to either manage “models” or “models and code”. If the server is set to manage models only when using Rhapsody with RMM to create and check-in models to the EWM server the user only needs the RMM System and Software Engineer license for RMM. If the server is set up to manage models and  code, then the user requires an RMM System and Software Engineer license and an EWM Developer license. If the user wishes to create links between model artifacts and requirements  in DOORS or DOORS Next or other artifacts such as tests or work items using the RMM web client,  then they only need an RMM or Contributor license. If a developer is creating code and delivering it through the EWM Eclipse client, then they need only the EWM Developer license. This behavior matches the license usage patterns that were available with Rhapsody Design Manager- with the added benefit that now the Jazz work item system can be on the model server.

The other major change in Rhapsody Model Manager V7.0.1 is further improvements in the Rhapsody direct integration with EWM. You can now see the configuration management state of a set of artifacts propagated down the model hierarchy. This makes it possible to do Configuration Management operations on an element and its descendants. Another improvement to the EWM direct integration is the ability to accept incoming change sets directly from the Rhapsody browser when being used as part of RMM (see Figure 1). To enable this, changes have been made to the Rhapsody Diff-Merge tool to ignore changes to the metadata in the model files; this prevents users from being overwhelmed with unnecessary information. However, to make this effective you must save and republish your models in the V7.0.1 format.

Figure 1. Accept Incoming Change Sets

There have also been some under-the-hood modifications and improvements in RMM for efficiency and robustness when working with larger models.

Introducing Rhapsody 9.0.1

Considering this was short release cycle, there has been a lot of work going on in the Rhapsody product team. We have been looking at various options for modernising the Rhapsody GUI now that we completed the work on porting Rhapsody Visual Studio 2017. We look forward to sharing news related to the outcomes of this exploration at future IBM ELM events.

We have made further improvements in the HTML document generation. This includes simplified reporting for user defined terminology, so it can now work with user defined profiles and show the “New Elements” in the browser and model.  We have also added support for navigable table and matrix views in the document gneration (See Figure 2).

Figure 2. Navigable Table and Matrix views in HTML report generation

Another enhancement in this release is to the populate diagrams feature, this used to only be applicable to an element that was selected from the internal browser in the populate diagram feature box. Now it is possible to select an element on a diagram, open up the “Populate Diagram” application and by selecting “Relations from/to selected” see all the related elements. This becomes very powerful when applied successively to different parts of the model as you can start to discover relationships that you may not have been aware of (see Figure 3 below).

Figure 3. Enhanced Populate Diagrams showing the progression of application on a simple model.

There are improvements to diagram navigation so that you can set the default navigation from a block in a Block Definition Diagram to the Internal Block Diagram it owns, enabling you to drill down through a model hierarchy. It also now possible to shrink the size of a class/block, object/part so that it fits the length of the text used to capture the elements name.

Finally some of the smaller enhancements that have been completed in Rhapsody in this release include;-

• Updated support for AUTOSAR and Adaptive AUTOSAR concepts, workflows and tables
• Additional properties to control
  • Custom naming patterns for links and connectors
  • Integration of properties descriptions in feature dialogs
  • Control the format of compartments
• Open Rhapsody in Read Only mode.
• Increase the total number of supported plugins and helpers to 500 and 1000 respectively
• Adaptor for MinGW Compiler (MinGW-w64 v.6.3 and 8.1.0 ) 64 and 32 bit versions
  • This also supports Simulink cosimulation but the MInGW version must match the installed MatLab version

Rhapsody Design Manager: Time to migrate to Rhapsody Model Manager

As many of you are aware, Rhapsody Model Manager was developed to replace Rhapsody Design Manager and that day is now close to hand. The last version of Rhapsody Design Manager is V6.0.6.1. This final version of Design Manager will work with Rhapsody 8.3.1 and with ELM 7.0.0  and 7.0.1 (see Optional Programs Section). Customers with entitlement to Design Manager will also have entitlement to Rhapsody Model Manager going forward.

As an update to my last what’s new blog  post: support for Design Manager is planned to end in September 2021. Between now and the end of support only Severity 1 and migration issues will be responded to by IBM Support. Any RFEs raised will be triaged and if applicable moved to RMM.

If you haven’t started already, it’s time to start planning and migrating from Rhapsody Design Manager to Rhapsody Model Manager. Please contact your account manager and/or technical sales representative to discuss how this process can be managed.

Any teams that are starting new modeling projects should use Rhapsody Model Manager.  We’ve received a lot of good feedback on the stability, enterprise scale, and tight integration of Rhapsody Model Manager in the ELM solution. I hope you will soon experience the benefits yourself.

Graham Bleakley
ELM Offering Management

by Fariz Saracevic

IBM Engineering (ELM) delivered their second release this year, only a few months after ELM 7.0. Since 7.0.1 has come so soon after 7.0, we recommend that anyone planning to upgrade should go straight to 7.0.1. Even though this was a relatively short release, there are a number of valuable enhancements delivered. This blog covers highlights of the reporting applications including:

• IBM Engineering Jazz Reporting Service v7.0.1
• IBM Engineering Lifecycle Optimization – Publishing v7.0.1
• IBM Engineering Lifecycle Optimization – Engineering Insights v7.0.1

ELM v7.0.1 continues to improve usability across all applications with a new style for UI components such as buttons, links, breadcrumbs, modal dialog boxes, and tabs. In addition, IBM Engineering Lifecycle Optimization – Publishing Document Builder now has the same look and feel as other ELM applications. This is part of the ongoing task to align with IBM’s open source Carbon Design System.

 Jazz Reporting Service (JRS) v7.0.1

• Append and merge traceability paths in a single report
  • Creating complex reports is getting easier as users can mix Append and Merge traceability paths in a single report for Lifecycle Query Engine (LQE) data source. Merge paths take precedence and are evaluated first then the results are appended together. Previously, users had to create multiple, individual reports to achieve specific reporting objective.

Image of Append and Merge traceability paths:

• Support for Custom Work Item type attributes
  • Users can create reports with data for number of custom work item types for a LQE data source. These attributes are available when users add conditions and columns too. The list of additional custom work items includes:
    • Team area
    • Team area list
    • Project area
    • Project area list
    • Iteration
    • Iteration list

Engineering Lifecycle Optimization – Publishing (PUB) v7.0.1 (previously Rational Publishing Engine)

• Simplified connection association
  • Adding connection as part of data source connection association is improved now. Users do not need to manually build and add data source connections. Instead, there is a new Select Connection URL window in which a user enters relevant host details information such as host IP/address, port, and context root. When user clicks the Go button, they will be presented with option to browse and select the resource.

Image of Select Connection URL window:

• Support reporting for GIT with JSON data
  • PUB allows users to generate document retrieving data using REST APIs provided by GitLab and Github. A PUB template author can leverage various PUB options such as sorting, filtering, etc. as part of template creation with GIT data.

Engineering Lifecycle Optimization – Engineering Insights (ENI) v7.0.1 (previously IBM Rational Engineering Lifecycle Manager)

• Configure visual reporting and filtering based on the Link Validity value
  • Building on top of the Link Validity feature added in JRS v7.0, ENI users can configure visual reporting and filtering based on the Link Validity value by following these steps:
    • Open the Link Validity dialog box
    • From the Link Validity Value list, select the appropriate value, such as Ignore, Required, Optional, or Does Not Exist
    • For valid and invalid links, set the stroke property and color
    • Add filter conditions for the Link Validity attributes such as Description, Last Modification, Modified By, and Status

Links that satisfy the Link Validity value and the filter conditions are displayed in the specified color and appearance.

Image of Link Validity workflow:

• View authors can show differences between configuration
  • In ENI views, user can use the compare configuration feature to select different colors to identify artifacts that belong to different streams or to both the streams. This is valuable when users wants to visually see difference between configuration.

Image of Compare Configuration workflow:

You can find out about other ELM reporting improvements in the new & noteworthy posts here: JRS 7.0.1, PUB 7.0.1 an  ENI 7.0.1.

Let us know what you think about our latest release and share this blog post with your peers.

Fariz Saracevic
ELM Offering Management

by Michael Halder

In December 2019, the first version of ELM Automotive Compliance (ELM AC) was released. ELM AC is a new offering that consists of agile process content structured according Automotive SPICE process groups, templates and reports. The offering allows automotive customers to streamline their usage of IBM ELM for automotive industry standards. Customers who don’t want to rely on an agile process can still benefit from the offering by using the templates and mapping of tool functionality  according to their own process. Together with the release of IBM ELM 7.0.1, ELM AC releases the first update with version number 1.0.1.

A more seamless process experience 

The biggest change in V1.0.1 compared the first version is that the mapping of ASPICE base practices and IBM ELM tool functionality is now part of the Automotive Compliance process content. This mapping explains for every single base practice  assessed as part of the VDA Scope according to the INTACS™️ scheme how ELM AC satisfies ASPICE Compliance. Previously, this mapping was delivered as a separate document.

Having the mapping within the process content enables users to access it easily at all times and allows for a more seamless experience. This seamless experience gets further enhanced by additional links from work items to the related process pages. AC pursues the same goal as the rest of the ELM portfolio to continuously improve look and feel. If you are familiar with AC V1.0, you may also notice how the general appearance of the process content and landing page has improved.

Benefit from managing checklists within DOORS Next

An extension in AC V1.0.1 concerns checklists. The new release provides checklists within DOORS Next. Included in IBM ELM AC are pre-defined checklists for Requirements, Architecture, Tests and Software Implementation. Within the process content, ELM AC also contains guidance how to use these checklists and how you can add your own checklists in a similar manner. Managing checklists in DOORS Next enables linking checklist items to affected engineering artefacts and work items. Thus, users benefit from enhanced traceability and also from using checklist in a web-based tool built for collaboration.

Updates to the AC Reporting package – Better ways to monitor whether your project is on track

The first version of IBM ELM Automotive Compliance contained 74 reports. The new release of IBM ELM refines and simplifies some reports and adds new ones. There are now four more reports for problem management and six new reports for project management. We anticipate these reports will help teams to more reliably identify blockers and judge whether the project is on track.

A combined lifecycle template that supports the new RM architecture

If you use IBM Engineering tools for modelling, you may be aware that the architecture of Rhapsody Model Manager was changed to work as an extension to Engineering Workflow Management. V1.0.1 of ELM Automotive Compliance contains an integrated lifecycle template that now supports this new architecture of having CCM + AM in a combined project area. This means if you aim to use AC with ELM 7.0 or higher, ELM V1.0.1 is right for you. By relying on this combined lifecycle template, users can save time when creating projects and adding team members.

New SAFe artefacts in the templates

AC V1.0.1 adds additional Large Scale Agile contents like SWOT analysis, TOWS strategic options matrix and Objective and Key Results to the Strategic Theme artefact template. By having templates for these methods included in the tool, users are encouraged to use industry accepted techniques to improve value stream analysis and planning.

Tailor-made Service Offering for your journey to ASPICE

While ELM AC is continuously expanding and maturing as a general compliant solution, we realise that your organisation has specific requirements. This is why we defined a set of service packages to help you to understand how your project how can benefit from pre-defined ELM AC contents. You can get ELM AC installed and setup in less than a week of effort. If you are serious about your ASPICE journey, we also offer a package that includes an actual ASPICE assessment and a detailed analysis of your current tool landscape. As a result of this project, you know exactly where you stand and how can reach your compliance goals most efficient. Please reach out to your local IBM Expert Labs (formerly IBM Lab Services) representative or Judith Leick ([email protected]) to learn more about these service offerings.