Assets are a collection
of files, information, and metadata that solve a specific business
problem. Assets should be complete, reusable solutions and can be
fairly simple – for example, meeting minutes – or they can also be
very complex – for example, a full implementation for an application
that runs audits.
To view a brief demonstration of how IBM® Rational® Asset Manager can
become a central catalog for reusable assets in your organization, you can watch an On Demand Demo here.
When you submit an asset, it
might go through a review process if one has been created for the
specific asset type that you chose. During a review process, reviewers
will review the contents of the asset and verify the accuracy and
completeness of the content.
After an asset has been approved
or submitted as-is, other users will be able to find the asset, rate
and leave comments about the asset, and reuse the asset if it applicable
to their business context. You can also participate in the discussion
forums and discuss your asset at length.
When you submit the asset, you
will become the asset owner. You will automatically have an email
subscription to the asset and you will be notified when a user downloads
the asset, updates the asset metadata or content, or discusses the
asset.
When to create a new
asset
Create a new asset
when you want to submit an entirely new asset – not an improvement
on or duplicate of an existing asset – for reuse across your organization
or community.
When to create
a new version of an existing asset
Create a new version of an asset
when an existing asset has been improved to solve a new business problem
or be used in a different context and when you want to preserve the
older, existing version of the asset.
For example, create a new version
when:
- you have a new version of an existing software asset that you
want others to use;
- an existing asset has been modified to work in a different environment
or business unit;
- you want to modify an asset's descriptive metadata or artifacts
and also want to preserve the older asset so others can find it; or
- you want to keep separate governance information, usage statistics,
or other metadata from version to version of an asset.
Benefits:
- Instead of entering all of the information for a completely new
asset, you can modify the previous artifacts and asset metadata from
the existing asset.
- Rational Asset Manager
will display other versions of an asset and allow you to browse to
older and newer versions of an asset from the General Details page.
- Bookmark an asset and remove the version number from the URL to
have a bookmark that will always open the newest version of an asset.
- Users will be able to find and see older versions of the asset.
When to duplicate
an existing asset
Save
time while creating a new asset by duplicating an existing asset that
uses similar metadata, artifacts, categories, and relationships that
you want in the new asset.
For example, you can create
an asset template that others can duplicate in order to more quickly
create and submit new assets.
Benefits:
- Instead of entering all of the information for a completely new
asset, you can modify the previous artifacts and asset metadata from
the existing asset.
- The General Details page of the new asset will have a link describing
the original asset that the new asset was duplicated from.
When to modify
an existing asset
Modify
an asset when you want to edit the existing artifacts or asset metadata
of an asset but not create a new version or duplicate of that asset.
For example, you may want to change the description or add a new category
to an asset.
Benefits:
- After the modified asset has been submitted and approved, the
new information will replace the old information.
- Any subscribers to the asset will receive a notification of your
changes.
Drawbacks:
- If the asset must be reviewed and approved, there may be 2 versions
of the asset available until the modified asset is approved and replaces
the original asset.
- After the modified asset has been approved, the original asset
will be overwritten and you will not be able to search for any keywords
that you removed.