Concept: Introduction to RTC |
This page provides some background concepts for Rational Team Concert (RTC).
Relationships
Related Elements | Assess Iteration Results with Rational Team Concert Plan a Project with Rational Team Concert (RTC) Plan Iteration with Rational Team Concert (RTC)
Main Description
Iteration Plan Editor | The Iteration Plan Editor lets you to create or modify an iteration plan. Work items that are targeted for the same iteration are automatically added to the plan.
Iteration Type | Teams can define iteration types. Each iteration can be assigned an iteration type. Teams can configure behavior for all iterations of a given type. This allows for more succinct process specifications. For example, if a team divides each milestone into a development phase and a stabilization phase, they can create an iteration type named "Milestone Stabilization Phase" and apply it to the appropriate iterations. The permissions/behavior for all of these iterations can then be configured at once by configuring the iteration type.
Operation Precondition | RTC users can enforce the desired behavior of their teams' process by configuring preconditions and followup actions. Preconditions are checked before an operation is run (such as before delivering code) and may prevent the operation from executing if its condition is not met.
Team Process Component | The Team Process Component provides RTC's process support foundations. In the RTC context, process refers to the collection of practices, rules, guidelines, and conventions used to organize a project's work. A team's process is the sum total of the ways the team has decided (or evolved) to do things. For a very small team, the process is usually informal and undocumented. As a team grows, parts of the process may get documented on the team's project home page so that new team members can absorb them quickly. A large organization may have written descriptions of the general practices and procedures their project teams are expected to adhere to; a project team is expected to start with standard process templates and customize them to suit the project and team. Some organizations and teams go one step further, and create formal models covering significant portions of their processes. RTC is designed to allow comprehensive support across the entire software development lifecycle. One thread that runs throughout all phases of a project is the process that the team members have agreed to follow.
Process Iterations | The Process Iteration page of the Process Template Editor specifies the current iteration for the project. This process state is described using XML. The Outline view provides a structured view of its contents. Iteration start and end dates can be specified here also.
Process Specification | Just as a computer program is a static description of how things are supposed to unfold dynamically at runtime, a process specification is a static description of how things are supposed to unfold during the software development process. In the case of the latter, what unfolds dynamically is the work that the team members perform; the project area is the runtime context; the project artifacts are the runtime objects. Process specifications are expressed in a declarative form, while primitive actions are expressed as Java code. Process specifications are kept in a compiled form that can be executed efficiently. Executing the process specification in a particular situation means determining and executing the process rules that apply. Pocess specifications stored in project areas are instantiated from process templates. RTC provides means to author process templates, to edit process specifications and process states of project areas, and to edit process customizations of team areas. Process descriptions authored with tools like provided by the Eclipse Process Framework can be deployed to a RTC repository and be associated with existing process templates. They can then be viewed in the context of project areas whose process specifications have been derived from these process templates.
Process Template Editor | The Process Template Editor allows you to author Process Specifications that can be reused for more than one project. It allows you to create a process description, process specification, process state, and process content URL.
Process Template Explorer | This view is used to create or modify process templates.
Project Area Editor | The Project Area editor is a multi-page tabbed editor used to modify a project area after it has been created. It gives you access to the project area's process specification, development lines, and categories.
RTC Work Item | The Work Item is a central team artifact in a RTC development process. A Work Item is a generalized notion of a development task. Typical work item types are defects, enhancements and tasks. Jazz allows to add new work item types or extend existing types via the Process Specification.
Team Area Editor | The Team Area editor is visually similar to the project area editor, this editor is used to define team members, choose the development line, and optionally, customize the team's process.
Team Artifacts View | The Team Artifacts view manages your connections to a repository and a project area. Once you are connected to a project area you can access its artifacts. The artifacts are grouped into different nodes as shown below.
Work Item Catagories | The Work Item Categories page is used to add and remove work item categories and to associate them with specific team areas. The team area with which the work item category is associated will determine the process which governs work items created with the category. For example, the team areas process configuration may specify required work item properties).
Work Item Editor | The Work Item Editor lets you create or modify a work item, change its state, add comments, attachments, and links to other artifacts. When you save the editor, the updated work item will be transmitted to the repository.
Work Items View | The Work Items View shows you the work items returned when running a work item query.
More Information
Tool Mentors | Assess Iteration Results with Rational Team Concert Plan a Project with Rational Team Concert (RTC) Plan Iteration with Rational Team Concert (RTC)
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