The schema developer is responsible for designing and planning your organization's
change management process and then creating the schema that implements that
process. Designing and planning consists of the following tasks:
- Design a state transition model. A state transition model identifies the
states that a change request can go through from its origination to its completion.
Examples of states include submitted, assigned, and resolved.
- Identify the roles of the users and define how they fit into the workflow.
For example, you might decide that the project manager assigns change requests;
developers research and resolve change requests; and quality engineers validate
resolved change requests.
- Identify the fields to add to the change request record type to record
the information that your organization needs.
Rational® ClearQuest® provides
multiple schemas that you can use immediately. Typically, the schema developer
customizes one of these schemas to implement the organization's specific change
management process. Customizing a schema consists of the following tasks:
- Add fields to the change request record type.
- Change the appearance of record forms by adding fields and controls, such
as buttons and list boxes.
- Add states and actions to the change request record type to reflect the
state transition model. An action moves the change request from one state
to another. For example, an assign action moves a change request from the
submitted state to the assigned state.
- Write hook scripts to customize the workflow. A hook script is code written
in Perl or Visual Basic that Rational ClearQuest executes
in response to a specific user action. For example, a hook script associated
with a field might require users to enter an integer within a specified range.
- Enable E-mail notification so that whenever a user modifies a change request,
other users receive an E-mail message about the change.
- Apply packages to add functionality or to enable Rational ClearQuest to
integrate with another product. A Rational ClearQuest package
is a set of definitions, such as fields, form controls, and hooks, that you
can apply to a schema to quickly add functionality. For example, the Attachments
package adds a tab to the change request's record form where users can attach
related files. Other packages add the definitions necessary to enable integrations
with other products, such as IBM® Rational ClearCase®, IBM Rational RequisitePro®, and IBM Rational TestManager.