Importing DOORS Projects, Folders and Baseline Sets via codeBeamer DOORS Bridge

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Importing DOORS Projects, Folders and Baseline Sets via codeBeamer DOORS Bridge

Importing DOORS Modules into codeBeamer Trackers was available via the codeBeamer DOORS Bridge since CB-8.2.0.

In codeBeamer 9.1.0 and newer, you can now also import whole DOORS Projects, Folders and Baseline Sets via codeBeamer DOORS Bridge 1.5 and newer.

Each codeBeamer Project can be associated with at most one DOORS Project or Folder via:

Project ➡ Admin ➡ General ➡ Import ➡ DOORS Project/Folder ...

To unlink a codeBeamer Project from it's associated DOORS Project or Folder (only in 2021 versions and newer), open the configuration dialog (see above) and click Delete ....

[!1 Import DOORS Project or Folder.png!]

[!1 Import DOORS Project or Folder.png!]

In the upcoming dialog, you first have to enter the Web-Address (hostname, ip-address and port) of the codeBeamer DOORS Bridge Server and a DOORS Username and Password to login:

[!2 Enter DOORS login information.png!]

Then you have to Select... the DOORS Project/Folder to import:

[!3 Select DOORS Project or Folder.png!]

Next, the (Importable) Baseline Sets, defined on the selected DOORS Project or Folder are loaded:

[!4 Importable Baseline Sets.png!]

Please note: CodeBeamer automatically adds a pseudo Baseline Set called Project/Folder HEAD to this table, that allows to import the current/head revision of all formal Modules in the selected DOORS Project/Folder and it's sub folders/projects (recursively), even if they are not included in any Baseline Set Definition, or there are no defined Baseline Sets at all.

If there are lots of formal Modules in the selected DOORS Project/Folder, loading the baselines of all these modules can take quite a few seconds.

Initially, only the importable Baseline Sets are shown [!import.gif!]

, but by deselecting the check box, you can also show Baseline Sets,

that have already been imported , or
that are not importable , because some Modules included in these Baseline Sets have already been imported beyond the Baseline in these sets.
- Clicking on the Status of a not importable Baseline Set, shows more information about the specific Modules, that block the import of this set.

The Project/Folder HEAD is a moving target, therefore this pseudo Baseline Set

is always importable, and
is always present, even if you have already imported the Project/Folder HEAD before.

The column Coverage shows, how many of the Modules in a set are actually mapped to target Trackers. The color indicates, whether

None of the modules are mapped and the set cannot be selected for import,
Some of the modules are mapped, so the set can be imported, since we cannot decide, whether you simply forgot to map some Modules or you intentionally skipped some Modules (for whatever reason),
All modules are mapped.

To see the Modules and Baselines in a specific Baseline Set, including their associated target Tracker and import Settings and History, click on the Coverage of that set:

[!5 Modules in Baseline Set.png!]

Clicking on a Module link, will show a preview of that specific Module Baseline in a popup dialog.

If a target Tracker is already assigned, e.g.

[!6 Imported Modules List.png!]

Clicking on a Tracker link, will open that Tracker in new browser tab.
Clicking on the icon, will open a popup dialog, where you can see and edit the DOORS Bridge Settings.
Clicking on the History... link of the Last Import (if any), will show the import history in a popup dialog.

If no target Tracker is assigned yet, you can select an existing Tracker from the dropdown list, e.g.

Or, if no appropriate target Trackers exist yet, you can create new target trackers via Create Trackers for the selected Modules ...

[!7 Create Trackers for Modules.png!]

by simply selecting either an appropriate Tracker Template or Type.

The new trackers will be created in the current project. The tracker names and descriptions will be copied from the modules.

If all modules, that you want to import, contain the same type of information, e.g.

Requirements
Risks
Test Cases

then you can simply select all of them and create trackers in a single batch.

Otherwise you should do multiple iterations over groups of modules containing the same type of information.

To allow multiple iterations, the "Modules in Baseline" dialog will stay open after having created new trackers for the selected modules. You have to Close it explicitly.

You also have to map Attributes and Link Types of the selected modules, to Fields and Associations of the new target trackers:

[!8 Aggregated Settings.png!]

This is similar to the

DOORS Bridge Settings of a single module/tracker, but here, all Attributes and all Link Types of all the selected modules are merged into a single accumulated view.

Depending on the number of modules and the similarity of the module configurations:

The Attributes and Link Types can contain lots of rows.
There can be multiple Attributes with the same name, but different types.
If different modules define enum/choice Attributes with the same name, but with different choice/enum values, then all the different choice/enum values will be merged into a single accumulated list.

Only in this accumulated view, you can

Assign multiple attributes to the same target field, and
Assign multiple enum values to the same target choice option,

as long as all of these attributes and enum values are from different source modules.

Important: For properly importing Baselines and Baseline Sets,

Created On and
Last Modified On

must be mapped to the Submitted At/Created At and Modified at dates respectively (as shown above).

Also Importing the History (which also requires to import Users) is recommended, but not mandatory.

Bad experience with real life customer DOORS installations showed, that the DOORS baseline history is not always reliable, e.g.

Attribute values have changed between baselines, but the lastModifiedTime of the objects did not change, nor does the object history contain this change.

So if you are not sure about the quality of the history of the modules to import, then do not Trust the DOORS history:

Each module baseline will be downloaded entirely.
The object change history will be re-build upon the import by comparing the newly loaded values against the values from the previously imported baseline.
If the DOORS history is also imported, the imported history entries (changes) and the computed differences will be merged into a consistent history.

Upon creating the target trackers, codeBeamer will disassemble the accumulated settings into specific tracker configurations, that will only contain fields and choice options for those attributes and links, that are applicable for the associated module.

This very comfortable mass configuration of multiple modules is not longer available after the trackers have been created, because:

In the aggregated configuration view, the target field and choice option of each Attribute must be the same, because there is only one target field/value selector, that can only represent a single target field/value !
This is the case, when creating new trackers, because they are all based on the same initial tracker type or template.
But for an existing tracker, this configuration can be changed at any time, so there can be multiple/different fields/values, that cannot be shown in an aggregated view.

After having assured, that all the Modules you want to import, in all the Baseline Sets you want to import, are actually mapped to target Trackers, you can now start importing:

[!9 Select Baseline Sets.png!]

Select the Baseline Sets to import and then click on OK.

Clicking OK without having selected any Baseline Set, will simply close the dialog.

Please note: You can skip Baseline Set, but skipped Baseline Sets cannot be imported any more, as soon as later Baseline Sets have been imported, or any of the contained modules are imported to a baseline beyond the one in the set.

The upcoming dialog will show all the necessary steps, to import the selected BaselineSets:

[!10 Baseline Set Import Steps.png!]

The steps are a tree of

The Baseline Sets to import,
- The Modules, where to import Baselines,
  - The Module Baselines to import.

If you have skipped Baseline Sets, or, if there are intermediate Baselines, between the (Milestone) Baselines in a Set, then these Baselines are also shown and selected from import by default.

But, in contrast to the (Milestone) Baselines in the Baseline Set, you can choose to skip some or all of the intermediate Baselines, via the checkbox for the baseline or in the header.

Click OK, to start the import:

[!11 Import Baseline Set Progress.png!]

The Status column will show the current import status of a line, and there is also a progress bar on top:

Pending
In progress
Imported
Skipped
Failed

The name of each successfully imported Module Baseline will turn into a link, that allows to show the import statistics.

The dialog will close automatically, after all selected Module Baselines and Baseline Sets have been imported.

The import will stop automatically, upon the first import failure:

The cause of the failure is shown and can also be re-called later, by clicking on the failure symbol.
The dialog will remain open, in case you want to try to restart the import again.

You can also manually Cancel a running import at any time:

The dialog will remain open, in case you want to resume the import again.

To resume a cancelled or failed import, click OK again:

The import will restart at the point, where it failed or was cancelled.

Clicking Cancel, while no import is running, will abort any failed or remaining import steps and close the dialog.

Baseline Sets, whose import failed or was cancelled, will remain in the Importable Baseline Sets list, so you can still retry to import them later.