Contents

• About this Release
• What's New
• Installing and Upgrading
• Limitations
• Fixed Issues
• Known Issues
• Legal Notice

Dimensions CM 14.4 is the version that immediately follows 14.3.3.

All of the features, changes, and fixes that were made in 14.3.x are included in 14.4.

Dimensions CM 14.4 supports new installations—you do not need to install a previous version of CM before installing this version.

Helpful Links

Documentation: the most up to date CM 14.4 information including online help, all the documents in PDF format, and an archive going back to version 4.0.

Documentation Roadmap: a complete overview of the documentation to help you find the information you are looking for.

Dimensions CM Feature History: describes key feature enhancements in the major releases of Dimensions CM, starting with version 10.1.

Videos

Technical Support

Product Support Lifecycle

Contact Us

For specific Dimensions CM issues contact Support.

Additional technical information or advice is available from several sources:

• Product documentation, Knowledge Base articles, and videos.
• The Community web pages.

Virtual Environment Support

Micro Focus recognizes that virtualization technology provides significant utility and value to our customers. As such, Micro Focus conducts functional testing and certifies our products using virtualization technology in addition to native environments. While Micro Focus expects that our products will function properly when running on supported platforms in a virtualized environment as well as a native environment, there may be functional and performance limitations. Micro Focus will not require customers to recreate and troubleshoot every issue in a non-virtualized environment, however there may be circumstances in which such action may be required. Micro Focus will only make this request when there is reason to believe that the virtualized environment is a contributing factor to the issue. If the issue cannot be reproduced in a supported non-virtualized environment, customers will need to refer their issues to their virtualization vendor.

The following features have been added in this release.

Support for PostgreSQL

Dimensions CM 14.4 supports PostgreSQL, an open source object-relational database management system (ORDBMS). For information about using PostgreSQL with CM, see the following sections in these documents:

Installation Guides (Windows and UNIX)

• Migrating from Serena Runtime to PostgreSQL
• Preparing a PostgreSQL Database
• Installing a Server with a PostgreSQL Database

System Administration Guide

• PostgreSQL Backup and Recovery

Pulse

• Repository browser: browse the code in a CM repository and view the contents of folders and files. You can view the current or previous versions of a stream. 
• Experts (plugins), new and improved including:
  • Maven
  • Docker
  • Capture built artefacts to DA, CM, a directory, or a remote network server.
  • Notification
  • Script
• Executors: an executor is an instance of Pulse that is connected to a database, executors on different machines can connect to the same database. You can configure an executor by defining:
  • Tools that describe a machine's properties, for example, a specific operating system or network location.
  • Tools required by steps on a chain, for example, the location and configuration of tools such as a specific compiler or Maven.
• Request improvements, including:
  • External links, for example, the URL of a web site or the value of an SBM ticket related to the request.
  • Related design parts and requests.
  • Create a new request based on an existing request (priming a request).
• Chain improvements, including:
  • Separate pages for results, configuration, and steps.
  • For each chain run, view its details and logs.
  • Logs have separate tabs for each category: Console, Findings, Measurements, Activity, Changesets, Requests, and Contents.
  • Import and export chains.
• Review improvements, including:
  • Related requests are displayed and the summary of the first one is expanded.
  • In the Activity section, filter the information that is displayed such as: comments added by reviewers, the results of experts that ran on the changesets associated with the review, or display all information.
  • Display the previous and current revisions of a file unified in the same column, or side-by-side in separate columns.
  • Enhancements to the way that white space is considered in differencing.
  • Ability to "mention" users who are not included in a review, for example, you want the opinions of other developers.
  • Link to the stream version (in the repository browser) where a file revision was made.
• Query language and global search enhancements.
• Changesets enhancements, including:
  • Changeset health is displayed visually using a combination of the expert opinions of the changes and the review state.
  • Expert findings are displayed in the Chain Runs section of changeset pages and associated reviews.
• On card walls, save space by displaying compact cards and hiding metrics and charts. You can also group cards by request owners.
• New reports that display information about:
  • Changeset creation and health.

  • Request creation.

  • Reviews created by changeset deliveries.

Ignore Items during a Delivery

You can exclude specific files, folders, and file types from deliveries, for example, backup files and built artifacts. To exclude items you define ignore rules in a .dmignore file. Each location (a folder or directory) has a single .dmignore file but you can have multiple ignore files across a hierarchy of folders. You can also apply ignore rules recursively across subfolders.

The DELIVER and SHELVE commands support a new /NOIGNORE qualifier that allows you to skip restrictions specified in .dmignore files.

Note For the web client, only supported with Web Client Tools (not Java applets).

Undo Delivery

You can roll back the delivery of files and folders to a stream or project. For example, you deliver changes but discover problems in the code and decide to remove the changes. An Undo operation:

• Creates a new changeset with the reverted changes, which preserves the full history.
• Undoes an entire changeset, not individual item revisions.
• Only makes changes in a repository and does not update local work areas.

This feature is available in all clients. In the command-line client use the UNDO command.

Revert from Work Area

You can remove the changes in a work area associated with a stream and replace them with the previous versions. For example, you have made changes locally and delivered them to a stream, but subsequently you decide to revert the changes in the work area.

This feature is available in all clients. In the command-line client, the UPDATE command has a new /UNDO qualifier.

Note For the web client, only supported with Web Client Tools (not Java applets).

Visual Studio Integration

• Dimensions Explorer (previously known as Serena Explorer) has been completely redesigned and displays information about your Visual Studio solutions and projects that are under CM control. Each node is a solution context that displays the solution name and the product and stream or project. Dimensions Explorer displays views that are applicable to the current context, for example:
  • Streams and projects
  • Requests
  • Changesets
  • Reviews (if Pulse is enabled)
  • Baselines
  • Outgoing (items that you have modified, added, and deleted)

• The integration now uses the currently selected Visual Studio theme.
• The Requests panel has been redesigned to look the same as the Reviews panel. It is much easier to find requests and switch between:
  • The requests in your inbox.
  • All the requests in all stream and projects in the current product.
  • Your working list.

Eclipse Integration

Serena Explorer is now called Dimensions Explorer.

Deliver, Merge, and Shelve Wizards Improvements

The wizards have been extensively redesigned:

• You can specify which work area to deliver from.
• If you select a subfolder, its path is highlighted.
• If you select a work area that is not associated with a stream, you can select a stream to deliver to.
• The include and exclude local files filters have moved to the Advanced section.
• The list of changes now displays the conflict type and default resolution (if applicable).
• The Default Options and Selection Options tabs are now panels.

Pulse in Clients

The following Pulse features are integrated into the desktop client, and the Visual Studio and Eclipse IDEs:

• Reviews: display reviews for a stream or project, review code changes, make comments, and collaborate with team members.

• Repository browser: browse the code in a repository and view the contents of folders and files.
• Changesets panels/views: provides an indication of changeset health and displays any associated reviews. Use the Open Details context command to view the details of a changeset.

Desktop Client Improvements

• Customizing what columns are displayed is now much easier: right-click any column and select the ones you want to display.
• The user interfaces of Project Merge and Project Compare have been refreshed.
• The design parts view has been redesigned.
• Other changes:
  • Ctrl+C now works in Changeset and Item History dialog boxes.
  • You can customize the Properties dialog when it is open instead of using the Customize Views dialog.
  • Refreshes quicker and is more responsive.
  • Views and navigation are now more responsive.

Note Solaris only: all applications based on the Dimensions CM DTK, and all custom events, must be recompiled using the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) v4.9.4. Please contact your system administrator for access to GCC.

Update Operating Systems

Apply the latest updates for your operating system.

On AIX you must install the latest version of the OS package: bos.rte.libc

On Windows you must install the following updates:

• KB2919442
• KB2919355 

Hardware Requirements

For details about hardware scaling requirements see the Architecture and Optimization Guide.

Installation and Upgrade Instructions

For information about installing and upgrading, see these documents:

• Dimensions CM Installation Guide for Windows
• Dimensions CM Installation Guide for UNIX

Upgrading from Dimensions CM 2009 R2 and 12.x

To upgrade from Dimensions CM 2009 R2 or 12.x:

1. Run the Dimensions CM 14.4 installer.
2. Run the Versioned Repository Schema (VRS) upgrade utility to upgrade the data in your RDBMS.

To prevent issues with data that was created with a pre-14.1.x release of Dimensions CM, do the following:

• Deliver changes (streams) or check in items (projects) to your repository before upgrading to 14.4.
• Run the Update command after the upgrade to 14.x, this will also upgrade the meta data in your work areas.

The VRS upgrade retains all the existing project structure, project history, and baseline data. This avoids the need to upgrade all projects and baselines at once and ensures that an error during upgrade does not result in a loss of data. However, database size may increase dramatically as it contains both the old and new data. Before performing the upgrade you should increase the space allocated for PCMS_DATA by at least 50% and the space allocated for PCMS_IDX by at least 100%.

To prevent poor performance you must recompute database statistics after an upgrade. If you choose to perform a series of partial upgrades you must recompute statistics after each partial upgrade.

After all projects and baselines have been upgraded you can drop the tables containing the pre-upgrade data. Backup and create an export of these tables (or the entire database) before dropping them:

XII_WS_FILES

XII_WS_DIRS

XII_PSH_REQ_RELS

XII_PSH_PSH_RELS

XII_PSH XII_PREV_CHANGES

XII_PART_PART_RELS

XII_PART_ITEM_RELS

XII_MIGRATED_CHANGES

XII_ITEM_SETS

XII_DP_ITEMS_SETS

XII_BASELINE_ITEM_FILES

XII_BASELINE_ITEM_DIRS

Upgrading Dimensions CM with CM SSO

If you are upgrading a Dimensions CM installation that is already configured to use the CM Single Sign On Server (SSO), do the following.

Note These steps are not required if the installation is configured to use Solutions Business Manager as the SSO server.

1. Stop the Common Tomcat.
2. Navigate to the Tomcat installation location.
3. Rename the lib folder to lib.pre144.
4. Rename the alfssogatekeeper folder to alfssogatekeeper.pre144.
5. Perform the upgrade.
6. After the upgrade has completed, navigate to the CM installation location. Check that all occurrences of the variable SSO_STS_ENDPOINT in <DM_ROOT>/dm.cfg contain the string localhost and not the host name of your machine.

Upgrading Dimensions Connect for Solutions Business Manager (SBM)

You must install Dimensions Connect for SBM when you upgrade the Dimensions CM server to a new version. For example, if you upgrade the Dimensions CM server to 14.4 you must also install the 14.4 version of Dimensions Connect for SBM. If not the integration may not work as expected. See the Dimensions CM Connect for Solutions Business Manager User's Guide.

Unable to Connect to Database

If an error message is displayed during installation stating that Dimensions CM is unable to connect to the database, do the following:

• Check that you have entered the correct database password and Oracle DSN if applicable.
• Check that the database used by Dimensions CM is active ("up"). Confirm that it is running, or that you can connect to it, using standard RDBMS database utilities such as sqlplus.

Installing on Windows Server 2012R2 with Oracle 12

If you cannot install on Windows Server 2012R2 with Oracle 12, check the following:

• The system PATH contains ORACLE_HOME (this should be true if the system is restarted after installing Oracle). If ORACLE_HOME is not in the path the CM server installation will fail to validate the Oracle connection details.
• The Oracle administrator password does not contain a full stop (.), comma (,), or semicolon (;). If it does the CM server installer may fail to validate the Oracle connection details. Temporarily remove these characters from the password before installing.

New Version of ALF Events Configuration File

During installation and upgrade a new version of the ALF events configuration file ($DM_ROOT/dfs/alf_events_config.xml) is installed for Pulse and your customizations are overridden. Your original file is backed up and you can merge your customizations into the new version.

dmappsrv Process

In Dimensions CM 14.4 the dmappsrv process writes directly to the local item libraries. This revised access mechanism provides performance enhancements, improved security, and server scalability. Check that the Dimensions CM Pool User has permissions to read and write to all local item library directories. To find out who is the Pool User check the value of the parameter -user in dfs/listener.dat.

To disable this behavior, in the Dimensions CM server dm.cfg file set the variable DM_DISALLOW_DIRECT_LOCAL_LIBRARY_CHECKIN to Y and restart the Dimensions listener.

Web Applications Library

For the dmwebservices2 web application the connectioncache library has been replaced with the Apache Commons Pool2 library. To change the setting for the pool:

1. Edit this file: webapps\dmwebservices2\WEB-INF\classes\generickeyedobjectpoolconfig.properties
2. Restart Tomcat.

The following configuration file is no longer used: webapps\dmwebservices2\WEB-INF\classes\connectioncache.properties

Installing into a Remote SQL Server

If you are installing a CM server into a remote SQL Server, you must use an existing and pre-configured ODBC.

Installing the Visual Studio 2017 Integration

A bug in earlier versions of Visual Studio 2017 may cause the installation of the CM integration to fail. Install the latest update to Visual Studio 2017 before upgrading to, or installing, the CM 14.4 clients.

UNIX CM Server Upgrade Messages

You can safely ignore the following messages after you upgrade Dimensions CM and Deployment Automation on UNIX to 14.4:

com.installshield.sra.event.InstallScript, msg2, InstallScript.onReplacingcCoreFiles

com.installshield.sra.event.InstallScript, msg2, Tomcat was not found.

com.installshield.sra.event.InstallScript, msg2, InstallScript.onReplacingcCoreFiles

Pulse Data Directory

The location of the Pulse data directory on a Windows server installation may vary:

• If you upgrade from a previous release to Dimensions CM 14.4, the data directory for Pulse does not change: \ProgramData\Serena\Pulse
• If you perform a new installation of Dimensions CM 14.4, the data directory for Pulse is: \ProgramData\Micro Focus\Dimensions CM\Pulse

The following features and functionality are not supported in Dimensions CM 14.4:

• The upload and download migration utilities. Use the UPLOAD and DOWNLOAD dmcli commands instead. The standalone utilities are supported for backward compatibility.
• CM Bridge for Subversion does not support 'git-svn'.
• File encryption using DM_FILE_ENCRYPTION. Use SSL Secured SDP (SSDP) instead.
• You can use the HTTP Connector to log into remote work areas and perform operations. However, the network connection from a Dimensions CM server to a remote work area uses the Standard Dimensions Protocol (SDP).
• HTTP connector when the server is configured for SSL using the SSDP protocol.
• New SBM 11.2 attributes: URL and File
• DM_CONCURRENT_DELIVER_LOCK_MODE server symbol.
• DM_USE_OLD_CRB server symbol.
• SCC plug-in with Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 and later. Older versions of Microsoft Visual Studio may work with the DM_SCC_ENABLE configuration variable.
• UPDATE command: /NOEXECUTE qualifier
• UPDATE and DELIVER commands: /SCRIPTFILE qualifier
• Developer dm command-line client: updating a work area from a specific stream version (the tip is always used).
• Text meta data format (.metadata): automatically converted to binary metadata format (.dm) after work area update.
• ActivClient 7 with 32-bit Eclipse for CAC authentication. Use ActivClient 6 or 64-bit Eclipse.
• Serena Runtime RDBMS 12.1.0.2:
  • Serena Runtime RDBMS 12.1.0.2 may only be used on servers that have a maximum capacity of 2 sockets. When used with Oracle Real Application Clusters, Serena Runtime RDBMS 12.1.0.2 may only be used on a maximum of 2 one socket servers. Each Serena Runtime RDBMS 12.1.0.2 may use a maximum of 16 CPU threads at any time. When used with Oracle Real Application Clusters, each Serena Runtime RDBMS 12.1.0.2 may use a maximum of 8 CPU threads per instance at any time. The new 16 CPU thread cap is a technical limitation in the database program, not merely a contractual license limitation. Serena Runtime RDBMS 12.1.0.2 cannot utilize more than 16 threads at any time. On a typical Intel processor, each core contains 2 threads. For example, a 2- socket Intel-based server may contain two processors each having 10 cores, so the server has 20 threads in total (if hyper threading is enabled). Serena Runtime RDBMS 12.1.0.2 can utilize a maximum of 16 threads at any time.
  • The Serena Runtime RDBMS 12.1.0.2 is not certified on Windows Server 2016.

For a list of all the fixes in this version see the Supportline Knowledgebase.

For a complete list of fixes in previous releases of Dimensions CM, go to the knowledgebase and select a CM version. You must have a user account to view items in the Knowledge Base. Register for a free account if you do not have already have one.

GCC Compiler

(Solaris only) The PCMS_API example configuration files have not been updated to use the GCC compiler.

Deployment Automation

• If you are using Deployment Automation (DA) instead of Dimensions CM deployment, and your Dimensions CM server is not running on Windows, please contact Support.
• If you installed DA as part of a CM agent installation on Windows, uninstalling CM may not delete the Deployment Automation folder.
• DA can prevent the shutdown of the Common Tomcat. If the Tomcat process persists after you attempt to shutdown, you can safely end the process manually.

Reverting and Editing Deleted Files

If you revert a change to a work area and restore a file, before editing the file you must deliver it to CM. If you modify the file locally before committing the undo, the deliver operation reports a conflict.

Upgrade dmpmcli

Previous versions of dmpmcli do not work with a Dimensions CM 14.4 server.

Solution: use dmpmcli version 14.4.

Installing on AIX

If you run an AIX installation on a heavily loaded system, it may fail to exit cleanly, and hang while displaying this message: The Install Shield Wizard has successfully installed Dimensions CM 14.4 Choose Finish to exit the wizard. Press 3 to Finish or 5 to Redisplay [3]

Dimensions CM has been installed successfully and you can safely abort the installer.

Microsoft Edge

To use Common Access Card (CAC) in Microsoft Edge, ActivClient version 7.1 (or later) must be installed.

Wind River Workbench 3.3.x

Wind River Workbench version 3.3.x. does not work with this release of CM.

Solution: Use the 14.1 version of the CM plug-in instead, however it does not support the new post 14.1 CM features.

Eclipse and Maven Integration Installers

The Eclipse and Maven integration installers on Windows Server 2012 R2 may fail with the following error: Installer User Interface Mode Not Supported

Solution: run the installers in compatibility mode.

1. Right-click the executable and select Troubleshoot compatibility.
2. Select Try recommended settings and accept the settings.

On Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.x the installers may still fail when run in compatibility mode and display this message: ZeroGu6: Windows DLL failed to load. This is caused by an incompatibility between the Java runtime embedded in the integration installers and recent versions of Windows. To resolve this problem install a 32-bit Java 7 or 8 runtime.

Help TOC Books

In some versions of Chrome, the books in the help table of contents may not expand when clicked.

Solution: use Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Araxis Merge is not Registered

If you installed and uninstalled a trial version of Araxis Merge, the Dimensions CM instance of Araxis Merge may not be registered. Remove the expired license in the Windows registry by deleting the "SerialNumber" value under: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Araxis. The registration information provided by Dimensions CM will be used instead.

Using Maven SCM with Java 9

In Java 9, JAXB classes have been moved. To avoid a runtime error, run the following command before running Maven:

set MAVEN_OPTS=--add-modules java.xml.bind

Trademarks

Serena, Dimensions, ChangeMan, Comparex, and StarTool are registered trademarks of Serena Software, Inc. The Serena logo, PVCS, TeamTrack, License Manager and Composer are trademarks of Serena Software, Inc. All other products or company names are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.