Revising Baselines

A revised baseline is created by applying requests to a previous baseline. Applying the requests affects the original baseline based on the relationship of the item revision to the request. There are two groups of requests that you can use to revise a baseline:

When creating a revised baseline using the Update baseline using list, modifications to the original baseline, based on the relationship of the item revisions to the requests, are made as follows:

When creating a revised baseline using the Remove from baseline list, any item revisions in the original baseline that are related as Affected to the requests will be removed from the new baseline.

If two or more item revisions are on different branches, Dimensions CM issues a warning and processing continues without changing the revision of that item in the baseline.

For example, if you create a new baseline for a maintenance release from the main development branch, it may contain unwanted features and untested code. However, if you revise a previous release baseline, the only changes introduced are those contained in the requests included in the baseline.

Every revised baseline has only one revision of any item, so it can be used like any other release baseline, for example, to create a test or release configuration of the product.

You can also use a revised or merged baseline to create another revised baseline. Because the contents of this baseline are no longer determined directly by the rules of a baseline template, its template ID is REVISED.

Project Structure Changes

When you create a revised baseline, it will include change information for all project structure or refactoring changes related to the specified requests. When you perform actions that involve refactoring, such as renaming a project folder, or exporting an item to the project, and you specify a request in the Track changes with request(s) field, those changes will be recorded against that request. Specifying those requests in the Update baseline using list will result in the changes being applied to the revised baseline.

Recorded Project Structure Changes

When project structure change control is enabled, the following changes to project structure are recorded against change requests:

Change

Description

Item addition and removal

An item revision is added or removed from a project. The change is recorded in one of the following:

  • The change request that lead to the structure change

  • The default change request

Item rename

An item is renamed or moved in the project structure.

Directory creation, deletion, and rename

A directory is created, deleted, or renamed in the project structure.

How Project Structure Change Requests are Used

When you create a revised baseline, the new baseline will include all the structural changes tracked by the specified requests. It is important to note that the structural changes will only be applied if they relate to the project whose context matches that within which the baseline is being revised. Structural changes outside of this context will be ignored.

How the Create Revised Baseline Operation Interprets Structure Changes

When you create a revised baseline, the operation interprets different types of structure changes in the following ways:

For more information on revised baselines, see the Dimensions CM User’s Guide.

Notes on Structure Changes when Creating Revised Baselines

When you create a revised baseline:

Then the Create Revised Baseline operation detects that the original "/source" directory is not the same as the new /source directory, and fails with an error.

Related Topics

When Would I Create a Baseline?

About Working with Baselines

Merging Baselines

Creating a Revised a Baseline

Creating a Merged Baseline