Contents

• New Features
• Fixed Issues
• Software Compatibility
• Installing and Upgrading
• Known Issues
• Limitations

All the new features described below are detailed in the Dimensions CM 14.2 documentation. You can download a searchable PDF portfolio of all the documents from the:

• Serena Support web site
• Serena documentation center

You can watch videos of Dimensions CM features in the Serena documentation center and download them from the Serena Support web site.

What's New in 14.2?

Personal streams

Shelving

Cherrypicking requests

Dimensions CM Pulse enhancements

Stream and project selection enhancements

Security enhancements

Desktop client user interface improvements

New dmcli commands

Updates to dmcli commands

Serena Deployment Automation

Dimensions CM Bridge enhancements

SVN migration with changesets

Agent auto update

IDE performance enhancements

RESTful API web services

Viewing execution logs

Personal Streams

Personal streams are private development branches in a repository that are only visible to the originator. Personal streams enable you to:

• Isolate work from an existing public stream.
• Work in a dedicated personal stream until your changes are ready to be merged back into a public stream.
• Create a new stream based on a work area.

For more details see the Dimensions CM User's Guide.

Shelving

Shelving enables you to store local changes in a personal stream and optionally remove the changes from a work area.

Shelve changes and reset a work area

You can remove changes from a work area that you do not want to deliver to the associated stream. For example, the changes are not complete but you need to interrupt your current work, set aside the changes, and switch to a different task using the same work area. After the shelving operation is complete you reset the work area so that it is identical to the latest repository content.

Backup changes

When you are sharing a stream with other developers but are not ready to deliver your local changes, you can backup your work by committing it to a personal stream. This creates a snapshot of the work area at that point in time. When creating backups you keep the local changes and do not reset the work area. When you are ready to resume work on the shelved changes you can restore them by merging the personal stream back into the work area.

For more details see the Dimensions CM User's Guide.

Cherrypicking Requests

When you merge changes between streams you can select changes that are related to specific requests. This is commonly known as cherrypicking or backporting. For example, you have delivered multiple sets of changes to a stream but only want to merge one specific set of changes into a different stream.

For more details see the Dimensions CM User's Guide.

Dimensions CM Pulse Enhancements

The following enhancements have been made to Dimensions CM Pulse:

Suites and Products

Administrators can organize development work into a hierarchy of suites and products.

• A suite is a collection of related software products, for example, Banking or Insurance. A suite can contain one or more products, for example, Life Insurance and Health Insurance.
• A product is the same as a Dimensions CM product and is a major unit of software development. A product is typically a collection of CM streams, for example, the product Life Insurance contains the streams LIFE:REL1, LIFE:REL1_DISCOUNTS, and LIFE:REL1_PROMOTION.

Sidebar

There is a sidebar on the left that includes the following links:

• Home displays a summary of:
  • The current user's recent activity and streams.
  • The number of reviews the current user owns.
  • The number of reviews that require attention by the current user.
• Suites displays a list of all the current suites. Click a suite to display its child products and a product to display its child streams.
• Administration enables you to configure Pulse (requires administrator privileges).

The links displayed below the divider change based on your current location in the Pulse hierarchy.

Activity

When you select a suite, product, or stream its latest activity is displayed in the main window, including information about:

• New reviews that were created.
• New changesets that were delivered to streams.
• Changes to reviews' states.
• Comments on reviews.
• Expert chains results.

Experts

Experts are tools that perform actions on streams, such as examining health and quality, and report back measurements and findings. Experts are triggered when a delivery is made to a stream and a changeset is created. You can inspect an expert's results in an activity feed or on a review page. You can configure experts to run in a sequence, called an expert chain, and create multiple independent expert chains to run on a stream. For example, the first chain runs on every delivery and performs brief static analysis. A second chain is scheduled to run at midnight every day and performs more thorough analysis and deployment.

The following experts are included with Pulse:

• Changeset Summary Expert: counts the number of files added, deleted, and modified in each changeset.
• Checkstyle Expert: enforces coding standards.
• Jenkins Expert: a continuous integration server that you can use with Pulse to execute, and report on, builds of changesets as they are delivered.
• Kiuwan Expert: measures, analyzes, and verifies the quality of code.
• PMD Expert: analyzes source code and finds programming bugs.
• SDA Deployment Expert: imports and deploys a component using Serena Deployment Automation.
• SDA Generic Process Expert: runs a global process in Serena Deployment Automation.
• SonarQube Expert: inspects the quality of code.
• Dependency Vulnerabilities Expert: finds third party dependencies in code that may have known security vulnerabilities.

Reports

Report views display measurements generated by review and expert activity in your stream as charts or tables. Reports are scoped to the suite, product, or stream from where you run them.

Notifications

You can select the review notifications to which you are subscribed. Notifications are sent when an event takes place on a review, for example:

• A review that you own changes state.
• You become the owner of a review, or are added as a reviewer.
• A review that you own is voted on.
• A review that you own is commented on.

The list of review notifications is managed by your Pulse administrator.

Watch a Review

You can optionally watch a review. When changes are made to the review you are notified by email.

Search

To refine a search you can now select multiple filters.

Review Page

Review pages include the following improvements:

• The Contents section, and the sidebar, display all the files in the review. Click a file to jump to its content.
• The Contents section displays the total number of files that were added, modified, deleted, and renamed.
• A new Experts section displays the results of expert runs.

Stream and Project Selection Enhancements

In the desktop client, and the Visual Studio and Windows Explorer integrations, it is now easier to find and select streams and projects. You can:

• Start typing the ID of a stream (or project). Streams that contain any characters in the string are displayed. For example, to find ’QLARIUS:VS_BRANCHA’ type ’vs’.
• Select a stream (or project) from a list. Favorite streams and recently used streams are displayed at the top of the list.

You can add streams and projects to, and remove them from, your Favorites list. Recently used streams and projects are automatically added to your Recents list.

Security Enhancements

The following security enhancements have been introduced:

• Administrators can disable Java Applets in the web client. All version management operations for local work areas will be disabled, including deliver, update, check in, and check-out. Operations on remote work areas will work normally, except for update from stream and merge.
• Dimensions CM now performs SSL certificate validation. For details see Secure Sockets Layer Support on Dimensions CM in the Dimensions CM System Administration Guide.

Desktop Client User Interface Improvements

The desktop client user interface has had a major refresh including:

• A cleaner, more streamlined user interface.
• New icons for most objects.

New dmcli Commands

The following commands have been added to dmcli, the Dimensions CM command-line interface:

• HIDE - Hide Unused Streams and Projects
• SHOW - Show Hidden Streams and Projects
• SHELVE - Shelve Changes to a Personal Stream
• SF - Set Favorites

For details see the Dimensions CM Command-Line Reference.

Updates to dmcli Commands

The following dmcli commands have been updated:

• MERGE
• RDEL
• REXEC
• RLIST
• RSTAT
• LWS
• BLD
• BLDB

For details see the Dimensions CM Command-Line Reference.

Serena Deployment Automation

You can optionally install Serena Deployment Automation (SDA) with Dimensions CM. SDA automates software deployment, which is the process of moving software through various pre-production stages to final production. Typically, each stage represents a step of higher criticality, such as quality assurance to production. SDA helps you meet the deployment challenge by providing tools that improve deployment speeds while simultaneously improving their reliability. For more details see the Serena documentation center.

Dimensions CM Bridge Enhancements

The following enhancements have been made to Dimensions CM Bridge:

• Improved performance when updating and delivering items, and displaying repository content in a web browser.
• Git users can connect to a Dimensions CM repository instead of Subversion. When you clone a Dimensions stream to a local Git repository it contains a link to your remote CM repository and you can run any Git svn command if your current directory is a local Git repository.

For details see the Dimensions CM Bridge Getting Started Guide.

SVN Migration with Changesets

By default Dimensions CM changesets are created from Subversion revisions. The changesets are for historical use only and cannot be used with stream versions. For example, you cannot fetch a stream version that is older than the date of a migration. Files deleted from Subversion are included in changeset history but are not migrated as Dimensions CM items. For details see the Migrating to Dimensions CM guide.

Agent Auto Update

Auto update is the process of managing the automatic update of Dimensions CM agents. Auto update has the following benefits for administrators:

• Centralized control over Dimensions CM software updates.
• Flexible upgrade process.
• Audit trail of updates across a network.

For details see Configuring and Using Auto Update in the Dimensions CM System Administration Guide.

IDE Performance Enhancements

The Visual Studio integration now gets items statuses and loads data into views more quickly.

RESTful API Web Services

Dimensions CM now supports RESTful API web services. For details see the Dimensions CM Developer's Reference.

Viewing Execution Logs

To aid the traceability of deployment areas you can view the results of REXEC, deployment, and build script executions by examining the log files that are preserved in CM. For details see Executing Operations on Remote Nodes in the Dimensions CM System Administration Guide.

This section provides detailed information about issues fixed in Dimensions CM.

Fixes in Dimensions CM 14.2

For a list of all the fixes in Dimensions CM 14.2 see the Serena Support web site.

Fixes in Previous Releases of Dimensions CM

For a complete list of fixes in previous releases of Dimensions CM refer to the Serena Support Knowledgebase and select a CM version.

Supported Platforms

For details of Dimensions CM client compatibility, supported platforms, and third party integrations see the Dimensions CM platform matrix.

Virtual Environment Support

Serena recognizes that virtualization technology provides significant utility and value to our customers. As such, Serena conducts functional testing and certifies our products using virtualization technology in addition to native environments. While Serena 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. Serena 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. Serena 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.

Hardware Requirements

For details about hardware requirements see the General Scalability and Performance Guidelines in the Dimensions CM Scaling and Optimization Guide.

Installing this Release

For full details about installing this release see the following documents:

• Serena Dimensions CM 14.2 Installation Guide for Windows
• Serena Dimensions CM 14.2 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 14.2 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 14.2.
• Run the Update command after the upgrade to 14.x , this will also upgrade the metadata 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 Serena recommends that you 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. Serena strongly recommends that you 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 from Dimensions CM 14.1.x

To upgrade from Dimensions CM 14.1.x run the Dimensions CM 14.2 installer.

Upgrading Dimensions Connect for Serena 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 14.2 you must also install the 14.2 version of Dimensions Connect for SBM. If not the integration may not work as expected. See the Dimensions CM Connect for Serena Business Manager User's Guide.

Shutting Down Tomcat Before a Server Upgrade

Shut down the Serena Common Tomcat before starting any Dimensions CM software upgrade. The upgrade installer is not able to perform this step so you must do it manually. If you do not shut down Tomcat, the Web archive (.war) files used by the upgraded Dimensions CM Web tools may not expand correctly, causing files to be missing from these tools.

Stopping Dimensions on Windows

When you stop the Dimensions Service on Windows the dmschedule and dmemail processes may continue to run for a period after the other processes have exited. You should ensure that these processes have terminated before performing an upgrade or patch installation.

Closing the Microsoft Management Console

(Windows only) Check that the Microsoft Management Console is closed before starting an installation or upgrade.

Delay Starting the Installer

When you start an installation there may be a short delay before the first page of the installer appears.

Unable to Connect to Database

If during an installation an error message is displayed stating that Dimensions CM is unable to connect to the database but does not tell you why, do the following:

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

Araxis Merge is not Registered

If you installed and uninstalled a trial version of Araxis Merge the Dimensions CM instance of Araxis Merge can appear as not 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.

Installing on Windows Server 2012R2 with Oracle 12

If you cannot install on Windows Server 2012R2 with Oracle 12 check that:

• 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.

Installer Displays Incorrect Messages when Upgrading from 12.1 with SSO

The installer displays incorrect messages when you upgrade from Dimensions CM 12.1 with SSO to 14.2 without SSO. You can ignore these messages as they do not have any impact on the installation and all files are installed correctly.

New Version of ALF Events Configuration File

During installation and upgrade a new version of the ALF events configuration file ($DM_ROOT/dfs/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 14.2 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.

AIX Memory Limit

Before installing on AIX, run this command to avoid hitting a memory limit:

export LDR_CNTRL=MAXDATA=0XB0000000@DSA

Wind River Workbench 3.3.x

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

Solution: Use 14.1 version of the CM plugin instead, however it does not support the new 14.2 CM features.

Serena Deployment Automation

If you installed SDA as part of a CM agent installation on Windows, uninstalling CM may not delete the Deployment Automation folder.

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.

The following features and functionality are not supported in Dimensions CM 14.2:

• Replicator and local replication
• ART
• DM_CONCURRENT_DELIVER_LOCK_MODE server symbol
• DM_USE_OLD_CRB server symbol
• cmlink (Collage integration)
• REGDEPLOY command for Mover deployments
• 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 metadata format (.metadata): automatically converted to binary metadata format (.dm) after work area update.
• Active Client 7 with 32-bit Eclipse for CAC authentication. Use Active Client 6 or 64-bit Eclipse.