Imagine this scenario.
All the fields from all the artifacts in one system synchronize to your other tool, but you’re responsible for reconstituting each artifact. You have to collect all the comments, statuses and attachments for each Story, Task and Requirement and put them back together.
Sounds horrific, right?
That’s because the relationship between the fields is just as important as the fields themselves. Let’s take this one step further. Since we already recreate the relationships between fields within artifacts and also recreate the relationships between artifacts.
This is why we created Artifact Relationship Management, or ARM for short. With ARM, you can recreate the relationships between artifacts in your tools.
What is ARM?
Artifact Relationship Management (ARM) allows for relationship structures to synchronize between tools.
ARM comes in two distinct flavors: Internal ARM and External ARM.
Don’t worry, they’re both included in Sync.
Internal ARM
Internal ARM recreates relationships internally to your tools. In this scenario, both the parent and child artifact are synced between the two tools. And because there is a known relationship on one side, that relationship is recreated on the other side.
We support both hierarchical and relational links (ex parent/child, related to/related, blocks/blocked by). The key is that both artifacts will synchronize to each system.
We can also support folder sync in some tools, so not only do your artifacts sync across, but they are then filed in the correct folder.
External ARM
But what happens if I either don’t want both artifacts to sync or my tool limits it?
That’s where External ARM comes into play.
Using External ARM, we can create a URL that will point to the artifact on the other side. So if I’m syncing a requirement from HP ALM to RTC, I can create an external ARM link on the RTC artifact to the associated test case in HP ALM (RTC doesn’t have the concept of a test case, so I can’t sync a test case into RTC).
With Tasktop Sync and Artifact Relationship Management, not only are you able to synchronize your artifacts, see status updates, collaborate on tasks, but you can do all this while maintaining the overall structure of your stories, tasks, tests and requirements.
How can I use ARM?
I recently co-presented a webinar about ARM, complete with demos of internal and external ARM.
For more information on how you can use ARM to maintain organization, traceability and quality throughout your software development and delivery lifecycle, watch the recording.
