Change Set Monitor

What it is and why it exists

In projects with configuration management, every change starts in a change set. Many of them are delivered on time, but others are forgotten: an experiment nobody finished, the work of a colleague who moved to another team, a change set opened by mistake. Over months they pile up in the streams, and nobody knows any more which ones still matter.

DOORS Next shows change sets one stream at a time and gives no overview across components and projects. Change Set Monitor gives project leads and configuration managers one list of all open change sets, with their owners and age, so they can follow them up and clean them up.

Problems it solves

• Forgotten change sets that keep changes away from the stream for weeks or months.
• No single view of open change sets across streams, components and projects.
• No easy way to tell owners which change sets are waiting for them.
• Old change sets of people who left the project, which nobody dares to remove.

Benefits

• One overview of open change sets in the streams of the open component or in every project you can open.
• Clear priorities: each change set shows its project, component, stream, creator and age in days; filter by age, creator or your own change sets.
• Reminders in one click: an email draft to the creators with their change sets, links and the date you ask for. Nothing is sent without you.
• Controlled cleanup: discard only the change sets you tick, after a confirmation, with an Excel report of what was discarded.
• Nothing hidden: change sets you are not allowed to read are counted and listed.

How to use

1. Under Look in, choose Streams of the open component or All projects you can open. For all projects, click Change under Projects to tick the projects to search. Click Find.
2. Review the list. Choose an age in the Older than list, pick an owner, choose Only mine, type in the search field, or change Sort and group. Click a row for its details, with Open in DOORS Next.
3. Click Remind owners, choose One e-mail to all owners or One e-mail per owner, pick the date in Deliver or discard by, and click Open e-mail draft to open the draft in your mail program.
4. Optionally tick change sets that are no longer needed, click Discard and confirm with the red Discard N button. Save the change report with Log in the result block.

Good to know

• Discarding a change set throws its changes away and cannot be undone. When in doubt, remind the owner first.
• Only the creator of a change set, or a user with the permission, can discard it; refused change sets are listed with the reason and can be retried.
• The reminder opens in your own mail program: you can change the text and the recipients before sending. Creators without a known email address are named in the text.
• Run the search across all projects as a JazzAdmin to see every project; projects you cannot open are skipped and counted.