How to use ChangeMaster® for Software Projects

The following describes how ChangeMaster complements most software development and maintenance projects.

In any development or maintenance project, Project Management and Quality Assurance Testing may be the most important factors contributing to the overall success of the project.

ChangeMaster provides a number of key features and benefits that complement most software projects.

1. When performing maintenance changes, after identifying the objects and source members to be modified, the programmer would "Check Out" the object and its source using the ChangeMaster CHMCHKOUT command. ChangeMaster copies the object and the corresponding source to the private work library where the programmer can make the changes.

2. When the programmer is ready to "promote" a group of related changes to a Quality Assurance Testing area, the programmer can issue the ChangeMaster "Check-In" command (CHMCHKIN) to promote the changes. "Check-In" causes ChangeMaster to perform various tasks, such as: copying the objects and source members from the "WORK" to the "TEST" libraries, and recompiling objects from source. If files have changed it will rebuild physical files first, then logicals, then recompile any programs that depend on those file changes to prevent level-checks, ensuring that all objects are "owned" by a specified AS/400 user profile (application owner), and so on.

3. Quality Assurance teams can use ChangeMaster's Compare Source command (CHMCMPSRC) to determine exactly what lines of code were changed. This can be very useful for so-called "white box testing," and can aid the QA team in the design of test cases.

4. ChangeMaster's Compare Source command can also be used to compare captured screen-prints or report listings (spool files), to help identify different results.

5. Quality Assurance teams can use other features of ChangeMaster to help manage the test environment. For example, a ChangeMaster project can be set up to contain archived versions of test data, to re-populate any test database files before re-running a set of test cases.

6. By creating a "HOLD" level between the WORK and TEST levels, developers can "Check-In" changes from WORK when they are done, but the QA team may not be ready to accept any changes into their TESTing environment, because testing is underway, and they need to maintain a "stable" testing environment. When QA is ready to accept the next set of changes, any member of the QA team (group profile) can issue a "Check-In" (CHMCHKIN command) to promote changes from the HOLD level into the TEST level libraries.

7. If QA testing identifies errors, the QA team can "Transfer" one or more objects and source members, or a whole set of related objects and source, back to the developer(s) for further revision.

8. If the testing was completed successfully, the QA Team can "Check-In" (promote) the changes to the next level, say "STAGING", where the objects are "ready for production" and are "staged" until the Production Control team is ready to implement the changes into the "live" environment on all production machines.

9. ChangeMaster can also automatically distribute changes to one or more production AS/400 machines, via SNADS, or using another vendor's AS/400 Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) package. ChangeMaster's open architecture and APIs protect your investment in other independent software vendor tools and utilities.

10. Finally, upon successful completion, ChangeMaster releases the locks on the objects and source members that have been promoted to Production, so they are available for future modifications.

11. If you have to make "emergency fixes" during the course of an enhancement project, you can use ChangeMaster's history log to identify exactly which objects were changed, and then use the built-in Compare Source command to compare the current version of the source code running in production with the previous version you have archived. Programmers can use the results to easily "merge" the changes (emergency fixes) into the enhanced version.

    

    Summary

    This brief overview is intended to help you to begin to understand and appreciate how ChangeMaster® can help you manage your development and maintenance projects.

    If you have any additional questions, contact our office at (888) 4-ISS-NOW (447-7669) or (630) 852-5800(Chicago area), or just e-mail us.

    NOTE: ChangeMaster and other ISS software is fully Year 2000 Compliant

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