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.

The key features and benefits that ChangeMaster provides, beyond what most Year 2000 conversion tools typically provide, are:

1. Impact analysis can be performed using the ChangeMaster FIND command. The ChangeMaster Find command (CHMFND) scans all or selected members in a source physical file, or compressed source members in a ChangeMaster project archive, directly, without having to decompress them first. The Find command permits scanning for up to 30 "patterns" in a single pass over the source members, and prints a report that identifies each member containing a match, each line of source that matched one or more of the patterns, and a summary at the end of the report shows how many total lines matched, and how many members contained matches. You can use these numbers to estimate the size and cost of the conversion effort. This is also especially useful if you are performing the Year 2000 conversion project "manually."

2. When a programmer or analyst uses a Year 2000 Tool to perform analysis of the application's objects and source code, at this point, an interface can invoke a change management product to "check-out" each object and its source member, to prevent other programmers from checking it out for changes, except under "emergency fix" situations (see below). If performing the conversion "manually", 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.

3. After analysis is complete, the programmer can instruct the Year 2000 Tool to "make the changes" in a "WORK" library, and the programmer can (typically) review those changes before accepting them, and perhaps make additional "manual" changes using SEU, PDM, etc. Again, if performing the conversion "by hand" the programmer makes the changes using SEU, etc., as usual.

4. Next, the programmer or analyst might instruct the Year 2000 Tool to "recompile" the changes in the "WORK" library, where "unit testing" can be performed. (If the Year 2000 tool does not have this capability, ChangeMaster can be set up to provide this capability.

5. 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, which causes ChangeMaster to perform various tasks, such as: copying the objects and source members from the "WORK" to the "TEST" libraries, recompiling objects from source, rebuilding physical files first, then logicals, then recompiling any programs that depend on those file changes to prevent level-checks, then recompiling any programs that were changed by the Year 2000 Tool, ensuring that all objects are "owned" by a specified AS/400 user profile (application owner), and so on.

6. 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.

7. 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.

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

9. By creating a "HOLD" level between the WORK and TEST levels, developers or programmers 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.

10. 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.

11. 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 Year 2000 changes into the "live" environment on all production machines.

12. Upon successful promotion, Quality Assurance Testing can commence; this is perhaps the most important part of any successful Year 2000 conversion project, according to IBM's various "white papers" on Year 2000 conversions.

13. After successful QA testing, a "Production Control" or "Quality Assurance" team member can issue a ChangeMaster "Check-In" command, using the same "Change ID" (or "work order #") to promote all of the related changes into the "Production" libraries. ChangeMaster can also automatically copy the old data, using CPYF ? (*MAP *DROP), or can call a user-provided (or Year 2000 Tool generated) data conversion program to "map" the data in the date fields.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. If you had to perform normal "maintenance" or make "emergency fixes" during the course of the Year 2000 conversion effort, (and, who doesn't?), 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. Your programmers can use the results to easily "merge" the changes (maintenance or emergency fixes) into the new, Year 2000 compliant version.

17. If your company is a service bureau or consultancy performing Year 2000 conversion services for your clients, upon completion of the Year 2000 conversion project, you can offer a "value-added" option to deliver all of the source code and objects packaged in a ChangeMaster project archive database, complete with the history describing each change, along with the compressed, archived previous version(s) of the source code, to the client. Your clients will have their objects and source members under sound change management discipline and control, and they can easily compare the new version of any member with the previous version to see exactly what was changed.

    

    Summary

    This brief overview is intended to help you to begin to understand and appreciate how ChangeMaster® can help you manage your Year 2000 Conversion projects, whether you plan to use automated Year 2000 Conversion Tools, or you decide to make the changes "by hand," using either in-house staff or consultants.

    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 now.

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

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