Exercise 20.1 - Teamwork Cloud Integration on Web Dashboard
- Debesh Roy Chowdhury
Objectives
The new learning objectives of this exercise are to create a repository connection to a Teamwork Cloud (TWC) repository on the Syndeia Web Dashboard (SWD), view the repository including properties, relations and search, and create a reference connection.
Preparation
This exercise assumes the student has
· Syndeia Cloud 3.4 installed with a valid user account,
· A valid user account to a Teamwork Cloud repository, and
· A valid user account to a at least one other on-line repository, e.g. JIRA.
The user can use any TWC repository they have available. Because the content of your TWC repository will be different, the specific examples in the following exercise instructions are only a guide and example for your actions. It is generally advisable to carry out these exercises in a non-production repository, a “sandbox”, set up for training and practice purposes.
See Video 1.9 for an introduction to the Syndeia Web Dashboard.
Background – Teamwork Cloud
As envisioned by Intercax, the Digital Thread is composed of inter-model connections between models in different repositories, which Syndeia creates and manages, and intra-model connections between elements in the same repository, which the individual tool creates and manages. As of Syndeia release 3.4, the Syndeia Web Dashboard can extract and display some model information from the Teamwork Cloud repository. Figure 1 shows a tree view of this information, with labels identifying the Teamwork Cloud element types. The label color coding indicates how the Teamwork Cloud element type is mapped to the Syndeia Cloud element types: Repository (green), Container (red), and Artifact (blue).
In the case of the Syndeia Teamwork Cloud integration, the Relations table (Step 7) and the Digital Thread Explorer (Step 9 onwards) do not display any intra-model connection types, only inter-model connections.
This information is important in formulating and interpreting Syndeia graph queries. A more complete diagram of the Teamwork Cloud data model as it is understood by Syndeia is available through the web dashboard help menu on the left.
Figure 1 Tree view of TWC repository
Exercise
Log on to the Syndeia Cloud Web Dashboard (see Video 1.9) and click on the Repositories icon on the left border (Figure 2).
Figure 2 SWD Repositories page (initial) – Repositories icon outlined in red
If no repository connection to TWC is available, select Teamwork Cloud in the left column, then click the + icon at the top of the column. Complete the form and click Create (Figure 3).
Figure 3 Adding a TWC repository connection
If a TWC repository connection already appears under Teamwork Cloud, but you need to add your own access credential, select the TWC repository and click the Gear icon at the top of the column. Complete username and password and click Update (Figure 4).
Figure 4 Updating TWC repository info
Your repository should load. Expand it to show Branches, Models, and Revisions, as in Figure 5. See Background section for discussion of TWC artifact types.
Figure 5 Viewing TWC repository contents on Repositories page
On the right border, there are three icons, labeled Details, Relations and Search. Select a TWC object in the Tree View column (the trunk branch in our example) and click on the Details icon. A Detail list appears to the right as in Figure 6. At the top of the list, two icons allow the list to be sorted alphabetically or by default order (shown here). Scroll down and review the attributes of the TWC object that are available to Syndeia 3.4, including name and externalID. Click the Details icon again to close the list.
Figure 6 SWD Repositories page, Details list (Details icon highlighted in red)
Click the Search icon on the right.
In the Search window, select Container Search or Artifact Search. If Container Search is selected, type a text string in the Query field and click Search.
If Artifact Search is selected, select the Workspace (Category) to be searched from the Container pull-down menu, select the Resource (Project) to be searched from the Resource pull-down menu, select the type of TWC artifact to be searched for from the Select artifact type* pull-down menu, fill in the Query field with the text string to be searched and click Search. In our example, we entered Sandbox for Container, CruiseShip v4 for Resource, branch for type, and trunk for Query. The result(s) of the search are shown on the right, as in Figure 7.
Click the Search icon again to close the Search window.
Figure 7 SWD Repositories page, Search feature (Search icon and search result highlighted in red)
Select a TWC object in the Tree View column (trunk in our example) and click on the Relations icon on the right.
In the Relations window (Figure 8), you will see a list of Inter-model relations, from the selected TWC object to other non-TWC models, and a list of Intra-model relations, from the selected TWC object to other TWC objects in the same TWC repository. In this example, there is one Inter-model relation, to a JIRA issue. As discussed in the Background section earlier, Syndeia 3.4 does not recognize any intra-model relationship types within Teamwork Cloud
Figure 8 SWD Repositories page, Relations lists (Relations and Add icons highlighted in red)
To create a reference connection between the selected TWC object and an element in another repository, click on the + (Add) icon highlighted in Figure 8. A Create Reference Relationships window will appear as in Figure 9.
At the top, either select an existing Syndeia project to save the connection within (DZSB13 in our example) or create a new project. See Video 1.5 on creating Syndeia projects for further discussion.
Under Select target artifact, choose the other repository to which the new connection will be made. In our example this is Jama @ Intercax.
If you have valid access to this repository, its contents will appear at the bottom of the window. Scroll down to the element that will be the target of the new connection and click the checkbox beside it. This is Jama Stakeholder requirement set Requirements in our example.
Each Syndeia connection has a directionality. The Select direction pull down menu higher up in the window allows the directionality to be set as desired before the connection is made.
Click on the Create Reference Connection button at the bottom. The new connection should appear in the Inter-model list after the Reload icon is clicked.
Click the Relations icon again to close the Relations window.
Note: In Syndeia release 3.4, it is not possible to create Model Transform inter-model connections or intra-model connections through the SWD. Some of those use cases will be added in future releases.Figure 9 SWD Create Reference Relationship window
The Digital Thread Explorer or DTE (Figure 10 - Figure 12) provides interactive visualization of inter-model and intra-model connections in a graph format. To launch DTE, right-click an item in the Tree View and choose Graph View. In our example, this is a TWC element (block) Ship. Initially, it appears as a single node in the Graph View, as in Figure 10.
Figure 10 DTE, stage 1
Click on the node (it will show a black border when selected), right-click on it and choose Expand. If this element has any connections, they should appear as in Figure 11. In our example, the initial element had four inter-model connections, to a JIRA issue (blue) and one to a Jama requirement (gold)).
Figure 11 DTE, stage 2
If I right-click on one of the new nodes (JIRA CSE-24) and expand it, an additional edge and node are displayed (Figure 12), an intra-model relation to JIRA issue CSE-4. This process can continue until all connections are displayed.
Figure 12 DTE, stage 3