Exercise 28.1 - Collaborator Integration

Owned by Debesh Roy Chowdhury
Jun 10, 2022
7 min read

OBJECTIVES:

The new learning objectives of this exercise are to create a repository connection to a SmartBear Collaborator 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 3.5 installed with a valid user account,

·       A valid user account to a Collaborator repository, and

·       A valid user account to an at least one other online repository, e.g. JIRA.

The user can use any Collaborator repository they have available.  Because the content of your Collaborator 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 - COLLABORATOR:

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 3.5, the Syndeia Web Dashboard can extract and display some model information from the Collaborator repository. Figure 1 shows a tree view of this information, with labels identifying the Collaborator element types. Note the different icons. The label color coding indicates how the Collaborator element type is mapped to the Syndeia Cloud element types: Repository (green), Container (red), and Artifact (blue).

For Collaborator, reviews may be owned directly by the repository without an intervening Container, as in Figure 1. When Collaborator data is mapped to the Syndeia common data model, a default container with name My Action Items is created between the repository and the review and may appear in graph queries.

In the case of the Syndeia Collaborator integration, the Relations table (Step 7) and the Digital Thread Explorer (Step 9 onwards) can display some intra-model connection types between Artifacts, shown in Table 1, as well as inter-model connections. The intra-model connections are not permanently part of the Syndeia Cloud graph; they are extracted and displayed as needed.

This information is important in formulating and interpreting Syndeia graph queries. A more complete diagram of the Collaborator data model as it is understood by Syndeia is available through the web dashboard help menu on the left.

Table 1

Collaborator Intra-Model Relation Types

Relation Type

Artifact Types Connected

Review - Participant

Review → Participant

Review - Defect

Review → Defect

Figure 1 : Tree view of Collaborator repository

EXERCISE:

  1. 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 : Syndeia Web Dashboard Repositories page (initial) – Repositories icon outlined in red

2. If no repository connection to Collaborator is available, select Collaborator in the left column, then click the + icon at the top of the column. Complete the form (consult your Collaborator administrator for the property values in your organization) and click Create (Figure 3).

Figure 3 : Adding a Collaborator repository connection

3. If a Collaborator repository connection already appears under Collaborator, but you need to add your own access credentials, select the Collaborator repository and click the Gear icon at the top of the column. Complete username and password and click Update (Figure 4).

Figure 4 : Updating Collaborator repository info

4. Your repository should load. Expand it to show Reviews, Participants and Defects, as in Figure 5. See Background section for discussion of Collaborator artifact types.

Figure 5 : Viewing Collaborator repository contents on Repositories page

5. On the right border, there are three icons, labeled Details, Relations and Search. Select a Collaborator element in the Tree View column (Hello Collaborator Review in our example) and click on the Details icon. A Detail list appears to the right as in Figure 6. Scroll down and review the attributes of the Collaborator element that are available to Syndeia 3.5, including name and externalKey. Click the Details icon again to close the list.

Figure 6 : SWD Repositories page, Details list (Details icon highlighted in red)

6. Click the Search icon on the right. In the Search Repository window under New Search, select Review by Text or Review by ID to search for a specific review.

  1. If Review by Text is selected, fill in the blank field with a text string and click Search. In our example, we entered Hello. The result(s) of the search are shown below, as in Figure 6.

  2. If Review by ID is selected, fill in the blank field with the review’s Collaborator ID (external id) and click Search. For example, the entry Review-4 returns the search results Hello Syndeia 3.5 Review.

  3. If you right-click on an item under search results, several options are available, including More Details (opening the item in the Collaborator browser interface), Graph View, Create relationship, or Details, which shows the item properties in the a new window, similar to Figure 6.

  4. Click the Search icon to close it.

    Figure 7 : SWD Repositories page, Search feature (Search icon and search result highlighted in red)

7. Select a Collaborator element in the Tree View column (Hello Collaborator Review in our example) and click on the Relations icon on the right.

  1. In the Relations window (Figure 8), you will see a list of Inter-model relations, from the selected Collaborator review to other non-Collaborator models, and a list of Intra-model relations, from the selected Collaborator review to Collaborator defects and participants in the same Collaborator repository.

    Figure 8 :  SWD Repositories page, Relations lists (Relations and Add icons highlighted in red)

8. To create a reference connection between the selected Collaborator item 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.

  1. At the top, either select an existing Syndeia project to save the connection within (DZSB26 in our example) or create a new project. See Video 1.5 on creating Syndeia projects for further discussion.

  2. Under Select target artifact, choose the other repository to which the new connection will be made. In our example this is JIRA @ Intercax.

  3. 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 JIRA issue ADS-27 in our example.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. Click the Relations icon again to close the Relations window.

Note: In Syndeia release 3.5, 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 : In Syndeia Web Dashboard- Create Reference Relationship window

9. 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 Collaborator Review, Hello Collaborator Review. Initially, it appears as a single node in the Graph View, as in Figure 10.

Figure 10 : Digital Thread Explorer, stage 1

10. 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 five intra-model connections to other Collaborator items (light blue circles, 4 participants and 1 defect) and five inter-model connections, to a Jama requirement (orange), a SysML block (purple) and three JIRA issues (blue).

Figure 11 :  Digital Thread Explorer, stage 2

11. If I right-click on one of the new nodes (JIRA issue ADS-27) and expand it, additional edges and nodes are displayed (Figure 12), including inter-model connections to more SysML elements (purple) and another JIRA issue (blue). This process can continue until all connections are displayed.

Figure 12 : Digital Thread Explorer, stage 3

12. Collaborator items in either the Graph View or the Tree View offer direct access to that element in the Collaborator repository. If I right-click on Syndeia Test Product 1 in the diagram in Figure 12 and choose More Details, my browser will open to the same element in Collaborator as in Figure 13 (I may be required to log-in to Collaborator first).

Figure 13 : Collaborator browser interface launched from Syndeia Web Dashboard