Baselines - Digital Thread Dashboard

Owned by Manas Bajaj
Last updated: Apr 29, 2024
5 min read

Syndeia 3.6 introduces Baselines for Digital Thread Projects.

A Baseline represents the state of a Digital Thread Project and its contents at a specific point in time. A Baseline is identified by its unique timestamp. Users can create new baselines and compare baselines to review digital thread relations created, updated, and deleted between the baselines. Users can also compare a baseline with the current timestamp (Now) to view changes in the Digital Thread Project since the last baseline, or any given baseline. The Baseline feature is accessible from the Baselines tab of the Digital Thread Project Dashboard, as shown in Figure 1 below. Two sub-tabs - Manage and Compare - are used for managing and comparing baselines, as shown in Figures 1 and 2 below.

image-20240426-140304.png
Figure 1: Manage Baselines
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Figure 2: Compare Baselines

The Baseline feature is presented in details in the following sub-sections.

Privileges

The following user privileges are required on the Digital Thread Project for working with Baselines.

(1) Baselines can be created, updated, or deleted only by users who have BASELINE_WRITE permission on the given Digital Thread Project.

(2) Baselines can be viewed and compared by any user who has READ permission on the given Digital Thread Project.

(3) Users can view their privileges in the Settings tab of the Digital Thread Project Dashboard.

(4) To learn more about Digital Thread Project Privileges, refer to the following: Digital Thread Project Privileges.

View Baselines

Baselines in a given Digital Thread Project can be viewed from the Baselines → Manage tab of the Digital Thread Project Dashboard, as shown in Figure 1 above. For each Baseline, users will see the following details.

  • Name - name of the Baseline, can be modified by a user

  • Description - short description of the Baseline, can be modified by a user

  • Timestamp - timestamp at which the Baseline was created, cannot be modified by user or Syndeia application

  • Created By - user who created the Baseline, managed by Syndeia application

  • Created Date - timestamp when the Baseline was created, managed by Syndeia application

  • Modified By - user who modified the Baseline, managed by Syndeia application

  • Modified Date - timestamp when the Baseline was modified, managed by Syndeia application

Create a New Baseline

Follow the steps below to create a new Baseline.

(1) Click on the Create button (top RHS) under the Baselines → Manage tab, as shown in Figure 1 above.

(2) Provide a Name and Description, as shown in Figure 2 below.

(3) Select Timestamp - Keep Current Time or select a specific date/time (with timezone) since the Digital Thread Project was created until now as the timestamp for the Baseline.

Users can create a Baseline by selecting any date/time (timestamp) since the project was created to the present (Now). This is a very powerful feature as it provides the flexibility to create Baselines if a user/team missed creating them at a given time. However, once a Baseline is created, the timestamp cannot be changed. Users have the option of deleting the Baseline and recreating it at another timestamp. This works similar to Tags in Git version control system.

(4) Click on the Create button.

(5) The Baselines tab should update and show the newly created Baseline.

Compare Baselines

Baselines in a given Digital Thread Project can be compared from the Baselines → Compare tab of the Digital Thread Project Dashboard, as shown in Figure 2 above.

Follow the steps below to compare any two (2) Baselines.

(1) Click on the Baselines → Compare tab in the Digital Thread Project Dashboard.

(2) Select a Reference Baseline from the drop down, as shown in Figure 3 below.

(3) Select a Target Baseline from the drop-down, as shown in Figure 4 below.

The Target Baseline needs to be a Baseline with a later timestamp than the Reference Baseline.

  • If you select the Reference Baseline first, you will only see Baselines with a later timestamp when selecting a Target Baseline.

  • If you select the Target Baseline first, you will only see Baselines with an earlier timestamp when selecting a Reference Baseline.

 

(4) After both the Reference and Target Baselines have been selected, a difference table will be generated. Depending on the changes between the Reference and Target Baselines, the difference table may show the following types of changes. Click on each to view the changes of that type.

  • Created - Set of inter-model (digital thread) relations created between the Reference Baseline (timestamp) and the Target Baseline (timestamp).

  • Updated - Set of inter-model (digital thread) relations updated between the Reference Baseline (timestamp) and the Target Baseline (timestamp).

  • Deleted - Set of inter-model (digital thread) relations deleted between the Reference Baseline (timestamp) and the Target Baseline (timestamp).

If none of the above are shown, it implies that there are no digital thread relations created, updated, or deleted between the Reference Baseline and the Target Baseline.

Update a Baseline

Follow the steps below to update a Baseline. Only the name and description fields can be updated.

(1) To modify a Baseline, click on the edit button image-20240426-151907.png for that Baseline.

(2) Specify new Name and/or Description, as shown in Figure 6 below.

(3) Click on the Update button.

(4) The given Baseline will show the updated name/description in the Baselines table.

Delete a Baseline

Follow the steps below to delete a Baseline.

(1) To delete a Baseline, click on the delete button image-20240426-151923.png for that Baseline.

(2) Click the Confirm button, as shown in Figure 7 below.

(3) The given Baseline will be deleted and not shown anymore in the Baselines table.

 

Tutorials

Refer to the following tutorials to learn more.

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