Tim has already described how to schedule tasks and features in Part 3 of the series. This blog will build on this to show how you can reschedule a task or feature. This is one of the major benefits to using features – you can choose which version the feature will be completed in. 

For example you might start a feature in Version 1 thinking it will only take a week. The developer working on the feature will submit changes to the feature. If you realize it will take longer than expected you can move the feature to Version 2. Because the developer only submitted changes to the feature, Version 1 was never updated.

Rescheduling Tasks and Features

To reschedule tasks and features, select them in the Projects view and select ‘Move’. This will launch a dialog for you to select the new version. Alternatively you can drag-and-drop them into the version within the Projects tree.

You are not restricted to moving tasks and features between versions. You can move them between features and folders in the same way.

If developers have not started working on the task or feature then this is it. If work has already commenced then the situation becomes a little more complicated... but less so than you might expect!

Work In Progress: Tasks

A developer is working on the task within her workspace so the task appears under Current Tasks with the file changes.

If a manager moves this task to another version the developer will receive a warning that the task has been moved.

When the developer goes to the My Tasks view, she will see that the task is still assigned to her but that it is not currently being worked on.

The developer will press ‘Start’ to begin working on the task and select the existing workspace. This will switch the workspace to the new version while keeping the changes made.

If you are using a release of PureCM prior to 2010-1d you will first need to manually shelve your changes to the server and revert the changes from the original workspace. You will not be able to switch a workspace which contains changes. After switching the workspace you will need to unshelve the changes back into the workspace.

The simplicity of this approach is often overlooked. Before we started using tasks the team leader would tell each developer which version to submit the changes into. So it was the responsibility of the developer to ensure they were working against the correct version. This is both prone to error and time consuming. Now PureCM switches the workspace to the correct version automatically.

Work In Progress: Features

Now, let’s look at the case when a developer has already submitted changes to the feature. PureCM will automatically create a new feature stream from the new version and merge all the changes from the old feature stream into the new feature stream. If the files in which the changes were made are identical between the two versions then this will all happen automatically. If any of the files are different then this will create an update conflict.

If you are using a release of PureCM prior to 2010-1d you will need to create a new feature from the new version. Create a merge rule from the old feature stream to the new feature stream with the auto-merge flag set. Complete the old feature and set the owner for the new feature.

Update conflicts appear in the My Tasks view if you own the feature.

Click on the Resolve button to launch the Changeset Dialog and resolve any conflicts.

In Summary

This blog has described how to reschedule tasks and features and how developers can switch their changes to the new version.

• Moving tasks and features in the Projects view is trivial.
• If a developer is working on a task in a workspace then PureCM will switch the workspace to the new version.
• If a developer has submitt ed changes to the feature then these changes will be merged to the new feature stream.
• Moving a feature may create update conflicts which can be resolved within the My Tasks view.