In the last blog Tim described how a developer works with tasks to complete small units of work. I will follow on from this to discuss how a developer works with larger pieces of work.

My Features

We have already introduced the concept of a feature and described when a manager should create a feature as opposed to a task. So lets assume a manager has already assigned a feature to you.

After a feature has been assigned to you it will appear in the ‘Workspaces’ view under ‘My Features’.

From here you can:

• Open a workspace for the feature. This will allow you select an existing workspace or create a new workspace.
• Show the file differences between the feature and the version.
• Complete the feature by merging all the changes back into the version.

Feature Workspaces

To start working on the feature press Open and select an existing workspace or create a new workspace. If you have already created a workspace for a feature which you have completed then you should select this workspace. This will switch the workspace from the old feature to the new feature. Switching a workspace is a lot quicker than creating a new workspace.

After opening the workspace you can start working on the files the same as if you were working against the version directly. You can use any of the PureCM clients or one of our IDE plugins such as Visual Studio or Eclipse.

The difference between working on a feature, rather than working on the version directly, is that submitted changes are only applied to the feature. So you can checkpoint your work, submitting unfinished changes, without breaking everybody else’s workspace.

Completing the Feature

When you have submitted all the changes required for a feature it is time to complete the feature and merge the changes back into the version. In the Workspaces view press Complete.

This will open the Changeset Dialog showing all the changes for this feature.

Press the Submit button to apply these changes to the version. All the feature changes will be merged back into the version as one changeset.

Features & Tasks

If you are using features and tasks then you start working by selecting Start on the task in the My Tasks view, as described in Tim’s blog. Whether the task is part of a feature or version makes no difference when working with tasks; PureCM will automatically populate your workspace with the correct files and folders.

When all the tasks within a feature have been completed, the feature will appear under ‘Pending Features’ in the My Tasks view. From here you can Complete the feature to merge it back into the version. The feature will only appear under ‘Pending Features’ if the feature is assigned to you.

In Summary

• You can create a new workspace or switch an existing workspace to start working on the feature.
• You can checkpoint your code within a feature workspace without breaking everybody else’s workspace.
• After submitting all the changes to the feature you complete the feature by merging all the changes back into the version as a single changeset.
• When working with tasks, it makes no difference whether you are working on a feature task or a version task.

The next blog will describe how you can use features to perform code reviews.