UCM structures the efforts of your software development team into a defined, repeatable process. This section provides an overview of the workflow for developers in UCM. Joining a Project A developer starts work by joining a UCM project. When you join a project, you create your private work area and populate it with the contents of the project's baselines. Shared and Private Work Areas A work area consists of a view and a stream. A view is a directory tree that shows a single version of each file in your project. A stream is a ClearCase object that maintains a list of activities and baselines and determines which versions of elements appear in your view. A project contains one integration stream, which records the project's baselines and enables access to shared versions of the project's elements. The integration stream and a corresponding integration view represent the project's shared work area. Each developer on the project has a private work area, which consists of a development stream and a corresponding development view. The development stream maintains a list of the developer's activities and determines which versions of elements appear in the developer's view. In the basic UCM process, the integration stream is the project's only shared work area. The project manager or lead developer may want to create additional shared work areas for developers who are working together on specific parts of the project. You can accomplish this by creating a hierarchy of development streams. For example, you can create a development stream and designate it as the shared work area for developers working on a particular feature. Developers then create their own development streams and views under the development stream for this feature. The developers deliver work to and rebase their streams to recommended baselines in the feature's development stream. Working on Activities All work on your development stream takes place as part of a UCM activity. An activity is an object that tracks the work required to complete a development task, such as fixing a bug. Finding or Creating an Activity for Your Work If your project uses Rational ClearQuest, you can use a to-do list in ClearQuest to access activities that you, your project manager, or other team members assign to you. You can also create and use activities when you check out files and directories. Modifying and Testing Source Files To modify source files, go into your development view and check them out. When you want to keep a record of a file's current state, check it in. Any work you check in from your development view is not available to other team members until you deliver it. Make sure the changes in your development view build and function properly before you deliver them. Delivering Activities When you are ready to make one or more of your activities available to the project team, you deliver them from your development stream to either the project's integration stream or the feature-specific development stream. Starting the Deliver Operation When you start a deliver operation, ClearCase integrates the changes from your development work area to the integration work area or feature-specific development stream. At this point, the files are checked out to your integration view. Testing Your Work You should build and test your work against the latest project work. To do this, use your integration view to access both the versions you delivered from your development work area and the latest versions delivered by the other developers working on the project. Completing the Deliver Operation When you are satisfied that your changes are compatible with the latest work for the project, you complete the deliver operation. (If you are not satisfied, you can cancel it.) The deliver operation checks in the files that were integrated from the development work area to the integration work area or feature-specific development stream. Delivering with MultiSite If your project uses Rational ClearCase MultiSite to share source data with developers in other geographical locations, you may use a different method for delivering activities. If a different site is responsible for controlling your project's source data, your organizational policy may require that you notify the integrator or project manager at that site when you deliver changes. That person merges your activities to the integration stream and tests your work. Rebasing Your Work Area Periodically, your project manager groups delivered activities into baselines, which are versions of each component in the project. Some of these baselines constitute a stable and significant source configuration; your project manager will recommend that you rebase your development work area to the recommended configuration. Starting the Rebase Operation When you start the rebase operation, ClearCase integrates the versions specified by the recommended baseline in either the project's integration stream or the feature-specific development stream into your development work area. At this point, the files are checked out to your development view. Testing Your Development Work Area You should test your work against the latest project work. To do this, use your development view to access both the versions you integrated from the integration stream or feature-specific development stream and the latest (undelivered) versions in your development work area. Completing the Rebase Operation When you are satisfied that the recommended baseline is compatible with the work you have done in your development stream, you complete the rebase operation. (If you are not satisfied, you can cancel it.) The rebase operation checks in the files that were integrated from the integration stream or feature-specific development stream to the development work area.