Andy Meneely, Laurie Williams, and Lauren Hayward
CSC 326 - Software Engineering
Department of Computer Science
North Carolina State University

Back to Software Engineering Tutorials

Jazz is an integrated development platform with an emphasis on team collaboration, communication, and software development processes. Jazz contains a client and a server. In this tutorial we will set up and install the Jazz client, as well as show a few of the features of Jazz:

• The Chat window
• Jazz Work Items
• Jazz Source Control

Jazz uses a few terms that require some clarification:

• The Jazz Client: the integrated development enviornment we will be setting up today. We will be establishing a connection to the class's Jazz Repsoitory.
• The Jazz Repository: the overall Jazz server installation, which includes all projects, artifacts, and user accounts.
• Project Area: a set of development artifacts (code, documentation, etc) that the team collaborates on
• Team Area: a set of team members that are associated with a project area. Multiple team areas can be in one project area.
• Stream: a version-controlled project. You can have multiple streams per team, usually one for each project.
• Process: a template for how teams, iterations, milestones, and build streams are defined.

In this tutorial, we will be getting started with Jazz using iTrust as our example project.

For users outside of CSC 326, this tutorial requires a server to be set up, users created, project areas created, and permissions for users to deliver code to their project areas. Any Eclipse project can be used instead of iTrust. You must also obtain a copy of the Jazz client and server from its website.

The Jazz Client is built on Eclipse. One can install Eclipse plug-ins in the same manner as Eclipse. For this tutorial, we will be using a Jazz client with pre-installed plugins from the Eclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP).

1. Download the self-extracting file with the Jazz client from a location which your TA provides. Note: this is for Windows users only. For other operating systems, please go to jazz.net and install the WTP plugins yourself. Your TA can guide you through this process.

2. Extract the file onto your hard drive in the location of your choosing. Start Jazz by executing the following program:

(your extracted location)\Jazz Client with WTP\jazz\client\eclipse\TeamConcert.exe
			

3. Your workbench should ask you for your workspace. Note: on the first startup of Jazz, you should see a Welcome Screen. If you do not see a welcome screen and the Process Perspective is not available, just restart Jazz and that should work.

4. Go to Window > Show View > Other... and choose the Team Artifacts view (with the following icon: ).

5. Under the Team Artifacts view, select Connect to Project Area. Select Create new repository connection and click Next.

Figure 1. Creating a Repository Connection

6. Your TA should give you the information needed for successfully creating a connection to the repository. Fill in the information and click Next

7. Your TA should provide you with the name of the project area for your team project. Select the project area and select Finish.

8. Your Team Artifacts view should now be populated with various access points for Jazz features, such as Repository Workspaces, Project Areas, Team Areas, Work Items, etc. Though we are connected to our Project Area, we have not actually uploaded iTrust yet. To upload iTrust, we need to first deploy it (see the deployment instructions on the iTrust website for how to do that).

9. While we're here, let's change your password (if you haven't already). Right-click on your repository connection and choose Open My User Editor.

Figure 1.33 Open your user editor

10. Click on the Change Password button to change your user's password. Also, feel free to upload a picture of yourself for your other teammates to see.

Figure 1.66 Changing your password

11. Now let's load iTrust. First we need to create a "Repository Workspace", which is a space on the Jazz repository reserved for your work. Your teammates can track your workspace, but only you can deliver code to it.

In the Team Artifacts view, right-click on My Repository Workspaces and select "New Repository Workspace...". Select "Flow With a Stream", then the stream associated with your project area. Hit Finish. Expand the My Repository Workspaces node down to the Default Component.

Figure 2. The populated team artifacts view

12. Double-click the Default Component node. You will be presented with a page describing your Stream Workspace (which we will revisit later in this tutorial).

Figure 3. The Stream Workspace

Jazz provides a version control system that allows you to track the changes you make in your code both locally and within your team. The following terms are used in various ways:

The following steps will take you through:

• Initially sharing iTrust in your project area's stream
• Delivering changes to the stream
• Accepting changes from a stream

1. Switch to the Java perspective (Window > Open Perspective > Java ). Deploy your iTrust source code into the workspace via a zip file. If you already have your project on Subversion, do the following:

• Make sure you have everything committed to the repository
• Disconnect your project, deleting all SVN meta-information

2. Right-click on your project and select Team > Share project.... Select Jazz Source Control () as the source control. Hit Next.

3. Select your Default Component from the previous section as the component to upload iTrust to.

Figure 4. Selecting the component in which to share your project

4. Make sure that iTrust is the only Jazz project selected to be shared. Click Next.

5. The default settings for ignoring resources should be the build folder. Accept these defaults and hit Finish.

6. The process of creating a change set and uploading changes can be lengthy, please be patient. When this is finished, you will need to confirm your changes.

7. Now we need to complete the changes and deliver them. Under the Pending Changes view, you should see the entire iTrust project ready to be delivered. Right-click on the workspace and select "Deliver"

Figure 5.

8. Now our iTrust project is shared on the stream. Now let's make some changes and deliver those. Edit the file in iTrust, developer notes.html. Add a space, or make a minor change. After saving, the icon will have a black arrow on it:

9. Under the pending changes view, the developer notes should show up. Note that right-clicking on the change in Enter a Comment will provide many options, such as those dealing with change sets or work items. This is a good menu to explore for your team project. Add a comment to the change. Select Complete to mark this change finished. To actually deliver the change to the repository, select "Deliver".

Figure 6. Delivering changes

10. To view changes from the stream made by your teammates, right-click on your project in the package explorer and select Team > Show Pending Changes.

Figure 7. Incoming changes

11. To accept the changes, right click on the change and select "Accept...".

Figure 8. Accepting changes

12. To check out a project for the first time into your workspace, go to your Team Artifacts view, find the Default Component under My Repository Workspaces. Right-click on the Default Component and select Load. Select the option to load the iTrust project.

Figure 9. Loading a project for the first time

Work items are ways for team members to collectively gather and assign tasks regarding the project. Work items can have various different types, such as enhancements or defects. In this section, we will create a new work item and show how to find your team's work items.

1. In your Team Artifacts view (you may need to switch to the Process perspective), expand your project area node. Right-click on the Work Items and select New > Work Item...

Figure 5. Creating a new Work Item

2. Select "Defect" and hit Finish.

3. Your new defect should be opened up with many different options. Add the following information:

• Under Summary, put "My Example Defect".
• Under Filed Against, select your project area.
• Feel free to add other information. Right click on "Quick Information" and add things like screenshots, files, etc. In the following figure, I've added a screenshot of Package Explorer and circled the source folders.

Figure 6. Adding Information to your Work Item"

4. Save your work item using the button in the upper-right.

5. Now let's find our work item. For that, we need to set up a query for all of our work items. Under your Team Artifacts view, right click on My Queries and select New Query...

6. Select Simple Query in the editor that is opened. You should be presented with a screen that has many different options for work items. Add the only constraint for work items to be in your project area. Running the query results in a similar screen as in the figure below.

Figure 7. A basic work item query

And there's our work item!

If you have a Google account, you can use the Chat feature in Jazz. At this point in time, we do not have any chat servers set up, so if you would like to use the Chat feature, you will need a Google account. Otherwise, you may skip this section.

1. Make sure that you are connected to a Project Area. In Jazz, Windows users should go to Window > Preferences and choose Instant Messaging. Mac users should go to Rational Team Concert > Preferences.

2. Click on Add.... If the Add button is not available, you are not connected to a project area.

3. Under Provider, select Google Talk, then fill your username and password. Hit Ok.

Figure 8. Adding a new Instant Messaging connection

4. Hit the Connect button in the preferences.

5. Your user name should appear in green in the Team Artifacts view. Right-clicking on another active user give the option to go into chat.

Figure 9. Selecting another person to chat with

6. Selecting "Chat..." will open a chat view in Jazz.

Figure 10. Chatting with another person

7. Right-click on your Team Area to Join a team discussion

Figure 11. Joining a team discussion

Jazz does a whole lot more than we've gone over here. Feel free to explore their interfaces and features.

Jazz also has significantly thorough documentation. You can find help menus throughout the client, as well as on Jazz.net. Below are some links that can be very helpful:

• Getting Started tutorials with Jazz is a set of tutorials that will walk you through the features of Jazz.
• Jazz Technical Overview is a guide to the philosophy of Jazz and the layout of its architecture
• The Articles section of Jazz.net provides some specific articles for specific tasks.
• The message boards are a great place to find/post problems you run into. The community is pretty responsive with this medium.