HP Quality Center Synchronizer 1.20 Readme
Software version: HP Quality Center Synchronizer 1.20 / June 2008
This file provides information about HP Quality Center Synchronizer 1.20, as well as earlier versions.
For detailed information about Quality Center Synchronizer, please refer to the HP Quality Center Synchronizer User's Guide.
System Requirements
You must install the Quality Center Synchronizer server on a dedicated server machine that is not being used as a Quality Center, Quality Center Dashboard, ClearQuest, or RequisitePro server.
For information on system requirements and supported environments, refer to the HP Quality Center Synchronizer User's Guide.
What's New for All HP Quality Center Synchronizer Users
This section provides an overview of the features that are new or enhanced in Quality Center Synchronizer. The features described in this section are relevant for both ClearQuest and RequisitePro users.
What's New for All Users in Quality Center Synchronizer 1.20»
This section provides an overview of the features that are new or enhanced in Quality Center Synchronizer 1.20 for all users.
Adapter SPI
- Adapter Service Provider Interface (SPI) is available to extend the Quality Center Synchronizer with adapters to additional systems (endpoints). You can now implement adapters for third-parties to synchronize Quality Center defects and requirements to records in other products.
- Adapter SDK package includes the SPI, documentation, and testing package.
Installation/Deployment
- Upgrade fully supported from either Quality Center Synchronizer 1.00 or 1.10.
- Upgrade of internal database (Postgres) is fully integrated in upgrade process.
- Improved migration process. The Requirements Restore Tool is distributed as part of the Synchronizer client installation package. This tool is used as part of the migration process when migrating synchronization tasks built using Quality Center Requirements Synchronizer for Rational RequisitePro Add-in to the latest version of the Quality Center Synchronizer.
Performance/Scalability
Client improvements to handle a large amount of links.
Usability
Scheduling Changes
The Quality Center Synchronizer now supports running tasks at specific times of the day on specific days of the week.
Additional Supported Environments
ClearQuest feature level 6 repositories are now supported.
Other Differences
- Documentation improvements.
- UI improvements, such as:
- The Quality Center Synchronizer can now send e-mail for tasks with a "Passed with errors" status.
- The Quality Center Synchronizer now returns data from newly created records to help ensure that both endpoints contain exactly the same data. For example, if during synchronization, the destination endpoint creates a value that does not exist in the source endpoint, the new value is sent to source endpoint.
- Improved log and error messages.
- Bug fixes.
What's New for All Users in Quality Center Synchronizer 1.10»
This section provides an overview of the features that are new or enhanced in Quality Center Synchronizer 1.10 for all users.
Installation
Other Differences
What's New for Rational ClearQuest Users (Quality Center Synchronizer 1.10 and Earlier)
This section provides an overview of the differences between Quality Center Synchronizer and previous versions of Quality Center defects synchronization tools.
What's New in Quality Center Synchronizer 1.10»
This section provides an overview of the features that are new or enhanced in Quality Center Synchronizer 1.10.
Installation
- Quality Center Synchronizer's installation is now interactive and completely graphical user interface based, and contains both deployment and configuration. In the previous version, users launched a non-interactive batch file.
- You now have the option to upgrade the Quality Center Synchronizer database during the server configuration phase of installation.
- Work with a previously installed PostgreSQL server is supported. The database of the previous version is upgraded to the next version without any loss of data.
Support for Filters
In Quality Center Synchronizer 1.00, the use of public filters in Quality Center and ClearQuest was supported. In Quality Center Synchronizer 1.10, the use of private filters is now also supported.
Delivery Changes
- A 3rd party Adapter SPI has been added to enable you to implement adapters to synchronize Quality Center defects and requirements with records in other applications.
- Adapters are deployed and loaded dynamically when the Quality Center Synchronizer is started, allowing the addition and removal of adapters without changes to the server engine.
- There is now a generic testing framework for testing adapter behavior.
Scheduling Changes
- In Quality Center Synchronizer 1.00, incremental synchronization could be scheduled to run at specified time intervals. In Quality Center Synchronizer 1.10, you can now also choose to schedule incremental synchronization to run daily at a set time.
- The number of synchronization tasks that can run concurrently is now limited for improved performance.
User Requirement Changes
The user does not need to have administrator privileges on the Quality Center or ClearQuest repository to allow synchronization. The user only needs to have the appropriate create, update, or delete permissions to handle the events defined for the links.
Other Differences
- The Quality Center Synchronizer database is automatically and periodically backed up.
- In Quality Center Synchronizer 1.00, one link only could be configured at a time. In Quality Center Synchronizer 1.10, you can now simultaneously configure multiple links.
- The Events and Filters tab in Quality Center Synchronizer 1.00 is now divided into two separate tabs.
- Logging is improved, including adapter logs that are better integrated into the task logs, and log viewer improvements.
What's New from ClearQuest Synchronizer to Quality Center Synchronizer 1.00»
This section provides an overview of the differences between the legacy ClearQuest Synchronizer and Quality Center Synchronizer version 1.00.
Client-Server Architecture
Quality Center Synchronizer uses a client-server architecture. The Quality Center Synchronizer client provides a user interface for managing links, and sends user requests to the Quality Center Synchronizer server, which processes the requests. In addition, link configuration settings and identity mapping data is stored in the Quality Center Synchronizer database.
Internal Identity Mapping Storage
In ClearQuest Synchronizer, identity mapping data was stored in the Quality Center and ClearQuest databases. In Quality Center Synchronizer, identity mapping data is stored centrally in the Quality Center Synchronizer database. This improves link integrity. For example:
- There is now no need for changes to the Quality Center and ClearQuest schemas.
- Previously, users could modify the identity mapping data stored in the Quality Center and ClearQuest databases and cause inconsistencies. In Quality Center Synchronizer, these inconsistencies are avoided.
- In ClearQuest Synchronizer, when you made copies of defects that had already been mapped, the identity mapping data was also copied. In Quality Center Synchronizer, copying defects in Quality Center and ClearQuest does not copy their identity mapping data.
- In ClearQuest Synchronizer, it was not possible to create mappings to a single defect in multiple links. In Quality Center Synchronizer, you can map a single defect in multiple links.
Support for Quality Center Filters
In ClearQuest Synchronizer, you could synchronize according to ClearQuest filters only. In Quality Center Synchronizer, you can also synchronize according to Quality Center filters.
Recreate Record Option
There is now an option to recreate records that were deleted, based on the record to which the delete record was mapped.
Field Mapping Changes
- You can now map between specific field values.
- You can assign a constant value to be mapped to a field when Quality Center Synchronizer creates new defects. This can be useful where there is no appropriate corresponding field to map to.
- Quality Center Synchronizer supports mapping multi-value list fields.
Link Execution Changes
- You can now view a report summarizing a synchronization run for a link.
- Quality Center Synchronizer stores a history of integrity check and synchronization runs for each link.
- In ClearQuest Synchronizer, you could monitor the progress of an integrity check or synchronization only if it was started manually. In Quality Center Synchronizer, you can choose to monitor the progress of a task that is currently running, even if it was started automatically.
Scheduling Changes
- You can now schedule the execution of each link separately.
- In ClearQuest Synchronizer, you could only schedule updated record synchronizations. In Quality Center Synchronizer, you can also schedule full synchronizations, which include the functionality of deleted record synchronizations in ClearQuest Synchronizer.
Other Differences
- Quality Center Synchronizer can send e-mail notifications to only one e-mail address for each synchronization link.
- Quality Center Synchronizer sends e-mail notification only on task failures.
- You cannot synchronize Quality Center and ClearQuest users.
- Quality Center Synchronizer does not copy list values.
- You cannot enable a link for synchronization if the link has not passed an integrity check.
- You cannot map between multi-value list fields in ClearQuest and the Description field in Quality Center.
What's New for Rational RequisitePro Users (Quality Center Synchronizer 1.10)
This section provides an overview of the differences between Quality Center Synchronizer 1.10 and previous versions of Quality Center requirements synchronization tools.
What's New from RequisitePro Synchronizer to Quality Center Synchronizer 1.10»
This section provides an overview of the differences between the legacy RequisitePro Synchronizer and Quality Center Synchronizer 1.10.
Client-Server Architecture
Quality Center Synchronizer uses a client-server architecture. The Quality Center Synchronizer client provides a user interface for managing links, and sends user requests to the Quality Center Synchronizer server, which processes the requests. In addition, link configuration settings and identity mapping data is stored in the Quality Center Synchronizer database.
Internal Identity Mapping Storage
In RequisitePro Synchronizer, identity mapping data was stored in the Quality Center and RequisitePro databases, in the TD_ID and RP_ID fields. In Quality Center Synchronizer, identity mapping data is stored centrally in the Quality Center Synchronizer database. This improves link integrity. For example:
- There is now no need for changes to the Quality Center and RequisitePro schemas.
- Previously, users could modify the identity mapping data stored in the Quality Center and RequisitePro databases and cause inconsistencies. In Quality Center Synchronizer, these inconsistencies are avoided.
- In RequisitePro Synchronizer, when you made copies of requirements that had already been mapped, the identity mapping data was also copied. In Quality Center Synchronizer, copying requirements in Quality Center and RequisitePro does not copy their identity mapping data.
- In RequisitePro Synchronizer, it was not possible to create mappings to a single requirement in multiple links. In Quality Center Synchronizer, you can map a single requirement in multiple links.
Support for Filters
- In Quality Center Synchronizer, you can synchronize requirements according to multiple private or public filters (or views) from both RequisitePro and Quality Center.
- Multiple filters (or views) of the same name are possible as long as they are in different folders.
- The synchronizer uses only attribute matrix views in RequisitePro.
Synchronization Changes
Quality Center Synchronizer supports incremental and full synchronization. In incremental synchronization, all records in the filters that have changed since the last incremental synchronization are synchronized. Full synchronization supports synchronization of all records in the filter, including the delete operation.
Requirements Handling Changes
- Quality Center Synchronizer supports the synchronization of multiple requirement types in the same link.
- You must define a one-to-one mapping between requirement types in Quality Center and RequisitePro, instead of mapping all RequisitePro requirement types to the Unknown requirement type in Quality Center.
- You define how create, update, and delete/recreate events are handled per requirement type pair in a link.
- Folder mapping is automatic. Events for folders are determined by the event handling options you specify for the other requirement types mapped in the link, but the synchronizer does not delete folders / packages.
Recreate Record Option
There is now an option to recreate records that were deleted, based on the record to which the delete record was mapped.
Field Mapping Changes
- You can now map between specific field values.
- You can assign a constant value to be mapped to a field when Quality Center Synchronizer creates new records. This can be useful where there is no appropriate corresponding field to map to.
- Quality Center Synchronizer supports mapping multi-value list fields.
- Field mappings can be exported from a link for use in other links or requirement type mappings.
Link Execution Changes
Scheduling Changes
User Requirement Changes
The user defined for synchronization is not required to have administrator permissions, but only to have the required permissions. Read and create permissions in RequisitePro are mandatory. Delete and update permissions are optional. The user must have the required permissions for all available requirement types in RequisitePro.
Other Differences
Notes and Limitations
This section includes notes and limitations to consider when working with the Quality Center Synchronizer. In collapsed drop-down sections, it also includes notes and limitations specific to synchronization with the endpoint with which you are working.
- Working with this Readme file: Much of the information in this Readme file is incorporated in collapsed drop-down sections. To search these sections, expand them.
- You cannot install the Quality Center Synchronizer server from read-only media such as a CD or DVD because the configuration tool tries to create a Temp folder to which it writes the installation log.
Workaround: Copy the installation files to a read-write location such as a local hard drive or a network hard drive and run the installation from there. Alternatively, run the server configuration manually: <Quality Center Synchronizer installation directory>\bin\run_config_tool.bat- During the Synchronizer server installation, if you try to install the PostgreSQL database on a computer on which a PostgreSQL database is already installed, the database installation fails and an error message opens.
- During the Synchronizer server installation, if you are prompted to restart your computer and you choose to restart, the Server Configuration Wizard does not run.
Workaround: If prompted to restart your computer, choose to restart at a later time.- During the Service Configuration stage of the Synchronizer server installation, the Server Configuration Wizard does not verify the user logon credentials that you supply. If you mistype or otherwise enter incorrect information, you will not be able to start the Synchronizer server.
Workaround: Make sure that you enter the correct logon credentials in the Server Configuration Wizard.- This issue applies if version 1.0 of the Synchronizer client was installed with the Just Me option. After you install version 1.10 or 1.20 of the Synchronizer client, two Synchronizer clients are listed in Windows Add or Remove Programs, and the Synchronizer User's Guide is listed twice in the Windows Start Menu.
Workaround: Uninstall the previous version of the Synchronizer client before installing the new version.- The Synchronizer client is not always automatically updated when changes are made by the Synchronizer server. This can affect the actions available to perform on a link. For example, when a task runs automatically on a link, the client is not updated to display that a task is running on the link.
Workaround: Click the Refresh button to update the data.- Microsoft Windows 2003. This limitation applies when the Synchronizer server is installed on Microsoft Windows 2003. The Synchronizer client cannot connect to the Synchronizer server if the Windows Firewall is switched on.
Workaround: Add QCSynchronizerService.exe manually to the Windows Firewall Exceptions list.- The Synchronizer client cannot connect to a Quality Center server configured with basic IIS authentication. A link cannot be created between Quality Center and another endpoint. When a Quality Center client connects to a Quality Center server running IIS, a logon dialog box is displayed for user and password information. When the Synchronizer client connects to the Quality Center server running IIS, the logon dialog box is not displayed.
Workaround: Refer to HP Software Support (http://www.hp.com/go/hpsoftwaresupport) and search for Document ID KM175889.- The following fields are not available for mapping and are not displayed in the list of fields available for mapping between the endpoints:
The release and cycle fields are relevant only for Quality Center 9.2.
- This issue applies when synchronizing entities with attachments. If the Quality Center user defined in the link does not have modify permissions for attachments, the entity is synchronized without the attachment and an error occurs.
Workaround: The user defined in the link must have modify permissions for attachments in Quality Center.- A change to an attachment's description is not considered a modification to the attachment and does not cause the attachment or its description to be synchronized. An attachment's description is synchronized only after creating or updating the attachment itself.
- If you modify a record during a synchronization, and the record is due to be synchronized by the Synchronizer, data inconsistency issues may occur.
Workaround: It is recommended that you do not modify endpoint records while a synchronization task is running.- Synchronization of the Quality Center Group requirement type is not supported. If you attempt to synchronize child requirements of a Group type requirement, an error occurs.
- This limitation applies when a field is mapped from Quality Center to an endpoint that does not have multibyte character support. If the field's value for a record in Quality Center is longer than the maximum length of the field in the other endpoint and contains non-English characters, the Synchronizer is unable to synchronize the record and writes an error message to the log file.
- Favorite views defined in the Quality Center Requirements Grid view are not displayed in the Synchronizer Filters tab.
Workaround: Define filters in the Requirements Tree view.- If you view a log file from a task run report and move between pages using the Previous and Next links, a memory leak may occur.
- When using the Synchronizer on a non-English version of Windows, some of the text labels may be truncated. The functionality is not affected.
- Non-English characters may be displayed incorrectly in a Synchronizer report.
- Locked records in an endpoint are not synchronized even though the time stamp is updated.
Workarounds: Do any of the following:
- This limitation occurs when you map the Quality Center attachments field to a field of type Attachment in another endpoint and then synchronize the attachments from the other endpoint to Quality Center. If you then map the Quality Center attachments field to a different field of type Attachment in the other endpoint, the attachments previously synchronized are not synchronized correctly and may be deleted.
- If you rename a filter that is selected for use in the Synchronizer, the filter appears twice in the Filters tab.
Workaround: Clear the check box for the previous filter name and save the link settings.
Additional Notes and Limitations for Synchronization with Rational ClearQuest»
- Microsoft Access. Synchronization with ClearQuest projects created in Microsoft Access is not supported.
- If the ClearQuest user defined for a link does not have create permissions for the ClearQuest project's entities, the Synchronizer cannot obtain the schema for the project and the link cannot be created.
Workaround: The ClearQuest user defined for the link must have create permissions for the project's entities.- It is possible to synchronize empty values to a ClearQuest field and the synchronization passes, even if the field is mandatory in ClearQuest. You can view the warnings in the report and log file.
- Memo type fields in Quality Center are handled as fields of type String in Quality Center Synchronizer. Therefore, such Quality Center fields are synchronized into plain text in ClearQuest, even when the Quality Center field contains HTML elements.
- An attachment description in Quality Center with length greater than 50 characters is truncated when synchronized to ClearQuest.
- This limitation occurs when you map the Quality Center attachments field to a ClearQuest field of type Attachment and then synchronize ClearQuest attachments to Quality Center. If you then map the Quality Center attachments field to a different ClearQuest field of type Attachment, the attachments previously synchronized are not synchronized correctly and may be deleted.
- ClearQuest is a case-sensitive system, while Quality Center is not. This may result in errors when synchronizing data from Quality Center to ClearQuest.
Workaround: Create matching value lists in the endpoints or map field values between the endpoints.- This limitation applies when an integrity check on a link passes, and you later delete a field from Quality Center Project Customization that is included in the field mapping for the link. In such a case, future synchronizations pass successfully without warnings, but you may lose some data in the ClearQuest field mapped to the deleted field.
- Quality Center date fields do not support time elements (hours, minutes, and seconds). Therefore, when synchronizing a ClearQuest date field containing hours, minutes, and seconds with a Quality Center date field, these time elements are removed in the Quality Center record. Later, when the record is synchronized back to ClearQuest, the time elements are removed from the Clear Quest record because the Synchronizer identifies them as removed.
Additional Notes and Limitations for Synchronization with Rational RequisitePro»
- If you built synchronization tasks using the Quality Center Requirements Synchronizer for Rational RequisitePro Add-in for synchronization with Quality Center 8.2 or 9.0, and you are upgrading to Quality Center 9.2, you must upgrade the tasks to work with the Quality Center Synchronizer. For more information, see the section on migrating to the Quality Center Synchronizer in the HP Quality Center Synchronizer User's Guide.
- Microsoft Access. Synchronization with RequisitePro projects created in Microsoft Access is not supported.
- If a create, update, or delete event is selected for a requirement type mapping, the user must have the corresponding create, update, or delete permissions for all requirement types in RequisitePro, including types that are not mapped. For example, if the create event is selected for one requirement type mapping in the Synchronizer, the user must have create permissions for all requirement types in RequisitePro, including types that are not mapped.
- If you change a mapped requirement type in Quality Center, an error occurs during synchronization and the change is not made in RequisitePro. The RequisitePro API does not support requirement type changes.
- Changes made to a requirement in RequisitePro are not updated in Quality Center if the requirement type was changed in Quality Center and the new requirement type has a different set of field mappings.
- Using the "|" symbol in a requirement type name, field name or field value may prevent the Synchronizer from loading the RequisitePro schema. This can prevent editing of the link or running Integrity Checks. If the symbol is part of a field value, it may also prevent creation or update of the record in Quality Center.
- This limitation applies when running a full synchronization on a link between Quality Center and RequisitePro. Quality Center folder data that has changed may be overwritten by RequisitePro data, even if the RequisitePro data is older.
- If you move a requirement to a different folder in RequisitePro, the requirement is not synchronized under the new folder in Quality Center when performing an incremental synchronization. This is because the record itself was not modified.
Workaround: Modify a mapped field. The record is identified as modified and is synchronized.- RequisitePro Real, Time, and Userlist type fields are defined as String type in Synchronizer field mappings.
- This limitation applies if there are two or more RequisitePro views with the same name in a folder, and one of the views is Attribute Matrix. Due to RequisitePro API limitations, queries may fail to run, and synchronization is unsuccessful.
Workaround: Each view used by the Synchronizer must have a unique name in the folder in which it is located.- This issue applies in non-standard language environments where the date format has been customized in the Synchronizer server machine. In this case, you cannot map RequisitePro Date fields to Quality Center Date fields.
Workaround: Set the local date format to fit the Synchronizer's expected date format. For more information, refer to HP Software Support (http://www.hp.com/go/hpsoftwaresupport) and search for Document ID KM306341.- In RequisitePro, different folders can contain projects with identical names, for example, Folder1/Project1 and Folder2/Project1. In the Synchronizer, project names are case-sensitive and must be unique.
Example: Suppose you create a link for Folder1/Project1. Then you create a link for Folder2/Project1. In such a case, the Synchronizer may inadvertently use Project1 from Folder1 for the newly created link because the project name is identical to the project in the previously created link. This same error can occur if the project name is not typed correctly, for example, PROJECT1.Workaround: Make sure that each RequisitePro project has a unique name before synchronizing it with Quality Center. In this case, it is enough to change one letter in the project name to lower case or upper case, for example, Folder2/project1 or Folder3/prOject1.- Due to a Windows limitation, the Synchronizer service cannot connect to a RequisitePro project that is stored on a mapped network drive (with a drive letter, such as G:) if the mapped drive requires a separate logon.
Workaround: Change the paths for any mapped drives to UNC paths, or copy the required files (for example, drivers) locally and modify the path accordingly.- In Quality Center, any folder requirement type must be named "Folder". Otherwise, the records for this requirement type cannot be synchronized.
- During an incremental synchronization from RequisitePro to Quality Center, the Synchronizer does not synchronize records for which the only change is the name or description of a folder.
Workaround: Perform a full synchronization to synchronize these records.- When synchronizing from RequisitePro to Quality Center in Swedish or German operating systems, multiple values in multi-value lists may not synchronize correctly because on these Windows operating systems a semi-colon (;) is used as the default delimiter (separator character) instead of a comma (,).
For example, instead of retrieving the selected values separated by a comma, ("1, 2, 3"), on these operating systems, the values are separated by a semi-colon ("1; 2; 3"). The incorrect delimiter causes a problem when parsing multi-value field values retrieved from the RequisitePro API.
Workaround: In German and Swedish operating systems, set the delimiter to a comma instead of a semi-colon. To do this:
- Close all open applications.
- In Windows, choose Start > Control Panel > Regional and Language Options.
- In the Regional Options tab, click Customize.
- In the Numbers tab, select comma (,) as the List separator.
- Apply and close the dialog boxes.
Note: These instructions may be slightly different on different operating systems.
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