Request Management Overview

Use requests to plan, track, authorize, and control all work on development projects. A request may capture a defect, enhancement, or other work that needs to be completed on items that belong to your projects.

The fundamental concept of managing work with requests is the association of requests to files that you are working on.

To manage your work with requests, follow this process:

1. If your organization requires request associations for all work and requires explicit file check-out before you can update files, you cannot start any work that is not related to a request. If your organization works optimistically and does not require explicit file check-out, you can start work on a file without checking it out and associating it with a request. In either case, you may be unable to deliver your changes to the Dimensions repository without associating your files with requests.

2. Before starting work, identify the requests to work on, and add them to favorites. See Adding Requests to Favorites. You can use requests created by others, or create your own requests.

   Along with native Dimensions CM requests, you can work with external requests from other providers, such as Atlassian Jira, Micro Focus ALM Octane, or Micro Focus SBM. For details about connecting request providers and using their issues, see the Dimensions CM online help.

3. Associate the appropriate issues from your inbox or favorites to files when checking them out or checking them in.

4. Requests store a record of all affected files, which enables you to view the detailed tracking history. You can also use requests for other purposes such as creating baselines of revisions that were created in response to them.

Dimensions CM Requests

The Dimensions CM for Visual Studio IDE simplifies the process of administering requests. You can perform the most frequent tasks in Visual Studio, such as actioning a Dimensions CM request through its lifecycle or delegating the request to a developer. Normal Dimensions CM rules allow only valid lifecycle transitions. After the next state has been selected, you can choose to delegate the request to a particular role. Dimensions CM requests that you action are placed in the inbox of the relevant users.

Where a role has multiple potential users, you can identify the specific users that will receive the request. This enables team leaders to monitor and reassign work as necessary to maintain and improve team productivity.