Work with baselines in Visual Studio

This topic describes how to work with baselines in the Visual Studio IDE.

Create baselines

In Visual Studio, you can create a baseline from any Dimensions CM project/stream in the repositories to which you are connected.

You can create the following types of baselines:

A baseline that uses a specific baseline template that determines which revisions to include, and that is scoped by design part.
A design baseline that represents the current product design structure, or a part of it.
A tip baseline that includes the latest revisions of all files in a project.
A revised baseline, which is a baseline that is derived from an existing baseline by adding or removing item revisions that are related to requests.

For details, see Baseline management.

To create a baseline:

In Dimensions Explorer, click New > Baseline.

Alternatively, in the Dimensions Project view, right-click the project or stream from which you want to create a baseline, and select New > Baseline.

Note: If the project or stream is not open, right-click the Favorite Dimensions Projects node and select Add to Favorites. The Dimensions Projects tab is displayed with a list of the product's projects. You can right-click the relevant project and select New Baseline.
Choose the product containing the project or stream.
Enter a baseline ID.
From the Type list, select the baseline type.
In the Create baseline from field, specify the stream from which to create the baseline, and click Next:

Enter a text string for the stream or project ID. Streams and projects that contain any characters in the string are displayed.
Select a stream or project from the list. Favorites and recently used streams and projects are displayed at the top.

Select a baseline template from the Use following template list. The baseline template determines which requests or items to include in the baseline. To create a design baseline, do not select a template.
Enter a design part ID in the Design part field, or click the browse button to search for a design part. This field identifies the top-level design part in the design part hierarchy from which to baseline items.
Use the Part Levels option to choose the levels in the design part hierarchy from which to include items, starting from the top-level design part you entered in the Design part field.

To include items from all design parts under the top design part, select All. To specify the number of levels from which to include items, select the From top to option and enter or click to choose a number.

Example: If you select From top to and enter 3, then items are included from the top three levels of the design part hierarchy, starting with the top-level design part.
Click Next.
Enter any requests to relate to this baseline. Or browse to select requests from the My Inbox or Favorites tabs.

If you selected a request baseline template, the baseline includes any items that have an In Response To relationship to the requests you enter here.

If you selected an item baseline template, the requests you enter here are related to the baseline but have no effect on the content of the baseline.
Click Next.
Specify any required use-defined attributes, and click Next.
Review a summary of the new baseline, and click Finish.

Create a tip baseline

In Visual Studio, you can create a tip baseline that includes the latest revisions of all project files.

To create a tip baseline:

In Dimensions Explorer click New > Tip Baseline.

Alternatively, in the Dimensions Project view, right-click the project or stream from which you want to create a baseline, and select New > Tip Baseline.
Choose the product containing the project or stream, and then choose the project or stream.
Enter an ID string for the baseline.
From the Type list, select the baseline type.
In the Create baseline from field, specify the stream from which to create the template baseline, and click Next:
- Enter the ID of a stream or project. Streams and projects that contain any characters in the string are displayed.
- Select a stream or project from the list. Favorites and recently used streams and projects are displayed at the top.
For Baseline Options, enter or browse to select any requests that you want to relate to this baseline. Click Next.
On the Baseline Attributes screen, enter values for any required user defined attributes, and click Next.
Review a summary of the new baseline and click Finish.

Create a revised baseline

In Visual Studio, you can create a revised baseline from an existing baseline.

To create a revised baseline:

From Dimensions Explorer, select Baselines to open the Baselines view for the project/stream containing the baseline from which you want to create a revised baseline.
Right-click the baseline and select New Revised Baseline.

The product and project are prepopulated based on your initial baseline selection.

The ID string for the revised baseline is auto generated.
From the Type list, select the baseline type. Click Next.
In the Update using field, list the requests related to item revisions you want to add to the baseline. The item revisions must have an In Response To relationship to the requests. You can enter one or more IDs separated by a comma, or click Browse.
In the Remove using field, list the requests related to item revisions that you want to remove from the baseline. The item revisions must have an Affected relationship to the requests. You can enter one or more IDs separated by a comma, or click Browse.

Note: You must have at least one request in the Update using or Remove using field.
Select the Traverse request relationships option to to include item revisions for all requests related to the listed Dimensions CM requests.
In the Scope baseline using field, enter the ID of the project or stream from which you want to include item revisions. Click Browse to find a project or stream. Click Next.
For Baseline Attributes, enter values for user defined attributes, and click Next.

You must enter values for required attributes in order to create the baseline.
Review the options for the revised baseline and click Finish.

Create a project/stream from a baseline

In Visual Studio, you can create projects and streams based on the content in an existing Dimensions CM baseline.

Use this option if you want to prepopulate a new project or stream with the correct files and folders. For example, if you need to create a new branch project based on previous project.

To create a project/stream based on a baseline:

From Dimensions Explorer, select Baselines to open the Baselines view.
Right-click the baseline from which you want to create a new project or stream, and select New Project or New Stream.
Select the product to which the new project or stream belongs, and enter a name for the new project or stream.
(Optional) Enter a description. For a stream, enter a unique branch name.
Choose whether to add this project or stream to your favorites list in Dimensions Explorer. Click Next.
On the Based-On screen, verify that the correct baseline is selected, or select a different baseline.

If you are creating a stream, you can choose whether a valid request must be specified when changes are delivered to this stream. Select this option to require users to provide a request ID when they make any changes to the stream. Click Next.

If you are creating a project, set the appropriate options for Version Management and Change Management (CM) rules, including:

Option	Description
When new revisions are created	Choose whether or not to create new branches when new revisions are created, and whether to allow users to override the default revision number for new revisions.
Change Management Rules	Choose whether to enable CM rules in the project. You can choose the default to CM rules settings for the item types, to always enable CM rules or always disable them. You can also require users to relate a request when they make refactoring changes, such as moving or renaming items or project folders.

Option

Description

When new revisions are created

Choose whether or not to create new branches when new revisions are created, and whether to allow users to override the default revision number for new revisions.

Change Management Rules

Choose whether to enable CM rules in the project. You can choose the default to CM rules settings for the item types, to always enable CM rules or always disable them.

You can also require users to relate a request when they make refactoring changes, such as moving or renaming items or project folders.

Click Finish.

View baselines

You can view a list of a project/stream's baselines in the Visual Studio IDE. Use search to find specific baselines.

To view baselines in Visual Studio:

From Dimensions Explorer, select Baselines. All available baselines are displayed in the Baselines view.
To display all baselines for the stream or project, select the Show All option.
To find baselines:

Right-click the Find Results node and select Find. The Select Baseline dialog box opens.
Enter information about the baseline, including baseline ID, the product or project to which it belongs, its type, with what template it was created, and a date range when it was created.
Click Next to display search results from your criteria.
Select the baselines to include in the search results. CTRL+click to select multiple baselines. Then click Finish.

The baselines you selected are displayed in a new list under the Find Results node.

Add baselines to favorites

In the Visual Studio IDE, you can quickly access your most commonly used baselines by adding them to your Favorites list.

To add a baseline to favorites:

From Dimensions Explorer, select Baselines to open the Baselines view.
In the list of baselines, right-click a baseline and select Add to Favorites.

You can view your favorites by clicking the Favorites node.