Baseline categories

You can create baselines for a variety of purposes using a rich set of filtering criteria. Dimensions CM provides various categories of baselines that offer different methods of determining which item revisions they include and whether they contain more than one revision of the same item.

Baseline categories overview

You can create the following categories of baselines.

Category	Description
Tip baselines	Create a tip baseline to freeze the state of a project or stream at a particular point. A tip baseline captures the latest revisions of a stream or project and any sub-projects that are related to it. A tip baseline doesn't require a template and contains only one revision of each item.
Release baselines	Create a release baseline to define and build a test or release configuration of the product. A release baseline uses a template to control the rules that are used to determine which item revisions are included in the baseline. A release baseline requires a template and contains only one revision of each item.
Revised baselines	Create a revised baseline from an existing baseline when you are updating files using related requests to track the updates. A revised baseline has basically the same contents as the baseline it is created from except any item revisions, which have been removed, replaced or added using requests or requirements related as Affected or In Response To. A revised baseline contains only one revision of each item.
Merged baselines	Create a merged baseline to compare two baselines to see how the product has developed during the period the design baselines were created. A merged baseline contains only one revision of each item.
Design baselines	Use a design baseline to compare two baselines to see how the product has developed during the period the design baselines were created.
Archive baselines	An archive baseline is a special release baseline that you use in conjunction with the Archive and Retrieval Tool.

Tip baselines

A tip baseline represents a snapshot of the tip revisions of all the items in a project or stream regardless of what design parts those items belong to.

A tip baseline:

Captures the state of the files in the complete project hierarchy.
Captures the relationships and paths of related components.
Captures the design part structure that spans the files in the baseline automatically.
Projects only: Captures other projects or baselines that have child relationships to the baselined project.

A tip baseline does not use a baseline template. It can be considered as a type of release baseline that is scoped by project/stream as opposed to a design part. If a project has subprojects attached to it, a separate baseline is created for each of those subprojects and is related to the tip baseline. If any baselines are attached as a subproject, they are also related to the tip baseline.

Release baselines

A release baseline represents a snapshot of a design part or a project/stream at a particular time.

It is a frozen configuration that captures single versions of items in the design part segment. This configuration typically represents a development milestone within a product lifecycle and is only done once per project/stream. Item revisions in this configuration cannot be modified unless the baseline is deleted.

A release baseline uses a baseline template to select a single version of each item that matches the criteria in the template, and that is also contained in the specified design part or project/stream.

For example, you can create a release baseline that includes the following:

All EXE (executable) item types that are at the RELEASED state.
Any OBJ (object) and SRC (source) item types that are used to build the EXEs.

These rules define a baseline template. For more details about baseline and release templates, see Set up the process model.

Create a release baseline to define and build a test, or release, of your product.

Dimensions CM includes the following in a release baseline:

The design part defined in the project/stream and all its descendant design parts, even if they are suspended.
The part change status (PCS) of each design part.
All item revisions that are either owned or used by any of the design parts, restricted by the baseline template.
The current status of each item.

You cannot delete item revisions that belong to a release baseline unless the release baselines containing them are deleted. However, you can action an item revision that is included in a release baseline. You can also create a new revision from an item revision belonging to a baseline.

You can revise a release baseline or merge two release baselines. For details, see Revise and merge baselines.

Revised baselines

A revised baseline consists of the contents of a release baseline where item revisions have been replaced, added, or removed based on their relationship to a group of specified requests or requirements.

Revised baseline example:

If you create a revised baseline and specify requests CR_1 and CR_2 for the Update baseline using field, and CR_3 and CR-4 for the Remove from baseline field, then:

Item revisions related as In Response To to CR_1 and CR_2 replace revisions of the same items in the baseline.
Revisions of items not already in the baseline that are related as In Response To to CR_1 and CR_2 are added to the baseline, provided they are within the scope of the original baseline (the design part/project/stream and the baseline template).
Item revisions related as Affected to CR_3 and CR_4 are removed from the baseline.

For details, see Revise and merge baselines.

Merged baselines

A merged baseline consists of one or more release baselines merged together so as to contain only one item revision for each item, and to include only items belonging to the specified parent design part for the new merged baseline.

The baselines that are being merged must contain only one revision of each item.

Note: You can also merge changes from a baseline into a target stream. For details, see Merge changes across streams.

Design baselines

A design baseline represents the current product design structure, or a selected part of it, within the scope of the current project/stream or design part, including all the revisions for each item.

A design baseline does not use a baseline template.

Design baselines provide audit capabilities. You can compare two baselines to see how the project/stream has developed during the period the baselines were created.

Developers can continue to modify items included in a design baseline.

Dimensions includes the following in a design baseline:

The design part defined in the project/stream and all its descendant design parts, even if they are suspended.
The part change status (PCS) of the design part.
All item revisions that are either owned or used by any of the design parts.
The current status of each item.

Note: A design baseline contains suspended design parts but does not include item revisions that are checked out.

Archive baselines

An archive baseline is a restricted variant of a release baseline that uses a baseline template to include all the revisions of some or all of the item types.

You can use the resulting baseline to preserve the product at a milestone using Dimensions ART. You cannot use an archive baseline to revise baselines, merge baselines, or for any configuration build or release purposes.

For details about Dimensions ART, see Administration.