Release processes

With release processes, you can define, execute, and track release and quality-related activities.

Overview

Use release processes to gain control and visibility into the activities that make up your release lifecycle.

ALM Octane release processes let you identify issues and bottlenecks. You can also examine planned versus actual times for each stage and activity, and improve the planning for the same processes in the next release.

Example: Running a regression cycle involves a series of stages and stakeholders: Prepare test suites, plan suite runs, prepare and configure an environment for testing, run tests, analyze the results.

The release process entity provides you a way to coordinate and manage all the stages and activities from within ALM Octane.

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View the process flow timeline

The Grid Timeline view displays the release process flow in a Gantt chart.

On the Process Flow tab, select the Grid Timeline view to display the timeline. For details, see View types.

In this section:

Timeline bars

Process flow timeline bars represent the release process items: stages, their actions and quality gates, as well as grouped items. The timeline bars are constructed as follows:

  • Color: The timeline bar's color represents the current metaphase of a release process item:

    Color Phase
    Gray New
    Purple In Progress
    Green Done
  • Position: The bar's position and length are set according to the process item start and end date.

    Hover over the corresponding timeline bar to view or drill down to the process item details.

Milestones and the current date

The process timeline view displays both release-related milestones and the milestones that are not associated with a specific release.

You assign the release process to a milestone on the Details tab.

Milestones and the current date are displayed as vertical lines along the timeline.

Vertical line type Represents
Vertical blue line The current date
Dotted vertical line

Milestone

The milestone types are distinguished by the diamonds at the top of the lines:

  • A solid diamond represents a milestone the release process is assigned to.
  • An outlined diamond represents a shared milestone.

Hover over the lines to display the milestone details.

Timeline actions

You can perform the following actions in the process flow timeline area:

Action Method
Zoom in or out of timescale

Timescale slider or Ctrl + mouse wheel

Display the process items details and drill down on process items Hover over the timeline bars
Display milestone details Hover over a milestone line

If you are using a touchpad:

Action Method
Zoom in or out of timescale Ctrl + two-finger scroll
Scroll along the timeline Shift + two-finger scroll

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See also: