Pipelines

Pipelines in ALM Octane represent the jobs or steps that run on your CI server. ALM Octane incorporates data from your pipelines into your application delivery process, helping you analyze quality, progress, change impact, code coverage and more.

In this topic:

Pipelines overview

After you set up ALM Octane to integrate with your continuous integration (CI) server, you can create pipelines in ALM Octane. For details, see Set up CI/CD integration.

Pipelines represent the flow of your CI server jobs. If you are working with Jenkins, Bamboo, or GoCD, the graphical representation of the pipeline also shows the hierarchy of the jobs in the flow.

When you run pipelines after adding them to ALM Octane, ALM Octane collects build, test run, and commit information from the pipeline run.

Using pipelines in ALM Octane, you can: 

Action	Where?	Comments
Collect pipeline run and automated test run results from the CI server.	Pipelines > Pipelines tab	View a summary of the pipeline run details, test run statistics, a graphical representation of the pipeline steps' flow, and more.
Configure test properties and environment data on pipeline steps that run automated tests.	Inside a pipeline: Topology tab	You can later filter the test run results based on this data, in the Tests tab (Quality or Backlog module).
Track and analyze build results.	Pipelines > Pipelines tab Inside a pipeline run: Builds tab	View a summary or breakdown of build results, as well as suggested reasons for failures and areas that need attention. Assign failures to users for investigation, and use build failure classification to share investigation conclusions.
Include automated test run results in product and release quality analysis.	Dashboards and Overviews throughout ALM Octane	Requires assigning automated tests to application modules (Settings > DevOps > Test Assignment Rules) or backlog items.
Track commits associated with specific build runs and specific user stories and defects.	Pipelines > Pipelines tab Team Backlog Inside stories or pipeline runs Additional customization in Settings > DevOps page.	Requires working with a CI server that integrates with an SCM system. For details, see Track commits to your SCM system.
Track security issues discovered in your code	Pipelines > Pipelines tab Inside a pipeline run: Vulnerabilities tab	Requires working with a Jenkins server that integrates with a security testing tool such as Fortify, Fortify on Demand or SonarQube. For details, see Track security vulnerabilities.
Code coverage: Track how much of your code is covered by automated tests	Pipelines > Pipelines tab: Dashboard Inside a pipeline: Runs tab	Requires integration with a Jenkins server with JaCoCo or LCOV code coverage reports. For details, see Track code coverage in pipeline runs.

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Pipelines topology

When you add a pipeline, you specify a job on the CI server to use for the root of the pipeline. ALM Octane then follows your pipeline structure, and builds a visual representation of the pipeline.

• The pipeline's structure is dynamic. If additional jobs are added in the CI server after you created the pipeline in ALM Octane, these steps are added the next time the pipeline runs.

• If the pipeline runs jobs that ALM Octane did not initially detect as part of the pipeline, they are added to the pipeline during the run.

In both cases, the new steps are visible the next time you open the pipeline.

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Display pipelines in ALM Octane

In ALM Octane, in the Pipelines module, you can see all the pipelines that are being tracked, and filter to see the ones that interest you.

After a pipeline runs, ALM Octane displays information about the pipeline run status, its run history, related code changes, affected application modules, and more. You can also find analytic information about failed tests and tools to help you analyze the pipeline run results.

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Next steps:

• Set up CI/CD integration
• Create and configure pipelines
• Run pipelines