Configure the integration of PPM tasks with ALM releases

This topic describes how to configure the integration of PPM tasks with ALM releases.

Install the PPM plug-in for ALM integration

To integrate PPM tasks with ALM releases, administrators must first install the ALM Integration Plug-in for PPM. This is a one-time action.

To install the ALM integration Plug-in for PPM:

Obtain the plug-in bundles from the Marketplace.

Go to the ALM Integration Plug-in for PPM.
Click Download in the ALM Integration Plug-in for PPM <ppm_version> section.

The ppm-<ppm_version>-ALMPlugin_VPQ.zip package is downloaded.

This package contains the following two bundles:

Bundle name	Description
`ppm-<ppm_version>-PluginQuality.jar`	Contains the plug-in basic structure for integrating PPM with ALM release management tools.
`ppm-<ppm_version>-PluginQualityVPQ.jar`	Contains the plug-in files specifically for integrating PPM tasks with the ALM Releases module.

Stop the PPM server.
Unzip the package and copy the two bundles to the <PPM_Home> directory.
Deploy the bundles by running the following commands from the <PPM_Home>/bin directory:
- sh ./kDeploy.sh -i PluginQuality
- sh ./kDeploy.sh -i PluginQualityVPQ
Repeat step 3 and step 4 for each of the server nodes in your cluster.
Restart the PPM server.

Note: We recommend you restart the PPM server to make sure that the integration bundles are properly deployed before you continue to deploy bundles for another integration solution.

Entities Installed by the PPM Plug-in for ALM Release Integration

The following entities are installed:

Entity	Description
Quality tab added to the Task Details page	The Quality tab on the Task Details page allows project managers to link the task to a specific ALM release. After a mapping relationship is established, the tab displays the following quality graphs and scorecard report retrieved from ALM for the linked release: Priority Defects Trend: Displays trend of defects of higher severity in the last 10 days. The higher severity defects include defects of priority S1 and S2. Open Defects Trend: Displays open defects trend in the last 10 days. The open defects include open defects number and total defects number. Requirements Trend: Displays requirement status trend in the last 10 days. The requirement status includes requirement coverage. Scorecard Report: Displays scorecard report for the linked ALM release. Note: The scorecard report is displayed only when the ALM scorecard information is configured in the project request field of the Project Planning and Tracking (PPT) module in ALM.
Quality tab added to the Project Overview page	The Quality tab on the Project Overview page offers a centralized view of the following quality graphs for each of the ALM releases linked to tasks of the current project: Priority Defects Trend: Displays trend of defects of higher severity in the last 10 days. The higher severity defects include defects of priority S1 and S2. Open Defects Trend: Displays open defects trend in the last 10 days. The open defects include open defects number and total defects number. Requirements Trend: Displays requirement status trend in the last 10 days. The requirement status includes requirement coverage. Clicking a specific release in the navigation tree brings you to the Task Details page of the linked task.
Project Quality Sync Service	The Project Quality Sync Service synchronizes quality KPI data from ALM releases to the mapped PPM tasks. The default synchronization interval is 24 hours. You can set the synchronization interval on the Schedule Services page. The Project Quality Sync Service gets all valid ALM server configurations and loops through all configurations to retrieve KPI information from ALM and stores the data in PPM database. When the service runs, it checks whether all the PPM task - ALM release mappings have been synchronized in the current day. If yes, it does not sync data for the existing mappings. If new mappings are detected, it syncs data for the new mappings only. That is to say, even if the service is set to run more than once in a day, it syncs data for each existing mapping only once a day. Synchronization rules Synchronization rules are as follows: When a project or task is deleted, the mapping and records are removed from the database. This means that users will lose all the data related to the corresponding mapping. When a task is canceled or completed, synchronization stops. When a project is canceled or closed, synchronization stops. If an ALM release is deleted on ALM end or cannot be found when the service tries to synchronize data, the status is logged in the PPM_INT_QUALITY_TASK_MAPPING table. If the end date of an ALM release is ahead of the user's current date, for example, ALM release R1 is scheduled to end on 11/11/2012 and today is 05/01/2013, then the service stops synchronization next time. For details about KPI data to be retrieved from ALM, see KPI data retrieved from ALM.

Entity

Description

Quality tab added to the Task Details page

The Quality tab on the Task Details page allows project managers to link the task to a specific ALM release.

After a mapping relationship is established, the tab displays the following quality graphs and scorecard report retrieved from ALM for the linked release:

Priority Defects Trend: Displays trend of defects of higher severity in the last 10 days. The higher severity defects include defects of priority S1 and S2.
Open Defects Trend: Displays open defects trend in the last 10 days. The open defects include open defects number and total defects number.
Requirements Trend: Displays requirement status trend in the last 10 days. The requirement status includes requirement coverage.
Scorecard Report: Displays scorecard report for the linked ALM release.

Note: The scorecard report is displayed only when the ALM scorecard information is configured in the project request field of the Project Planning and Tracking (PPT) module in ALM.

Quality tab added to the Project Overview page

The Quality tab on the Project Overview page offers a centralized view of the following quality graphs for each of the ALM releases linked to tasks of the current project:

Priority Defects Trend: Displays trend of defects of higher severity in the last 10 days. The higher severity defects include defects of priority S1 and S2.
Open Defects Trend: Displays open defects trend in the last 10 days. The open defects include open defects number and total defects number.
Requirements Trend: Displays requirement status trend in the last 10 days. The requirement status includes requirement coverage.

Clicking a specific release in the navigation tree brings you to the Task Details page of the linked task.

Project Quality Sync Service

The Project Quality Sync Service synchronizes quality KPI data from ALM releases to the mapped PPM tasks. The default synchronization interval is 24 hours. You can set the synchronization interval on the Schedule Services page.

The Project Quality Sync Service gets all valid ALM server configurations and loops through all configurations to retrieve KPI information from ALM and stores the data in PPM database.

When the service runs, it checks whether all the PPM task - ALM release mappings have been synchronized in the current day. If yes, it does not sync data for the existing mappings. If new mappings are detected, it syncs data for the new mappings only. That is to say, even if the service is set to run more than once in a day, it syncs data for each existing mapping only once a day.

Synchronization rules

Synchronization rules are as follows:

When a project or task is deleted, the mapping and records are removed from the database. This means that users will lose all the data related to the corresponding mapping.
When a task is canceled or completed, synchronization stops.
When a project is canceled or closed, synchronization stops.
If an ALM release is deleted on ALM end or cannot be found when the service tries to synchronize data, the status is logged in the PPM_INT_QUALITY_TASK_MAPPING table.
If the end date of an ALM release is ahead of the user's current date, for example, ALM release R1 is scheduled to end on 11/11/2012 and today is 05/01/2013, then the service stops synchronization next time.

For details about KPI data to be retrieved from ALM, see KPI data retrieved from ALM.

Add an ALM integration configuration

Administrators need to add integration configurations with ALM server on the View Project Quality configuration page before project managers can link their project tasks to releases managed in the ALM Release module.

To add an ALM integration configuration:

Log on to PPM.
From the menu bar, select Open > Administration > Integrations.
Click View Project Quality in the navigation pane.
In the Server Configuration Details section, click Add Integration Configuration.

The Server Configuration Details section displays.

Complete the fields described in the following table.

Field (*Required)	Description
*QC/ALM Server Name	Specify a unique name for the target ALM server. Note: The server name shall not contain pound sign (#) or space.
*QC/ALM Version	Select ALM server version from the drop-down list of supported versions. Valid values include: ALM 11.00 ALM 11.20 (The complete version number is ALM 11.00 SP2) ALM 11.50 ALM 12.00 ALM 12.60 Select this version if your ALM is enabled with API key authentication. ALM 15.5.1 Select this version if your ALM is enabled with API key or SSO authentication. Starting from version 23.4, ALM 15.5.1 is also compatible with ALM versions 16.00 and 17.00. If you wish to use ALM 16.00 or 17.00, select 15.5.1 from the list.
*QC/ALM Server URL	URL of the ALM server you want to integrate with. For example, `http://ALM11.company.net:8080/qcbin/`
*QC/ALM Username	ALM account username that you use to log on to the ALM server. If the ALM server supports API key or SSO authentication, provide the client ID instead of username.
*QC/ALM Password	Password of your ALM account. If the ALM server supports API key or SSO authentication, provide the API key secret instead of password.
Use the same credential for task mapping	Available in PPM 10.0.1 and later versions. Select this option if you want the ALM credentials provided above to be used to retrieve the ALM releases that can be mapped to PPM work plan tasks.
Description	Provide a description for the ALM server.

Click Save.

The ALM server you just configured is added to the Integration Configurations summary list.

Enable the Project Quality Sync Service

For the integration of PPM tasks with ALM releases to work, you need to enable the Project Quality Sync Service.

To enable the Project Quality Sync Service:

From the PPM menu bar, select Open >Administration > Schedule Services.
Click the table row that displays the Project Quality Sync Service.

The editable fields for that service are enabled.
To enable the service, from the Status list, select Enabled.
Leave the type of expression in the Schedule Type list to Simple.
In the Schedule column, leave the default value (24 hours).
Click Save.

Your changes take effect immediately after you save them. You do not need to restart the PPM server.

Configure PPM server for MLU support

If both your PPM server and ALM server use a language other than English, you need to perform some extra configuration tasks to enable proper display of project quality related information in PPM.

To configure the PPM server for MLU support:

Make sure that the IntegrationResources_<Language_Code>.properties file is located in the <PPM_Home>\WEB-INF\resources\web\ directory.

The IntegrationResources_<Language_Code>.properties file is a localized version of the IntegrationResources.properties file, for example, IntegrationResources_fr.properties. It is located in the <PPM_Home>\WEB-INF\resources\web\ directory if you have applied the PPM language pack for the desired language.

For a list of supported languages and the corresponding language codes, see the System Requirements and Compatibility Matrix
Modify the <PPM_Home>\conf\hpALMKPI.conf file. The hpALMKPI.conf file is added into the <PPM_Home>\conf\ directory automatically after you deploy the
ppm-<ppm_version>-PluginQualityVPQ.jar bundle.

To modify the hpALMKPI.conf file:
1. Stop the PPM server.
2. Open the <PPM_Home>\conf\hpALMKPI.conf file in a text editor.
3. Copy and paste the following content to the end of the file:
```
#Test
test.passed=Passed
```
```
#Requirement
requirement.notCovered=Not Covered
requirement.na=N/A
requirement.passed=Passed
requirement.reviewed=Reviewed
```
```
#Defect
defect.priority=4-Very High,5-Urgent
defect.new=New
defect.open=Open
defect.closed=Closed
```
4. Modify the content you just pasted by doing the following:
  1. Add the ALM server name you specified in Add an ALM integration configuration as prefix to each parameter, and
  2. Change each parameter value to the target language, as follows:
```
#Test
QC/ALM Server Name>.test.passed=<Translation of “Passed”>
```
```
#Requirement
<QC/ALM Server Name>.requirement.notCovered=<Translation of “Not Covered”>
<QC/ALM Server Name>.requirement.na=N/A
<QC/ALM Server Name>.requirement.passed=<Translation of “Passed”>
<QC/ALM Server Name>.requirement.reviewed=<Translation of “Reviewed”>
```
```
#Defect
<QC/ALM Server Name>.defect.priority=<Translation of “4-Very High,5-Urgent”>
<QC/ALM Server Name>.defect.new=<Translation of “New”>
<QC/ALM Server Name>.defect.open=<Translation of “Open”>
<QC/ALM Server Name>.defect.closed=<Translation of “Closed”>
```
    Example: If you want to configure Simplified Chinese language support, and the ALM server name you specified in Add an ALM integration configuration is ALMServer4PPM, modify the newly pasted section to the following:
5. Save the file in Unicode format.
  
  Caution: Make sure you save the file in Unicode format. Otherwise you may encounter errors.
6. Restart the PPM server.

KPI data retrieved from ALM

All KPI data retrieved from ALM are stored in the PPM_INT_QUALITY_STATISTICS table.

The following table describes the types of KPI data that are retrieved from ALM as well as the REST APIs that are used to retrieve KPI data.

KPI Data	Description	REST APIs used to retrieve KPI data
Requirements
# of Total Requirements	Total number of requirements within a specific release	http://<URL>:<Port>/qcbin/rest/domains/ <Domain>/projects/<Project>/requirements?fields=status, req-reviewed& query={type- # of Covered id[<>1];release.id[<Release_ID>]}
# of Covered Requirements	Number of the requirements within a specific release, excluding status "Not Covered" or "N/A"
# of Reviewed Requirements	Number of requirements with status “Reviewed” within a specific release
# of Passed Requirements	Number of requirements with status of Passed
Defects
# of Total Defects	Total number of defects of release level	http://<URL>:<Port>/qcbin/rest/domains/<Domain>/projects/<Project>/defects/groups/severity, status?query={target-rel [<Release_ID>]}
# of Priority Defects	Number of defects with priority level at “4-Very High” or “5-Urgent”
# of Closed Defects	Number of defects with status of Closed

Next steps:

Use the integration of PPM tasks with ALM releases