Comparing and Merging Views in VCM

Use the Compare Perspective and the Merge Perspective in a View Compare/Merge session (View Compare/Merge session) to compare or merge the contents of a source and target view, and to review or change the proposed merge actions for resolving item differences.

Note: The steps and options included in the View Compare/Merge Wizard differ depending on which compare or merge type you select on the first page of the View Compare/Merge Wizard.

To compare or merge the contents of two different views using View Compare/Merge, do the following:

  1. Choose Project > Open.

    The Open Project Wizard opens.

  2. Select the project and one of the views you want to compare and click Finish.
  3. In the opened view, select the root folder in the folder tree to compare items in the entire view, or select one of the sub folders to just compare items from that folder.

  4. Right click the item(s) and select Advanced > View Compare/Merge.

    The View Compare/Merge Wizard opens.

  5. Select the type of compare or merge to perform: Compare only, Promote, Rebase, or Replicate.

    The View Compare/Merge Wizard uses the configuration to which the view is currently set to determine which choices to present on the first page of the wizard.

    Note: If you chose to perform a Compare Only merge of two reference views, on the Select Source/Target Configuration step of the View Compare/Merge Wizard, select Current Configuration. Do not select any of the other types of configurations for the Compare Only merge.

  6. Click Next and continue through the wizard selecting the options you want until you get to the Set Options page of the wizard.

    Optionally, clear the Start With Merge Perspective Current checkbox option on the Set Options page of the wizard if you want to start the session in the Compare Perspective.

    This option is set to Start With Merge Perspective Current by default which causes the View Compare/Merge session to open in the Merge Perspective.

    Select any other options you want and click Next.

    Note: You can change perspectives as needed in the View Compare/Merge session to accomplish different tasks.

  7. The Exclude Properties page appears next and gives you the opportunity to exclude any properties for each brancheable item type for which you do not want to merge changes when the session is committed. Select an item type in the Item Type list, then select a property for that item in the Available properties list that you want to exclude from the commit. Click the Exclude button to move it to the Exclude properties list.

    Note: If you change your mind, you can always select the item again, select the excluded property, and click Include to return it to the Available Properties list.

  8. Click Finish.

    The View Compare/Merge session opens in either the Merge Perspective or Compare Perspective.

  9. Use the Merge Perspective or Compare Perspective to change merge actions and resolve item differences.

    Tip: You can switch to the Test Perspective to see what the target view would look like if you applied your changes. Switch back to the Merge Perspective or Compare Perspective to make additional changes as needed.

Note: If you need to stop work on the change session before resolving and committing the changes, or you want to finish it later after having someone else review the proposed changes, you can use one of the VCM Session menu items Save, Save to Local, or Export before committing the session. StarTeam creates a Change Package object with a unique name in the target view which contains all the changes proposed for that change session. It is then available in the Change Perspective where it can later be restarted, reviewed, committed, and once committed, have the session Replayed which reuses the change package session to apply the same set of changes to another view.