If you've installed or upgraded to Release Control version 6.2, you now have access to a handy bonus feature that makes it easy to create and manage custom timelines. This has its own separate user interface.

Although you can define timelines directly in SBM, it's nice to have a separate UI that is designed just for this purpose. It simplifies things. 

Here are just a few details to get you started, so you can get in there and explore on your own.

How do I get to the UI?

To get started, enter the following URL (changing the server name to your SBM server, of course):

http://<SBM_SERVER>/workcenter/tmtrack.dll?StdPage&Template=rlm/customGanttManager

What report should I choose?

You must choose a report that has all the data needed to display as a Gantt chart, such as the "All Release Trains" report. You can use that report as an example to create others of your own.

See this related blog that tells how to create various reports that can be used for timelines, such as All Environments, All Scheduled Maintenance, and All Scheduled Release Packages. 

Although this blog was written for RLC 6.0, most of it still applies to RLC 6.2. 

What can I define for my timeline?

There are several selections you can define for each timeline, such as:

• Ranges

  Ranges are the colored bars that render horizontally across the timeline. Ranges must have a start date and an end date and may also have actual start and end dates, so that you can visually compare planned versus actual.

• Events

  Events are single points in time represented on the timeline with icons. Like ranges, events can optionally have actual dates and icons configured for comparison.

• Overlays

  Overlays have both ranges and events. They come from a different report than the primary items and are linked with a relational field. You can configure as many overlay items as you need. This powerful feature enables you to plot ranges and events from different items directly on the timeline of the primary item. In the default configuration, we use this to plot milestones on the release train.

• Child Items

  In addition to overlays you can add child items, which can have their own ranges, events, and even overlays. If you expand the primary items you will see all of its child items plotted on the timeline underneath it. 

For more details on each of these, see this related blog. Although this blog was written for RLC 6.0, most of it still applies to RLC 6.2.   

Share with the Community 

Please share your experiences with this new feature with the Community. We look forward to hearing from you!