ALM: User Guide

From a programmer's point of view, ALM addresses the following tasks:

• it visualizes the list of current tasks;
• it stores functional and technical requirements, including as UML diagrams;
• it provides a trace from the original primary requirements through to the source code;
• it makes it possible to track effort spent on development.

Before linking requirements and tasks to code commits, connect one or more repositories to the project. In the drop-down list of system types, select the required one and fill in the connection parameters. The system synchronizes periodically with the version control system and makes it possible to visualize the repository file structure, the list of commits, the changes in them, and so on.

Supported version control system types:

• Subversion — operation over the WebDAV protocol with a remote server.
• Git — operation with local, remote, and specialized repositories, for example GitHub or GitLab.

In the "Commits" module, the hint at the bottom describes the commands that can be used by adding them to the commit text (description). You can not only link commits to tasks and requirements, but also log effort, leave comments, and change the state of a work item. In the commit description, the developer adds magic phrases such as I-123 #time 2h, which let the system link this commit to an enhancement and log the time spent.

ALM automatically builds and displays traces from requests and requirements to specific changes in the code, and makes it possible to view these changes without installing additional software.

To match ALM users with accounts in the version control system, configure account mapping in the repository parameters. This lets the system understand which user made a commit, and display charts of changes and of commit frequency.

To analyze how the synchronization mechanism works (and to analyze problems), the application produces logs. The repository settings have a corresponding tab that shows the latest log data. For more detailed information, download the logs from the Administrative section, or from the file system:

• scm.log — the log is filled during manual repository update operations;
• task-processrevisionlog.log — the log is filled when the synchronization task runs in background (automatic) mode.