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Function documentationBranches

 

Branches are part of every solution and are located as subnodes below a solution (see also Basic Terms and Concepts).

A solution can have different types of branches but must have the Production Branch at least. The structure of a newly created solution looks as follows:

  1. production branch (obligatory – will be created automatically during solution creation)

  2. maintenance branch (optional – will be created automatically during solution creation)

  3. other branches (optional), for example operations branch. For the use of an operations branch see below.

The production branch is obligatory and can not be deleted. The maintenance branch can only be a child of the production branch and exists only once in a solution. It also must not have child branches. A branch contains the following properties: name, technical name, change control (not available on the production branch), sites on (not available on the production branch).

The development branch represents an independent version context where you can realize long term changes which are independent from short term changes in the maintenance branch.

The Branch tab contains the basic information of a branch. As a production branch is the upper node in the structure of branches, no information about the parent branch is available. The Change Control Management integration provides a close integration between Solution Documentation and Change Request Management (ChaRM). When the Change Management integration is enabled, you have to use always Change Documents for every change in the Solution Documentation content. If the Change Management Integration is disabled, you can change the Solution Documentation without control by change documents.

If you activate change control you are only able to maintain the branch content by selecting an existing change document where the changes are tracked. If you enable sites, you are able to separate your system landscape by different locations. The site setting is visible as soon as sites are enabled for the solution (properties tab).

We recommend to use a production branch for all activities concerning production, a maintenance branch for maintenance activities and a development branch for development activities. Maintenance and development branch are independent versions for changes of the solution. The production branch is the productive version of the Solution Documentation, where all productive content is stored. If you need to enhance or to change the Solution Documentation, you have to use create a new branch as a new version of the Solution Documentation.

Activities

Create a Branch

To create a new branch you can either choose Create from the context menu or press the link Create above the branch table. A branch is always a child of another branch, so if you want to use the link above the branch table, you need to select the branch where the new one will be created underneath in advance. In the Create dialog, provide a suitable name and technical name and confirm your entries. Note that the technical name must be unique in the solution and must not include special characters. The maintenance branch can not have a child branch.

Change a Branch

You can edit the settings for a selected branch via the link Properties or via the corresponding entry in the context menu. In the Change Properties dialog, you can change the name and the technical name. Furthermore, you can toggle between enabled and disabled change control.

Delete a Branch

To delete a branch select the branch you want to delete from the branch list and choose the corresponding link above the branch table or select Delete from the context menu for the selected branch. The system displays a confirmation popup where you can confirm or cancel the deletion.

Note the following:

  • The production branch can not be deleted.

  • A branch can only be deleted if it has no child branches underneath.

  • If you have unreleased changes in your Solution Documentation, a corresponding message is displayed on the confirmation popup.

Use of an Operations Branch for Business Process Monitoring

Basically, business process monitoring can not be set up in a production branch as it is locked, if a maintenance branch exists. As in the maintenance branch production systems are not included, it is not possible to set up monitoring for a production system directly.

The setup of monitoring in the maintenance branch would potentially need ChaRM documents and could be done for the maintenance system only. Also in other branches the setup of monitoring would be possible, but would be subject to lifecycle management as well.

Therefore, it is possible to create an Operations Branch for monitoring purposes. This branch is not subject to release and change management.

The operations branch is a dedicated editable branch used for monitoring purposes which refers to the production landscape. A solution can contain a single operations branch as a child branch of the production branch. The operations branch is a standard branch and has not an own operations branch type. The creation and editing of monitoring objects in the operations branch can be restricted by authorization.

To create an operations branch as child of a production branch you can either choose Create from the context menu or press the link Create above the branch table.