View history of the check-ins

pbartha · ‎Oct 06, 2016

Based on a PTC ticket: Case Details: 13296430

Original question of the user:

"I am wondering if there's a way to display a log of all changes that happened (are happening) to the project members historically.
I can view project history by its checkpoints but this is not fine-granular enough.
I could also check all change packages of all tasks of the project but this would be gigantic effort.

What I would essentially be happy with is something similar to Log feature in SVN version control system (see attachment: Szymon_2016-9-2-11-35-3-387.png) - that I can see all changes to all files from all change packages of all tasks of a project."

First answer from AVL:

Hello,

regarding the change packages you can search for a project and all related change packages of a project (see attachment).
regarding the Member History you can change View to 'List' when being in Member History and after you can add columns conveniently (moreover you can set the Member History window into Dynamic, so it keep showing all these info clicking at each file of the project)

Reaction of the user:

I actually wanted to view concatenated history of all the members of the project in a chronological manner.

I referred to SVN because there it is possible not only to view member history (right-click on a member and view history) but also a directory/project. So I can right-click on any directory (top-root or below) and view every operation that happened to all the members inside in a single view (Log view). This gives me an overview on what’s happening with all the files/members currently.

And I was wondering if such a feature is also available in Integrity.

Answer from PTC:

He just needs to open the project history view, highlight two project revisions between which he wants to see what has happened and then run a "Project/View Differences" to see what has happened there.
Please find a screenshot of an example out of my testsystem. Let me know if that is helpful for you or not.
Many thanks and have a nice day and a good new week!"

I'm adding the screenshot as well (named: Szymon_Project_differences_view (1).JPG)

Reaction of the user:

Close but not close enough yet What about checking what happened since the last project revision and current moment?

Project revisions are checkpoints done periodically. One could imagine a new checkpoint at the end of each day (5 PM). Nevertheless during the course of the day some new changes are introduced into project (check ins). With such a frequent checkpointing I would still not be able to check what happened between 5 PM the previous day and any time before 5 PM this day (for example at 1 PM).

So basically the changes that has been done so far since the last revision...

Actually filtering is only possible on selected checkpoints (or between several checkpoints) so still anything that got checked in after the last checkpoint is not visible. But I'm getting to the understanding that this kind of workflow is simply not the approach of the tool and it is not available.

Answer from PTC:

"In this Case, I can confirm, yes. Other possibilities besides filtering and changing the view for the filters are not implemented in our product. Only the Administrator can activate Audit - logging, but this has no possibility to filter.

{If you want to have something in the product, please feel free to create an idea request in our Forum

So here I go with this idea. I hope we can see further actions about this. Have a nice day you all, Bye!

vichavan · ‎Apr 09, 2017

Can you please elaborate on the use case? I assume you are expecting to see a log or history of all check ins that happen on a member, a more granular details of history of a member. What is the use case? How this information will be consumed and who would want to consume such information? I would like to point out here that maintaining history has lot of overehead associated with it so I would like to understand the use case and what problem we are trying to solve here.

Thanks!

pbartha · ‎Apr 10, 2017

The use case is to see what has recently happened in the project where many developers work simultaneously.

I want to see changes to all members in a single multi-row view.

If you never used SVN or GIT then it might be difficult to understand but in those tools this is a daily-use feature.

Bests, Szymon & Bartha Péter

vichavan · ‎Apr 10, 2017

You may want to check the member history view and switch to list view. Here is you add 'Revision Description' column' you will be able to see all comments against all checkins. Along side this there is already a 'Date' column which can help you see the list chronologically (by default, that's how it should be). There is no filter there, but this is exactly same as what you I see in your attached image.

pbartha · ‎Apr 12, 2017

As explained before: “We want to see changes to all members in a single multi-row view”.

llambert · ‎Apr 12, 2017

I cant recall exactly but if you select the latest checkpoint only and then do a view differences don't you get the changes from the latest checkpoint to "now"?

vichavan · ‎Apr 27, 2017

Okay!

I understand the use case, but we do not plan to address this in the near future as we think the information is already provided for a per user view and that should be sufficient.

kokici · ‎Jan 16, 2018

Hi,

You said, "as we think the information is already provided for a per user view and that should be sufficient." !?

I don't think the information is already provided since what has been asked here is to be able to get the list of the changes inside the Project since specific checkpoint has been set. How is the Information "already provided" to the user, as you said. What specific command or gesture you are refering to?

Even suggested step to select one specific Checkpoint and then run Project\View differences" won't deliver accurate results as for some reason it is showing much more but not the changes between spcecific check Point and none-checkpointed changes!!

Siddharth · ‎Oct 19, 2018

@kokici I have few suggestions for you to check if any of those work for your use case :

1. Usage of Change Package to track changes to all the SI projects & then use toolbar menu Change Package --> Find menu.

Use "Closed Date" (with multiple data ranges) & "Project" filters to get a list of changes happened.

2. Use "Changed Since Last Checkpoint" field column

Add new column "Changed Since Last Checkpoint" to Project details view. Any change in Member will be highlighted under newly added column.

3. use "si mods" command to get a list of changes for selected SI project since last checkpoint.

LLawton · ‎Oct 19, 2018

I think you are missing the point of the request, very well summarized by Péter: "If you never used SVN or GIT then it might be difficult to understand but in those tools this is a daily-use feature."

We are not asking PTC for a magic combination of Integrity commands/actions to produce something vaguely resembling the output users require so we can answer "yes, it's possible". We would like, from the end-user's perspective, a way to address the use case in the best possible way so they can easily get what they need out of their daily use of the tool. Something that makes sense to the end-user immediately because it answers their questions.

I was asked that very same question yesterday: "something similar to Log feature in SVN".

Every one of us PTC clients has to address many such use cases every day, and we all come up with different solutions with tremendous effort. Eventually, most of us will migrate to the tools that address them in the first place.

I know I'm reacting strongly, but this is a good example: what was submitted here was an idea, not a question about what to do. This means the requestor has already determined that he cannot get what he needs and is asking PTC to look at this idea and come up with a similar feature in the future. Instead, he gets "use si mods" and "we think the information is already provided" !