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Baselines

Owned by Marcel Patzschke
Last updated: Dec 09, 2024 by David Sedlock
5 min read

Overview

A baseline represents the state of a set of requirements at a specific point in time. A baseline might represent a project milestone, such as an important review or a new release. Baselines are used to identify changes in a set of requirements.

Baselines can be created at any level of a project hierarchy. A baseline contains the state of each requirement, including child requirements, starting from the selected folder and extending through all folders in that hierarchy. The state of an issue consists of the values of the fields included in the easeRequirements Detail View at the time the baseline is created.

Due to Requirements Reuse, baselines may contain requirements from different projects.

Operations

Purpose

Action

Purpose

Action

Create baseline

Right click the desired folder for the baseline in the project tree view, select Create/Add > Create Baseline, enter the name and description of the new baseline and select Create.

If a tree filter is in effect when a baseline is created, the resulting baseline only contains the items matching the filter.

There is an option to show excluded parent issues in the tree view to maintain the correct tree structure. Such issues appear as greyed out. Excluded issues are not listed in the baseline detail view. V4.20

View all baselines

Select Requirements > View All Baselines from the easeRequirements dropdown. The resulting table lists the baselines in all easeRequirements projects. The table can be filtered and reordered by column.

View baselines in a project

Select Baselines in the project tree view. The resulting table of baselines can be filtered and reordered by column.

Compare baselines

In the list of baselines, select the two baselines you wish to compare and select Compare selected baselines. See section Baseline Comparison for more information.

View baseline details

In the list of baselines, select a baseline to open the Baseline Details. The baseline details are displayed from oldest to latest issue.

The buttons above the details allow you to perform the following actions:

  • Select the fields to be displayed.

  • Switch between the Baseline Flat List View and the Baseline Tree View. The last selected view type is persisted in the browser.

  • Expand or collapse the details of the contents of a baseline.

  • Export the content of a baseline to XML or Excel.

  • Add a signature to a baseline. See Baseline Signatures.

Edit baseline name and description

In the list of baselines, select the edit icon.

Delete baseline

In the list of baselines, select the delete icon.

Baseline Comparison

A comparison of two baselines lists every requirement that is in at least one of the baselines. In the case of requirements that exist in both baselines, the values of the fields in each revision are displayed side by side. Fields with different values in the baselines are highlighted. In the case of requirements that exist in only one baseline, all fields in the revision are highlighted. An indication that the requirement is missing in the other baseline is displayed.

The option “Compare as Tree” provides the side-by-side comparison of two baselines in tree view. The highlights and indications of differences in issue and field values work in the same way as in the list view. V4.20

The fields displayed in the comparison can be changed by selecting Display Fields and selecting or deselecting fields in the list.

You can enable the rendering of wiki markup in text fields by selecting Visual.

Text diffs, the red and green highlight on exact character changes, are disabled for RTE fields when using visual mode. Images are displayed with a placeholder for past revisions and baselined revisions, since Jira and easeRequirements do not track attachment history.

The following quick filters are available for comparing baselines:

Only Changed Issues

Only requirements that are contained in both baselines and have different values for at least one field are listed.

Only on Left Side

Only issues that are contained exclusively in the left baseline are displayed.

Only on Right Side

Only issues that are contained exclusively in the right baseline are displayed.

Baseline Signatures

Baselines can be electronically signed. For example, a project may require that the members of its Change Control Board review the baselines of important milestones. Baselines are provided to the members via links. Each member is expected to sign off with a digital signature and mandatory free text comment (e.g. approved, rejected).

Baseline Tree View

This view displays the issues and pages in the baseline as a tree, which allows better visualization and overview of the items in the baseline.

Functions in this view are limited to the following:

  • Select an issue, folder, or page to view its baselined details.

    • Issue details include all baselined fields under “Details“ section, a rendered “Description“, and a comma-delimited list of “Attachments“ and “Issue Links“.

    • Folder details only include the folder name and statistics.

    • Page details only include the page version.

  • Context menu in the Root Folder to “Show current in issue navigator“ redirects to the Jira issue navigator showing the issues included in the baseline.

  • Switch between the Baseline Flat List View and the Baseline Tree View.

  • Add a signature to a baseline. See Baseline Signatures.