Product Development & Management

Jama Connect® Features in Five: Release Management via Reuse & Synchronization

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Jama Connect Features in Five: Release Management via Reuse & Synchronization

Learn how you can supercharge your systems development process! In this blog series, we’re pulling back the curtains to give you a look at a few of Jama Connect’s powerful features… in under five minutes.

In this Features in Five video, Máté Hársing, Solutions Manager at Jama Software, demonstrates how Jama Connect helps teams streamline release management with its reuse and synchronization capabilities.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Máté Hársing: Hello and welcome. My name is Máté Hársing, and I’m a Solutions Architect at Jama Software. In this video, we’re going to explore how Jama Connect helps teams streamline release management with its reuse and synchronization capabilities. Managing multiple product releases often introduces challenges such as tracking changes across different product versions, ensuring teams work on release branches without disrupting the main project, merging updates without losing critical information or creating inconsistencies, maintaining traceability and compliance in industries with strict regulatory requirements.

Without the right tools, these challenges can lead to delays, increased costs, and risks of errors. Jama Connect addresses these challenges with its reuse and synchronization capabilities.

By allowing you to duplicate projects or components, Jama Connect creates a release branch where teams can work independently. The platform provides powerful comparison tools at the item, set, and project levels, enabling you to see changes clearly.

When it’s time to merge updates, Jama Connect gives you full control, allowing you to select specific changes while maintaining traceability and alignment. Now let’s see this in action. I’ll start by showing the main branch of the project and how it’s in sync with a specific release branch, release 2.0. This release branch is a separate project that will include updates and modifications specific to this version once we start working on it. As you can see, so far, the synchronization is fully intact between these two projects.

RELATED: Jama Connect® Features in Five: Reuse & Sync

Hársing: Now let’s take a look at the synced items widget starting at the item level. This widget shows the relationship between this specific operational time requirement in the main project and the release branch. You can see they are currently in sync, meaning there is no difference between them. If I change the operational time for release two zero to a higher number, as we want to ensure higher user satisfaction, you’ll see they are now out of sync.

By clicking on the button, we can see the red line differentiation between the main branch requirement and the release-specific requirement for release 2.0. Moving up to the set level, we can view how entire groups of requirements are synced. This provides a broader perspective, allowing teams to manage changes across multiple related items efficiently. Let’s add a new requirement to release 2.0 and delete an existing one so that you can see how the information will show up when comparing the two sets between the main branch and release 2.0.

Finally, at the project level, you can see an overview of synchronization across the entire project. This is particularly useful for tracking overall progress and ensuring alignment between the main branch and the release.

Now I’ll demonstrate how to merge changes back into the main project. Jama Connect allows you to make different kinds of merges. For instance, you can accept specific changes, reject others, or use the consolidation option to manage conflicting requirement descriptions side by side. This ensures the two versions of a requirement can be refined into a common denominator, maintaining clarity and consistency.

RELATED: Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution

Hársing: I’d like to emphasize that both reusing and synchronizing are permission-controlled so that only appointed team members can execute these tasks. Each dedicated project can also be baselined creating a snapshot in time. This is invaluable for generating submission-ready documentation, especially in regulated industries such as medical device design and development. Additionally, any change made in either project, the main branch or the release branch, propagates reactive change management capabilities via the Suspect Link tool. This feature automatically flags impacted items, ensuring teams can quickly assess and address the downstream effects of any modification.

These features reduce risks, improve collaboration, and ensure compliance by keeping everything organized and transparent. Jama Connect simplifies release management so you can focus on delivering high-quality products.

Thank you for watching this demonstration of release management via reuse and synchronization in Jama Connect. If you would like to learn more about how Jama Connect can optimize your product development process, please visit our website at jamasoftware.com. If you are already a Jama Connect customer and would like more information about release management via reuse and synchronization, please contact your Customer Success Manager or Jama Software Consultant.

To view more Jama Connect Features in Five topics, visit:
Jama Connect Features in Five Video Series

Máté Hársing
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