Change Management 1.0 Specification

Introduction

This family of documents defines the Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration Change Management specification, also known as OSLC-CM. These documents collectively define the OSLC-CM 1.0 specification, which is part of the OSLC group of specifications.

This specification supports key REST APIs for software Change Management systems such as defect tracking systems. OSLC-CM 1.0 takes a lightweight, loosely coupled approach to integration. It allows other tools in the software lifecycle (such as requirements and quality management tools) to easily create, find, and retrieve records in a CM system through RESTful APIs. In addition to defining minimal JSon and XML formats for change requests, it defines techniques for delegating responsibility for creation and selection dialogs back to the CM system. This allows tools that to remain decoupled from the details of the CM system's underlying schemas, required attributes, and other process rules while still allowing their users to create and find change requests through delegated creation and selection dialogs. Finally, it defines simple URL-encoded syntaxes for querying the CM system and specifying sub-resources (CM resources that include only portion of the available data).

OSLC-CM 1.0 does not specify any techniques for obtaining the schemas, record types, or required attributes of the CM system. This was deferred to the OSLC-CM 2.0 effort to enable progress on the lighter-weight APIs and to enable OSLC-CM working group members to deliver products supporting the loosely-coupled, delegated style of integration on a relatively short timeline.

These documents have been created by the OSLC-CM 1.0 Specification Working Group as part of the Open Services for LIfecycle Collaboration initiative. The goals of that initiative are describe on the OSLC About Page.

Specification Working Group

Authors of the OSLC-CM 1.0 Specification:

• SteveSpeicher, lead (IBM)
• AndreWeinand (IBM)
• CarolynPampino (IBM)
• GaryDang (Accenture)
• MikKersten (Tasktop)
• RandyVogel (Accenture)
• RobertElves (Tasktop)
• SteveAbrams (IBM)

Specification

Document
CM RESTful Services
CM Change Request Resource Definition
CM Simple Query Syntax
CM JSON Format
CM Delegated Resource Selection and Creation
CM Service Description

In addition, the OSLC-CM 1.0 working group defined the OSLC Service Provider Catalog specification, part of the OSLC Common Services family of specifications.

Supporting Documents

These non-normative documents do not form part of the specification, but document the use cases, design decisions, and over rationale that led to the OSLC-CM 1.0 spec. In any discrepancy between what is described in these documents and the actual specifications, the specification prevails.

Document
Resource Creation
XML Format
Architectural Direction
CM Scenarios and Use Cases
Resource Design Guidelines

Intellectual Property Covenant

The members of the Working Group (or as appropriate, their employers) have documented a Patent Non-Assertion Covenant for implementations of the Change Management 1.0 Specification, as described in the open-services.net Terms of Use. Details of the Covenant may be found here.