What are Rational Unified Process building blocks?

Whenever we talk about iterative software development process frame works, the first name that comes to our minds is of the rational unified process. It is not just a single hard coded prescriptive process rather it is quite an adaptable and flexible process frame work. 

This frame work comes with several facilities, the best one being that your organization can tailor it according to their needs. 

What is Rational Unified Process?

- Unified process when specifically implemented is called as the rational unified process. 

- Rational unified process is counted among the best products of IBM and the credit for its development goes to the rational software division.

- The RUP comes with a hyper linked base consisting of the descriptions of several types of activities and a few sample artifacts. 

- A part of the IBM’s rational method composer (RMC) is occupied by the rational unified process.

- It allows the users to customize the process as per their needs. 

What are building blocks of Rational Unified Process?

In this article we are to talk about the building blocks of the rational unified process.

- These basic best practices of the rational unified process were developed as a result of the combination of the experience of many companies. 

- The building blocks are:

1. Iterative development with risk as its primary iteration driver.
2. Management of the requirements.
3. Employment of an architecture based up on components.
4. Visual modeling of the software.
5. Continuous verification of the quality.
6. Controlling the changes

- These best practices are used in the following two ways:

1. For driving the development process of the rational’s products.
2. To be used by the rational’s field teams so as to assist the customers in improving the predictability as well as the quality of the software development efforts.

- The task involves the assembling of the explicit process framework for the field of modern software engineering. 

- The delivery mechanism developed by the objector was based up on the HTML and employed in accomplishing this task.

- This task resulted in the creation of the rational unified process. 

- A set of content elements or the building blocks form the foundation for the rational unified process and give a description of the product that is to be produced and the required necessary skills. 

- They also give a detailed step by step explanation for achieving the specific development goals. 

Now we shall list all the building blocks of the rational unified process and discuss them in detail:

1. Roles: This building block can be defined as set consisting of related skills, responsibilities as well as competencies.
2. Work products: This building block gives the representation of thing that would result when a task would be completed inclusive of all the models and documentation produced during the course of the completion of that task.
3. Tasks: This building block gives a description of the units of works that are assigned to an element from the role which will produce a result that would be meaningful.

There are 9 disciplines in to which the tasks are categorized within each iteration. There are 6 engineering disciplines and 3 supporting disciplines which together make up total 9 disciplines. The 6 engineering disciplines are:

1. Business modeling
2. Requirements
3. Analysis and design
4. Implementation
5. Test and
6. Deployment

The following are the three supporting disciplines:

1. Configuration and change management
2. Environment and
3. Project management

The organization and the management of the above mentioned building blocks need to be solid and flexible in order to make the rational unified process a success which otherwise cannot be achieved. 

How to generate reports for analyzing the testing process in test director?

Reports and graphs in the test director testing process help you assess up to what extent have your requirements, test runs, test plans, defect tracking etc have progressed.

Generating Reports in Test Director

- In test director you have the facility of generating reports as well as graphs at any point of time in the testing process and from each of the test director modules. 

- You have the choice of working with the default settings as well as the customized ones. 

- While you customize the reports or the graphs you have the right to apply sort conditions as well as filters. 

- Also the information can be displayed according to your specifications if you wish so. 

- The settings you make can be saved as the favorite views and they can be reloaded whenever required. 

- A report can be generated from any of the modules of the test director. 

- Each module of the test director provides you with a variety of report generation options. 

- Once you have generated the report, you can customize various properties of the report as per your wish. 

- The information can be displayed according to your specifications by altering or customizing various properties of that report. 

In this article we shall provide you with the steps for generating a standard requirements report, customizing it for a specific user name and adding it to the favorites list.

Steps for generating reports in Test Director

Follow the steps mentioned below:

1. First step is to open your project and login. If the project is not open, log on to it.
2. To view the requirements tree you need to turn on the requirements module. To do so clicking on the requirements tab will display the requirements module.
3. Next step is to choose a report. To do so go to the analysis option, then reports, and then finally click on the standard requirements report. A report will open up containing the default data.
4. Next if you need to customize the report as per your needs and specifications.  Clicking on the configure report and sub reports button will launch a report customization page with all the default options already selected.
5. Here you will get various options for displaying the number of items per display page. Set the option to ‘all items in one page’ if you want them to be displayed all in one page.
6. If you want to define a filter to view the requirements that were created by a specific user name clicking on the set filter/ sort button will certainly help. A filter dialog box will open up where you will see a filed titled ‘author’. For this click the filter condition box and click on the browse button. This will again open up the select filter condition dialog box. For the users field select the test director log-in user name and click OK. This will close the select the filter condition dialog box. Once again click OK to close the filter dialog box.
7. Under fields specify the fields and order in which you want them to be displayed. Select the custom field layout and next click on the select fields button to open the select fields dialog box. You will observe the following two fields:

a) Available fields: fields that are not currently displayed.

b) Visible fields: fields that are currently displayed.

You need to select the attachment option in the visible fields box and click the left arrow in order to move it to the available fields. Move the required fields to the available fields box.

8. Clear the history.
9. You can add the report as a favorite view by clicking on the add to favorites button.
10. Close the report.