Update is the process of updating the object versions in a project or directory. Each object version in the project or directory is evaluated, and the appropriate version is selected from the available candidates in the Rational Synergy database. Developers normally update their projects whenever they start working on a new task. They do so to bring in the latest members of a project.
A set of projects for a particular release and purpose bases its members on a baseline. A baseline is a grouping of static projects and tasks. Think of it as a snapshot in time of one or more projects and the tasks they contain. It might represent a particular build, a milestone, or a release.
If a project uses process rules, the process rules identify which baseline to use. The projects that reference the process rules use the baseline to identify which baseline project to use when updated. (A baseline project is a starting point for the project; each project looks at the baseline to find its starting point—called a baseline project.) For example, if the Insulated Development process rule for the current release specifies that the Integration Build 20020913 baseline must be used, and it contains static projects toolkit-int_20020913 and calculator-int_20020913, a calculator-bob project would select calculator-int_20020913 as its baseline project.
Therefore, process rules are patterns that define how projects are updated. They specify rules for selecting a baseline plus a set of tasks to be used when you update a project. Your team uses process rules to tailor and coordinate their software development and testing process.
The update operation also uses the tasks in the baseline. This operation streamlines the tasks that are evaluated, which improves the performance of the update operation. An update that uses baselines only analyzes the tasks that were added since the last baseline, rather than all tasks for the entire release.
The build manager typically creates the baseline and sets up the process rules, then makes them available to developers for a particular milestone or release.