Integrating with other products

You can integrate Rational® ClearQuest® with other software by adding packages to existing schemas.

Some ClearQuest integrations are independent integrations that require adding only the appropriate package. Other integrations are dependent integrations that require adding one or more packages in a specific order and might require additional configuration to ClearQuest.

These instructions assume that you are adding a new integration and that the associated packages do not already exist in your schema. See Applying package upgrades if you need to upgrade an integration or package.

Some ClearQuest integrations cannot be applied to the Web Client. An example of an integration that does not work with the Web client is Requisite Pro.

Attention: Plan carefully before adding a package to your schema. Once a package is added, you cannot remove it. Instead, you must delete all schema versions in which the package exists. You can delete schema versions only if you have not applied them to a user database.

Independent integrations

The following integrations are independent integrations. You can use the same installation process for all independent integrations. See Adding independent integrations for more information.

IBM Rational ClearCase® and Rational ClearQuest
Associates one or more ClearQuest change requests with one or more ClearCase versions.
IBM Rational PureCoverage® and Rational ClearQuest
Lets you submit code coverage data to a ClearQuest database and track it.
IBM Rational Purify and Rational ClearQuest
Lets you submit data to a ClearQuest database and track it.
IBM Rational Quantify and Rational ClearQuest
Lets you submit performance data to a ClearQuest database and track it.
An e-mail system and Rational ClearQuest
Enables ClearQuest to communicate with you through your e-mail system. An e-mail system integration involves configuring the Rational E-Mail Reader and adding the e-mail notification package.

Dependent integrations

The following integrations are dependent integrations. See Adding dependent integrations for more information.

IBM Rational Administrator and Rational ClearQuest
Associates Rational projects with Rational ClearQuest databases. See Adding a Rational Administrator integration for more information.
IBM Rational Project Tracker and Rational ClearQuest
Lets you exchange project data between the two systems. See Adding a Rational Project Tracker integration for more information.
IBM Rational RequisitePro® and Rational ClearQuest
Associates RequisitePro requirements with ClearQuest records.
IBM Rational TeamTest and Rational ClearQuest
Lets you submit defects found through TeamTest to ClearQuest databases and track the defects. See Adding a Rational TeamTest integration for more information.
IBM Rational ClearCase Unified Change Management (UCM) and Rational ClearQuest
Links ClearCase UCM projects and activities to ClearQuest records. See Adding a Rational ClearCase UCM integration for more information.
Microsoft® Visual SourceSafe and Rational ClearQuest
Associates Visual SourceSafe information with ClearQuest records. See Adding a Microsoft Visual SourceSafe integration for more information.

ClearQuest integrations and code pages

Because all data in a ClearQuest database must be from the same code page, be mindful of the following facts regarding ClearQuest integrations:

  • ClearQuest only stores characters that are supported by the ClearQuest data code page. This means that for all code pages other than 65001 (UTF-8), ClearQuest issues an error for any information sent by the integration that cannot be represented in the data code page. With code page 65001, any Unicode character can be represented, so character conversion errors do not occur when data is passed to ClearQuest.
  • ClearQuest returns characters to an integration either in the local code page of the operating system, or as Unicode characters, depending on which API system is used and how the program has configured Unicode awareness. See the topic Setting the return string mode for hooks and scripts in the API reference help for information about Unicode awareness. In the mode RETURN_STRING_LOCAL, ClearQuest issues an error to the integration if any characters in the return string are not in the local code page.
  • If your ClearQuest data code page value is set to ASCII and other products that ClearQuest integrates with do not limit data entry to only ASCII characters, then you might not be able to integrate ClearQuest with the products. A ClearQuest database set with an ASCII data code page value rejects all non-ASCII characters that the integrating product sends.

Example

The following example shows how a code page mismatch can prevent an integration between ClearQuest and Rational Administrator from functioning correctly.

ClearQuest is installed on a computer with the 1252 operating system code page and the ClearQuest data code page value for the database set is also 1252.

The Rational Administrator client is installed on a computer with the 936 (Japanese) operating system code page.

A user creates a Rational Administrator project, and because she is working on a computer with a 936 code page, the project name includes Japanese characters. She then attempts to associate the new Rational Administrator project with a ClearQuest database. The attempt fails because the Japanese characters in the Rational Administrator project name are not from the 1252 code page, which is the data code page value of the ClearQuest database set.

Enabling record types for integrations

Some packages enable existing record types in a schema. When you install these packages, you can select which record types you want the package to enable. If you add a new record type after adding the package, you can enable the new record type with the package functionality.

See ClearQuest integration packages for a list of packages and the record types that they modify.

To enable package functionality for a new record type:

  1. Start the Designer.
  2. Right-click on a schema version in the ClearQuest Schema Repository Explorer view and click Packages > Setup Record Types for Packages.
  3. Select a record type from the Record Types list.
  4. Select the packages that you want to enable for the record type from the Available Packages list.

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