Merge Artifacts

In Blueprint, you can maintain a shared set of living master libraries of production artifacts that are constantly evolving. You can make changes or extend existing production artifacts as part of a project and easily reconcile those changes to the appropriate master libraries so that the master libraries always contain the latest information.

Reuse Merge allows you to select the properties, relationships, attachments, sub artifacts, and documents to keep when reconciling artifacts with a reuse relationship.

To merge and reconcile artifacts with a reuse relationship:

  1. Click the Reuse tab in the Relationship slider of the Utility Panel. You can also use the All tab to select the reuse relationship to merge.
  2. Click the Reconcile Reuse Relationship icon () and select Merge.
  3. The Reconcile modal is displayed. It contains separate tabs for the properties, relationships, attachments, document references, and sub-artifacts of both the artifacts that share the reuse relationship.
    The values displayed are those which have been modified in either the source or target artifact.

    Each tab displays the following information:

    Tab

    Description

    Properties

    By default, displays any properties that have been changed such as Name, Description, and any other additional properties the artifact might have.

    Relationships

    Displays the trace discrepancies between the artifacts that are being merged. Specifically, this tab displays the artifact ID and name of the trace artifact, in addition to which artifact being merged contains the trace.

    This is defined with an indicator in the corresponding artifact column with the trace, and also indicates the direction of the trace according to the following:

    Attachments

    Displays any changes in attachments by illustrating the name of the attachment and which of the two artifacts being merged that it resides in.

    Document References

    Displays any changes in document references indicated by the name of the document reference and which of the two artifacts being merged that it resides in

    Sub-artifacts

    Indicates changes at the sub-artifact level between the two artifacts being merged. Examples might include the addition of a shape in the Universal Model Editor, or a glossary term change (in the case of a glossary term change, the same tab is labeled as Terms instead of Sub-artifacts).

    The exact change is not displayed, however links to the artifacts are provided so discrepancies can be investigated before a value to merge is selected.

    Summary

    Lists and displays all the values you have selected to merge and the trace direction of any traces being merged



    Depending on how many values have been changed, some tabs may not display any values, whereas others may not be available. For example, if the artifacts do not contain any sub-artifacts, the Sub-artifacts tab is not available
  4. In the Reconcile Modal:
    1. Click the value you want to maintain for both artifacts (that is, the selected value that will overwrite its counterpart).
      Select the Show only differing values toggle to display only the values that have been changed. If the toggle is unselected, the Reconcile modal will display all values for the two artifacts, with the values that haven't been changed in grey.
      You can also perform the step by selecting the checkbox for the values you want to merge, and then clicking the Actions button and selecting one of the following three options.

      The selected value is displayed in the Merged Values column.
      You can also perform the step by selecting the checkbox for the values you want to merge, and then clicking the Actions button and selecting one of the following two options:

      Overwrite To >>

      Overwrites the values of the artifact that shares the reuse relationship with the values of the currently selected artifact

      Overwrite From <<

      Overwrites the values of the currently selected artifact with the values from the artifact that shares the reuse relationship

      Click the information icon () to see the complete value of each field.

      Click Reset All Selections before publishing at any time to clear all merged values and begin selecting the values to merge again.
    2. Perform the above steps for all tabs in the modal to merge all desired values.
    3. The Summary tab lists and displays all the values you have selected to merge and the trace direction of any traces being merged.
    4. Click Merge and Publish.
  5. The suspect flag is cleared and both artifacts with a reuse relationship contain the values you selected.