Highlight differences in the baseline comparison report

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[Deleted User]
[Deleted User] Posts: 68
edited October 2016 in
Sometimes we have lots of information in a JAMA item, and we make a small change to something within it. Baseline comparison then detects that a change has been made, and outputs the entire item, before state and after. 

That's fine, it's good to show context around a change. But can it autohighlight changes so it makes it easier to visually scan the changes?

This is already done in the version comparison. Would be nice to have this also in the baseline comparison of multiple items.

Comments

  • Shawnna Williams
    Shawnna Williams Jama Staff Posts: 17
    edited March 2016
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    Hi Edward - 
    You can modify the Velocity report (or copy it and change it) to only show those fields that have changed or perhaps change the color of the cells of each field that have changed. You would have to know a little about Velocity but it's not a difficult change. 
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 68
    edited July 2016
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    Hi Shawnna,

    could you point me to a resource I could use to learn how to do this? I'm new to Velocity.

    Better yet, if it's not difficult to do if you could make the modifications and let me take a look at it to see what was changed that would be very instructional for me. I imagine this is something that other people might like to have too.

    Thanks,

    Ed
  • Shawnna Williams
    Shawnna Williams Jama Staff Posts: 17
    edited March 2016
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    The baseline comparison reports only show the fields that have changed. After looking at your request a little more, do you mean highlight the exact text in that field that has changed? I might not have understood your original question.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 68
    edited July 2016
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    Yes, it would be highlight the differences between the two items. It may be text, it may be an image that was added/modified/renamed...
  • Shawnna Williams
    Shawnna Williams Jama Staff Posts: 17
    edited March 2016
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    It might be possible, but would require some research to see if it's feasible. This would be something that requires someone very knowledgeable about Velocity/Java coding or a Custom Reports engagement with Jama. If it's really important to you, please let us know and we can discuss further. Otherwise, please log a feature request. I'm sure this would be valuable to many customers and feature requests from customers have more value than feature requests coming from employees.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 68
    edited July 2016
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    I thought this was how we logged feature requests? Is this not the correct forum?
  • Shawnna Williams
    Shawnna Williams Jama Staff Posts: 17
    edited March 2016
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    Sorry - yes it is! I've also added it to a backlog of things to look at from a reporting perspective. 
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 68
    edited July 2016
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    Hi Shawna,

    thanks, and let me know if this gets developed.

    Best,

    Ed
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 5
    edited October 2016
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    Hi I'm running a hosted version of Contour and was wondering whether there Is there an Excel export template available for the Baseline comparison report? If so can this be added to my instance of the tool?
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 911
    edited June 2016
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    All available reports for hosted can be found on this page for Custom reports. Note that if your organization has an Enterprise license, you can now develop your own reports and we will upload them.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 161
    edited September 2016
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    Ed, for a completely wild idea you might consider following this tip. https://community.jamasoftware.com/ja...
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 68
    edited July 2016
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    Thanks swoo. This is a good workaround. 

    For some of our more advanced users this might be usable. But for our new(er) users, many of whom are expert Excel users, they may look at this and say "well, if we can do this in Excel but not in Jama, why should I bother to update information in Jama? I can make the changes more quickly in Excel".

    Only our advanced users would see the value of keeping the information within Jama, because they don't find it as hard to enter information into Jama, and they use traceability and other functions not available in Excel.

    So I'd still like to see this developed within the baseline comparison tool. I don't see why this isn't the default behaviour. People use the baseline comparison report to see differences between baselines, and highlighting is already shown in the version comparison. Clear intent and precedence.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 161
    edited September 2016
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    Ed, I agree with your comments completely. swoo
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 17
    edited June 2016
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    +1 for everything that Ed is saying.  The report comparison is the only comprehensive way to guarantee that a set of changes is fully intended to be made and the diff capability is severely lacking.

    It would also be nice to see the additions/deletions in their hierarchical order, but I don't want to derail this important conversation
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 911
    edited June 2016
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    Very true, Mike, and thanks for the added bullet on the wish list. 
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 68
    edited July 2016
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    Hi,

    is this on any roadmap? This shouldn't be too big to work in, right? After all you already have the precursors available.

    If this is a matter of performance impact I can understand, but if you make it an option in the configurations then we can decide if we can wait the extra 0.5 seconds to have the window pop-up.

    Thanks,

    Ed
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 911
    edited July 2016
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    Hey Ed, I checked in with Shawnna, our reports guru, about this. She took a dive on it and was unable to find a way to make it work within the available development time she had. This means it is not on the roadmap—this need will have to be prioritized along with all other feature requests.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 68
    edited July 2016
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    Hi Kristina,

    thanks for letting us know.

    Ed
  • Tammy Robinson
    Tammy Robinson Member Posts: 2
    edited September 2016
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    My company also requires this need to highlight changes in the baseline comparison report. Some of the projects are very long and it is useful to visually show the changes.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 68
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    Is this on the roadmap for this year?

    Thanks,

    Ed

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 911
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    Hi Ed,

    Highlighting differences in the baseline comparison report is still on the reporting backlog.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 3
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    Hi,
     We are facing similar issue in our organisation where a change board needs to approve changes . If I give them Baseline Comparison report there are hundreds that we changed and yet it is so difficult to workout what has changed. Is there any indication when can this be delivered. This is basic functionality and disappointing to see its just not there.
  • LawrenceR Rigge
    LawrenceR Rigge Member Posts: 13
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    It's difficult to understand why this feature request is still in the "backlog".  The basic functionality is essentially the same as interactively comparing item versions (details) in Jama.  We have spent huge amounts of time figuring out "what is different" that could be significantly reduced with this capability.

    Perhaps an example will help put this in context.  We have a new version of a product  that has ~800 requirements changed from the previous product's total of ~2000 solution requirements.  In order to plan activities across multiple orgs (HW, SW, Apps, Docs, Marketing, Testing, etc.), the product requirements team needs to provide an overview of what is changing along with architectural implications.  Sifting through ~800 items in a baseline comparison is really painful when you have to read through so much information to (hopefully) find all the differences.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 3
    edited May 2017
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    Hi,
     Anyone facing this problem I have created a quick solution using Jama Baseline Comparison Report and two very simple word macros and it highlights exactly all the differences. It takes not more than 2 minutes after the Jama Baseline Comparison Report  output. The business is very happy that they can now see all the changes. Let me know if you are interested in this solution.
  • Marlen Baker
    Marlen Baker Member Posts: 19
    edited September 2019
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    Hi

    Does anybody have the macros Amit refers to above?

    We are desperate for this feature!

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