Managing plan runs

During the course of a release in preproduction environments, deployments can occur multiple times for applications and components before the suite of items for the release is promoted to the next environment. To avoid redundancy in the request work, BMC Release Process Management provides the concept of a run. A run is a group of requests in a plan stage. Within a run, you can execute requests sequentially or in parallel. You can clone a run like a template into various stages. Thus, even though requests might have been processed in various states during the stage, the work to do the deployment can be gathered into a run and promoted to the next plan stage. With runs, you can promote your plan from one stage to another.

Before you begin creating a run:

• Create a plan for the run.
• Associate requests with the particular stages for which you want to create the run. For more information, see Managing requests.

While executing, a plan run goes through the same stages as its requests.

After you have created and executed plan runs, verify if any component version conflicts exist in runs. In case of any conflicts, resolve them.

This topic provides you the following information that helps you managing plan runs:

High-level steps for using a plan run

The following is a basic use case in terms of plan runs in the context of BMC Release Process Management:

1. Release Coordinator (RC) is on Plans > Stage page.
2. RC selects requests from a single stage.
3. RC clicks create run (cannot click unless you select at least one request)
   • Selected requests can be in any state
   • Planned and created requests not included in any other run – will be assigned to run directly
   • Any other state or already included in a run will be cloned
4. RC gets facebox with Run details.
5. RC enters run details (required: name).
6. RC clicks Create run.
7. System takes user to the run stage.
8. RC can reorder requests in run – serial and parallel.
9. RC can remove requests from run or RC can add requests to a run.
10. RC can also plan, start, hold, or cancel a run.
11. System can automatically put run in problem or complete status based on child request status.
12. Run is complete.

To promote a run to the next plan stage 

1. Create a route for the application, or use the default application route.
2. Assign a route to the particular plan.
3. Complete the run.
   Note that a run is completed only when all the requests in the run are completed successfully.
4. For the stage, select the appropriate run from the list.

5. On the run details dialog box that opens, click Promote Run to next stage to promote the run to the next required plan stage. 
   The run is promoted to the next plan stage, according to the route defined for the current plan.

   Note

   You can promote runs only to the required stages. 

To add a request from another stage

1. Click the Plans tab.
   The plans list opens.
2. Click open your required plan template.
   The list of runs under various stages opens.
3. Select the run from another stage that you want to add to your stage (select the check box on the right of the run).
4. Click Add to Run for the stage to which you want to add the run.
5. In the Add Requests to Existing Run dialog box, select the run from the Run list.
6. Click Add Requests.

To drop or delete a request from a run

1. Click the Plans tab.
   The plans list opens.
2. Click open a plan.
3. From one of the stages, select the check box for the run that you want to drop or delete.
4. Click Drop from Run.

To specify a serial or parallel sequence for requests in a run

1. Click the Plans tab.
2. Open the plan that you want to modify.
3. Select a run from the Show all request (or select a run) list.
4. Select the appropriate requests showing under the stage and then click Create Run.
5. Provide the appropriate details including the name of the run, the owner, the start date and time, the end date and time, and then click Create.
6. Click the Reorder Run tab and drag and drop to run in sequence or in parallel.
7. Click the done reordering link to save the order.

To clone a request from another run

1. Click the Plans tab.
2. Open the plan that contains the request that you want to use.
3. Select the check box for the requests that you want to clone.
4. Click the Add to Run tab.
   The Add Requests to open Runs window opens:
   
5. From the Run list, select the run.
   Cloning is set by default — you can see that it is marked with yes.
6. Click Add Requests.

To generate component version conflict reports

1. Click the Plans tab.
   The plan list opens.
2. Click the plan for which you want to generate the report.
   The runs list appears.
3. From the list under the Stages tab, click the run for which you want to generate the report.
4. Click the new tab, Version Conflict Report, that appears in the right pane.

The color-coded key at the bottom left corner of the page shows the colors used to indicated conflicts. If version conflicts exist, the colors appear on the report with the runs. If no component version conflicts occurred, the reports appear without any color. If there are conflicts, review the request and steps from respective runs to resolve the conflicts.

Related topics

Managing requests

Managing plans