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More Information
Baselines in Enterprise Architect serve as snapshots of specific parts of the repository at a particular moment in time. They are used for later comparison and restoration if needed.
When a Baseline is created, it captures a snapshot of a model Package and its contents at that specific point in time. This allows users to compare the current state of the model with the baseline snapshot and revert to the previous (baselined) state if necessary. Baselines can be created at the Package level and can include child Packages. Users can baseline any number of Packages, and a Package can be baselined multiple times, typically at significant project milestones.
By default, Baselines are conveniently stored within the repository, accessible to users with the necessary security privileges. Alternatively, Baselines can be stored in a Cloud-based Reusable Asset Service for broader accessibility and collaboration.
Edition Information
- Package Baseline facilities are available in the Corporate, Unified and Ultimate Editions of Enterprise Architect
- The Compare utility (used to compare an exported Package with a model Package) is available in the Professional Edition of Enterprise Architect, as well as in the Corporate, Unified and Ultimate Editions
- The Enterprise Architect Corporate, Unified and Ultimate Editions provide another facility, Auditing, which you can switch on to perform continuous monitoring of changes across the project; you can dovetail your use of each facility to meet the range of your change management requirements
Considerations
Baselines are based on the Global Unique Identifier (GUID) of a particular Package:
- Enterprise Architect checks for that GUID as the root element within the XML document being used as a Baseline
- When you export a Package to XML, the Package you export is the root element; likewise when you create a Baseline, the current Package is the root Package of the XML Baseline
- When you save information in a Version Control system, the current Version Controlled Package is again the root Package of the document
- It is not useful to create a Baseline by importing an XMI Package file created by Version Controlling a Package that itself contains Version Controlled child Packages; that type of XMI Package file contains stubs for the child Packages, not full information on the child Packages and elements
- If a Package under Version Control forms part of a Baseline, and that Package is checked in to the model, you cannot merge the original data from the Baseline into that Package
XML files must be in the same format used by the Baseline engine - currently the UML 1.3 XMI 1.1 format (plus Enterprise Architect extensions), which contains all the information necessary to reconstruct a UML model, even a UML 2.x model.
Notes
- If a Package under Version Control forms part of a Baseline, and that Package is checked in to the model, you cannot merge the original data from the Baseline into that Package
- You can also obtain a snapshot of selected items in the model, using the Model Views facility; this facility enables you to automatically generate the snapshot at intervals and, if there are changes in the items collected by the defined search, to trigger a notification to you of such changes, which enables you to monitor workflow and other events of concern to you
- If security is enabled you must have 'Baselines - Manage' permission to create, import and delete Baselines, and 'Baselines - Restore' permission to merge data from a Baseline; security permissions are not required to select an existing Baseline and perform a comparison with the model