Setting Up Linking Mode

When an incoming link is created, the OSLC Remote Application may request the creation of more than one link on Jira; this to increase the traceability of relevant related artifacts and normally occurs in IBM Engineering Test Management (ETM) application. A specific example case is when a Test Result is being linked to a Defect in Jira and the owner Test Case is in turn linked to a Requirement. In this scenario, and with the out-of-the-box linking mode of OSLC Connect for Jira, the target issue will contain not only the link back to the Test Result, but also a link to the owner Test Case plus another one to the Requirement. In concrete, this issue will end up with following links:

• affects test result
  This is original backlink the user explicitly requested to create to the Test Result.

• related test case
  An extra link created to improve traceability as it provides direct access to the overall Test Case of the Test Result.

• affects requirement
  An extra link created to improve traceability as it provides direct access to the Requirement the Test Case is validating.

All this sounds good until one faces the scenario of possibly not requiring (for whatever reason) those extra links, it may be the case that Jira is not configured for linking the Requirements application at all, meaning perhaps that Requirements links are not so relevant for the business or just not necessary. If this is your case, you can enable the strict linking mode.

In the strict linking mode, the OSLC Remote Application is restricted to create incoming links only for those applications that Jira is configured to create links to. In the above example, if the strict linking mode was enabled, and Jira hadn't been configured for linking Requirements, only the two first links would be created. Strictly speaking, and in order to create an incoming link in Jira having the strict linking mode enabled, next conditions must be met:

1. There must be a Friend registered in Jira targeting the remote application the incoming link belongs to.
2. There must be a Project Association registered in the Jira project that encloses the type of the incoming link.

As a Jira server administrator, you control the registered friends and therefore the first condition when enabling the strict linking mode; second condition is controlled at project level and it is responsibility of each project administrator.

The opposite to the strict linking mode is the standard linking mode, this is the out-of-the-box and strongly recommended linking mode of OSLC Connect for Jira and means no-restriction at all for creating incoming links (as long as the remote application has a valid consumer registered on Jira of course); all of them can be created no matter if Jira has no linking capabilities to the owner application of such link.

The standard linking mode is highly recommended because strict mode will only prevent the creation of incoming links on Jira, but it cannot prevent the creation of links on remote applications; in above strict mode example, there will still be a link from the Requirements application to Jira. This one-directional linking is normally not recommended in OSLC world, there should always be a way to travel in both directions when linking artifacts from different applications; otherwise traceability is considered broken. Use the strict linking mode only if its purpose and functionality is completely understood.

Configuring Linking Mode.

1. Locate the Linking mode footer on the center panel ^[1].
2. Click on the link highlighting the current linking mode set.
3. In the opened dialog, choose the required linking mode by either selecting the Standard mode or Strict mode radio button.
4. Click on the OK button to save the selection.

The chosen configuration will apply for all Jira projects having Project Associations registered, but it is worth to mention that Jira project administrators have a mean to override this setting and choose their own.