As organizations become more advanced in their use of software configuration managment (SCM) they typically expand its use to include more than the software developers.  A common addition is around audibility and compliance of the entire development process which may require them to version more than just the source code, but also any requirements, project plans, design artifacts and documentation.  This enables the labeling of the big picture of who, what, where, why and how the software was developed.

With this expansion there are now more users of the SCM tools, many of whom have never used a version control solution before. A few examples of these new user types may be hardware designers, graphic designers, product managers, or the documentation team. These types of users are working with different types of files, and work in different tools than the traditional software developers and because of that may use version control tools in different ways.  These users may have historically created versions of files using naming convention such as:

ReleaseNotes_v1.doc, ReleaseNotes_v2.doc etc. all on their local computer.

Obviously this can be an error prone process and also a single point of failure if something were to happen to that user’s computer.  Since many of the files they work on are binary (.doc, .pdf, .ai, .dwg, .vsd etc.) they may want to work on these files in a serial mode so they don’t have to try to manually merge them when someone else makes changes to them in parallel.  So instead of the traditional use of AccuRev, taking advantage of our parallel development features, these users may want to work in exclusively locked workspaces or at least have exclusive locks on certain files to protect them.

In order to make this new type of user successful they need to use an interface that is familiar to them. With many source code control tools they may have to write scripts, manage configurations or interact with a command line interface to be able to get their work done. This type of interaction will likely not work well for these types of users, as many of them may not have the technical know how to work in those environments.  AccuRev can make this transition much more fluid and familiar for these users with the AccuBridge for Windows Explorer. This interface gives the user access to the AccuRev commands needed from within the familiarity of Windows Explorer as seen in exhibit 1.

AccuBridge for Windows Explorer

This interface gives the user the access to the AccuRev commands that allow them to open the files in the tool of their choice to make changes, keep, promote and revert those changes, create and update workspaces, view the statuses of files, AccuRev version information and lock types for the files, search for changed files within the workspace and view history. Even, if desired, create change packages associated with issues for the promotions just like the software development organization.  This coupled with the traditional Windows Explorer fields and views give the users a variety of different ways to view and interact with the files such as choose thumbnails view, which can be helpful for these users to see an image of the contents as seen in exhibit 2.

Thumbnails view with Windows generated images

It is with the use of AccuRev with the AccuBridge for Windows Explorer that I have seen the fastest and widest adoption of version control to groups unfamiliar with version control across organizations. Both the organizations and end users have seen tremendous benefits from having this information readily available in the version controlled repository, and I have seen this implemented all in a single depot with streams that separate out these items from the source code or some have opted for completely separate repositories.  I prefer to have them in a single repository separated by streams because it gives you the ability to include these artifacts in snapshots with the source. In addition to the ease of adoption for new AccuRev users, the AccuBridge for Windows Explorer can also benefit the current users both indirectly and directly.  Indirectly they benefit form knowing where to always find the latest and greatest files from the designers and product managers to ensure they are working off of the most up to date specifications.  Directly they too can use the AccuBridge for Windows Explorer as an alternative to the IDE integrations, command line or AccuRev StreamBrowser.  This can be of particular help when editing files in the non-standard editors by using the ‘Open With…’  and then having the abililty to keep the changes without having to jump between interfaces.

All in all the AccuBridge for Windows Explorer can be an easy way to incorporate the non-source artifacts into the release process  for compliance, as well as another way for the software developer to interact with AccuRev.