Change Set Analysis Variant 1

The Change Set Analysis tool is used to compare two branches and find the changesets that are not yet merged into the target branch. The tool is available from the Cherry Pick menu.

The tool will compare two selected branches and list all the change sets that should be merged from the source to the target. It will automatically exclude change sets already merged and also any FI change sets, meaning that if you have merged a change set from the target to the source, that will be excluded as the changes are already present in the target. The primary use of this function is to create a follow up list of tasks to finish in the project before a merge can be done from the source branch to the target branch.

The intention is to use this list in a decision meeting in the project with the Lead developers and the project manager. The decision to make is to evaluate what can be merged and if there are open tasks, what to be addressed. The result of the work with the list is published to the project wiki and used in the standup to help focus on the important tasks to close.

This variant of the analysis is useful when you have a branching strategy like the Development and Release Isolation strategy or any other strategy involving multiple branches.

On the right side of the grid there is a button menu with the following functions.

Select the source and target branches to compare. The source branch is the branch that you want to merge from and the target branch is the branch that you want to merge to.

In this dialog box you select the source branch and the target branch, also set a date from where you wish to start the analysis. It is not that important if you set a date way back since the last check-in to the source branch, these change sets will automatically be excluded from the list.

This function will verify all the work items referred to in a change set, use this function when you have made changes to a work item. The changes in state will be reflected in the list. The rule for what to verify is setup in the application settings.

This functions will show all the warnings in the list. A warning is issued for a work item [task] that is in a state that doesn't belong to the Completed or Removed state category in Azure DevOps.

This function will show all the work items refered to in the change set, each work item can be opend from the list.

Use this function to view the changes in the change set. This is useful if you want to see what has been done in the change set before you decide to merge it.

This will remove a change set from the list. This is useful if you have a change set that you don't want to include in the follow up note, the state is OK to merge.

This function will filter the list to only show the work items that have warnings. A warning is issued for a work item [task] that is in a state that doesn't belong to the Completed or Removed state category in Azure DevOps. The function should be used before publishing the follow up note.

This function will publish the follow up note to the project wiki. This will create a simple wiki page, the design and content of the page is controlled by templates, the templates are found in the Settings section.

The list of change sets is an hierarchical list, meaning that the change sets are grouped by the work items they are associated with. The work items are listed in the order they are found in the change sets, so the first work item in the list is the first work item found in the first change set.

The list of items is expanded by clicking on the change set, if the change set contains warnings the line in the grid will be orange. The reason for the warning is that there is an test task to complete before the code can be merged.