NOTE: A detailed description of this Extension is added in the download package.
The extension makes it possible to manage WI custom field Reused and link role reuse for showing relations to linking (e.g. "generic") WI. The extension is implemented as WorkItemActionInterceptor and works in the background as a service, so it is absolutely transparent for users and does not require any user interactions. The extension controls values for the custom WI field Reused and may repoint the link reuse from father to grandfather WI if necessary.
The Reused state indication for work items (Requirements) extension supports approaches where long lists of Requirements need to be maintained, reused, managed and shifted between different releases by adding a reuse status as a custom field in the standard Polarion GUI. It also supports the management and reuse of "generic" Requirements sets (like e.g. Requirements coming from standards that are not changing over time)
Standard Polarion isupports various features in order to handle the reuse of already established Requirement type Work Items, or Documents containing such Work Items. Although the tool itself is tracking all information (changes in fields, linkage and back linkage to other work items, etc.) when a "reuse" action takes place, it doesn't support a standard display of the reuse information inside of the Work Items. E.g. in the Table view the user should be able to see if a Work Item is a reused one, and if it was changed after reuse. As of today the user has to manually check the links back to other Work Items (and this Work Item by Work Item).
Solution
The idea is to simply add a custom field called "Reused" to the relevant Work Item type (here: Requirement), and define values indicating the "reused status" in the current Document. This field can be easily made available as column in the Tree view of a Document, or in the Document itself, so that when a user is scrolling through, he immediately sees the status of reuse. Standard queries on the reused field can be set up to support the management of these work items.
Furthermore, only changes of content fields (Title, Description, Attachments) trigger a change of the Reused field. If a different field is changed (e.g. TimePoint for release management purposes) then the reuse field will not be triggered as the content of this Requirement will stay the same for this release.
Remark: This extension requires the „Work Item Action Interceptor Framework“ to be installed.
