Using the OSLC Connector for Codebeamer

Owned by Marius Balaban
Last updated: Aug 22, 2023
5 min read

OSLC Connector for Codebeamer main window

Starting with the Codebeamer Felicity release, the OSLC Connector for Codebeamer can be run as a Codebeamer widget. This makes the OSLC Connector view and data available in the right panel of Codebeamer as an additional tab.

Contents of the main window

Add link button

The button is active when:

  1. The user has the necessary permissions to modify the selected Codebeamer item

  2. The Codebeamer item is in a state that permits modifications on it

Refresh button

The refresh button allows the user to get updated data for the currently selected Codebeamer item.

 

Settings button

The settings button is available for the Codebeamer’s project administrators.

This button opens the OSLC Connector Administration window which allows to configure Friends, Inbound Details, Outbound Detailsand Associations.

Friends

The Friends area allows the administrator to configure and manage the list of friends. A friend is an OSLC capable application to which this OSLC Connector is allowed to make outbound requests, in order to consume the services provided by the friend.

If the OSLC capable application configured as a friend supports OIDC and is under the same SSO as this OSLC Connector for Codebeamer, then no other configurations are required.

If the OSLC capable application configured as a friend supports oauth10a, then an Outbound Detail must be configured for the friend.

This is an instance based configuration.

 

Inbound Details

The Inbound Details area allows the administrator to configure and manage the list of allowed incoming oauth10a connections.

This is an instance based configuration.

To add a new oAuth10a Inbound Detail you will need to provide a name, a consumer key and a consumer secret.

An inbound detail that is not approved cannot be used to generate access tokens.

Once you have successfully configured a new Inbound Detail, you will have to provide it as an Outbound connection in the external application.

Outbound Details

The Outbound Details area allows the administrator to configure and manage the list of known external applications to which this OSLC Connector for Codebeamer is able to connect using oauth10a.

A consumer key and secret are used for secure communications between this OSLC Connector and the known external application.

This is an instance based configuration.

To configure a new Outbound Detail you have to provide a name, a consumer key and secret pair (that has been previously configured or generated in the external tool), the rootservices URL of the external tool and a comma separated list of all URLs that have to be protected by this connection.

E.g. to connect OSLC Connector for Codebeamer to Smartfacts, you will have to:

  • set the Rootservices to https://<oslc-smartfacts-url>/rootservices

  • set the Protected URLs to https://<oslc-smartfacts-url>

After adding a new Outbound Detail, the OSLC Connector for Codebeamer needs to be restarted.

Associations

The Associations area allows the administrator to configure to which service providers the current Codebeamer Project connects to (read data, allow links to be made to).

The list of associations is bound to the selected Codebeamer Project.

 

To create a new association simply select the Friend and wait for the list of projects to be loaded. Once this has loaded select the project and domain corresponding to the desired association.

Projects can provide one or more OSLC domains - selecting the desired OSLC domain is important.

List of links for the selected artifact

A list of grouped by link type links is displayed inside the main window for the selected Codebeamer item.

Which links are displayed is affected by the project associations (configured in Settings → Associations) and the user’s rights, roles and permissions in the associated projects.

Each link has a context menu button and a jump to artifact button. Additionally, hovering on the linked artifact name will open the artifact preview.

Creating a link from Codebeamer

Pressing on the Add link button opens a contextual menu showing the available link types based on the OSLC type of the selected Codebeamer item and the configured project associations. The user selects the desired Link Type and gets modal window showing a dropdown with all the available projects that match the selected Link Type. Once an Project is selected, the selection picker provided by the third party application loads.

From the selection picker the user can select an artifact and create the link.

Link validity

Icons displaying the link validity status can be found on the left side of each link label.

To change the link validity status open the contextual menu and select the desired value.

Â