Introduction:
In this video demonstration we are going be looking at the VCM Tool.  We will be exploring what exactly is its purpose and functionality within StarTeam.

What we will be reviewing this video:

Overview of VCM
What is a VCM Session
VCM status Icons – what do they mean?
VCM types overview
Summary

Overview:
 View Compare/Merge which is where the abbreviated (VCM) comes from, is a tool which is integrated with the StarTeam client.

This tool is used to compare two views or subset views referred as the source and the target views. 

As part of the process, you can merge item differences between the source view and the target view and vice versa. 

The View Compare/Merge interface is available in the StarTeam Cross-Platform Client and opens after running the View Compare/Merge Wizard

What is a VCM session:

A VCM Session is a window view which is generated based on your options chosen from the View Compare/Merge Wizard.

This session provides three perspectives for comparing and merging views, and for resolving item differences.

The compare Perspective

The Merge Perspective

The Test Perspective

 It also, enables you to save, export or delete your session, display a session report, and commit your changes.

Compare perspective:

This is what the VCM UI looks like in StarTeam client.  This shows the differences between two views.

 As you can see there are coloured highlights across various items:

The Yellow Bar = Changed items

The Blue Bar = moved or renamed items

Green Bar = inserted or deleted items

Merge perspective:

The upper pane displays the individual items with VCM icons indicating whether they are resolved or unresolved conflicts.

 We will look at the individual VCM icons later on and discuss what they mean.

The lower pane contains three tabs. An item Property tab displays the properties from the source and target views for comparison, and enables you to edit them.

Test perspective:

The upper pane shows the target check-out displayed in the same way as the Merge Perspective. Contains the same information tabs as the main client

VCM status icons:

The status of folders and items in a View Compare/Merge session is represented in the Merge Perspective by icons which are explained in the tables below. Icons appear on or beside folders, items, and on component tabs. Icons change dynamically when conflicts are resolved.

When you hover the mouse cursor over an icon in the upper pane, a fly out menu appears from which you can choose a merge action.

Tooltips are available for folder icons.

In summary:

• VCM (View Compare/Merge) is a tool that is part of StarTeam Cross-platform Client (CPC).
• The VCM tool provides interactive compare/merge functions with per-item and per-folder interaction.
• Allows you to carefully control which items are compared and how each difference is resolved.  For example: you can select an item, folder or group of items in a regular view window and start a VCM session using the selection as the source scope.

See the video below: