Process items act like lightweight change containers. Using process items enables you to link and track changes made to your files, even when you and other members of your development team are not required to use process rules. They provide traceability, allowing you to trace file changes to their purpose or context. They also provide a way to identify file revisions for a specific change request, task, or requirement so that, for example, you can attach those revisions to a view or revision label.
When files are committed using a process item, the process item is linked via a trace to a workspace (or check-in) change package representing the atomic commit of files.
Specifically:
The StarTeam administrator can enforce the use of process items for a project by establishing process rules. You define process rules in the Project Properties dialog box. Process rules specify that process items must be used when checking in files, and they establish which type of items can be used as process items.
When process rules are enforced, you must link and pin all files you add or check in to a process item. If process rules are not enforced, you can still take advantage of the linking and tracking made possible with process items. As you add files or check them in, you indicate that the new file revisions are to be linked and pinned to a specific process item. You do this by selecting a change request, requirement, task, or custom component as the process item for the operation. At the same time you can mark the change request as fixed, the requirement as complete, or the task as finished.
Using process items enables you to clearly distinguish the following:
Each view can have a different active process item. As you change from view to view, the process item information displayed on the status bar changes.