Creating components

A component in a VOB

When you create a component to store elements, you must specify an existing VOB that stores the directory tree of the component. (You must create the VOB outside Project Explorer.) You can store multiple components in a VOB, or you can specify a VOB that stores one component.

If your project uses a small number of components, you may want to use one VOB per component. However, if your project uses many components, you may want to store multiple components in several VOBs. A VOB can store many versions of many elements. It is inefficient to use a VOB to store one small component.

Adding a component to a project

An initial baseline is created when you create a component. This baseline selects the /main/0 version of the root directory of the component. Use this as a starting point for making changes to the component.

Elements cannot be moved from one component to another. Therefore, you cannot reorganize a component into multiple components.

Over time, the scope of your project typically broadens. As you create a new component object in a PVOB, you want to add it to a UCM project. You do this by adding a baseline of the component to a stream.

A component without a VOB

Use a component without a VOB root directory to store a composite baseline to be used as the project baseline. A component that does not have a VOB root directory cannot contain any of its own elements.

Although you can store a composite baseline and elements in the same component, it is more manageable to dedicate one component for storing the project baseline. To ensure that nobody creates elements in this component, create the component without a VOB root directory.