Tracking changes is a critical aspect of managing application definitions. Just as the traditional developer uses utilities to compare work-in-progress source code or other components prior to committing changes, the COOL:Gen developer must compare development models before migrating them. Visual Compare supports your development efforts by assisting with:

• Change/Version Control. The project administrator can use detailed information on changes, deletions, and renames to identify and eliminate inappropriate changes before migration.

• Impact Analysis. On most projects, it's easy to lose track of all the changes made to a model. Visual Compare quickly highlights the changes so that team members can stay abreast of object modifications and can better assess the impact of changes on their own as well as other application areas.

• System Synchronization. By automating the change identification process, migration times are reduced and post-migration problems are avoided. Migration to new versions of production software can be better coordinated and synchronized.

• General Compare. Visual Compare is also helpful to analysts inheriting an application who want to do a quick analysis of what's contained in the library of models.