Propagate Suspects - Reference
If you select propagate suspects (with or without any of its sub-options) for a reference, changes in the reference (or in the original work item) are displayed when you open the item.
The direction of the arrow displayed with the SUSPECTED badge can be the following:
• Upward arrow — Indicates that an upstream reference has been modified.
• Downward arrow — Indicates that a downstream reference has been modified.
Changes in a reference are also displayed on the item's Details pane in the document view of the item’s tracker:
To check the changes in a reference or to apply the changes to the work item (or the other way round), follow the steps below:
1. Click 
in the reference field:
in the reference field:
The following dialog box opens, listing all fields for which the values are different in the two items:
 | The Merge tab displays all differences between the two items, and not only the fields which have been recently modified and which triggered the SUSPECTED badge. |
If you select the Show different fields only checkbox (top right-hand corner), Codebeamer only displays the fields where the values are different in the two items. If you do not select the Show different fields only checkbox, all the fields of the items are displayed (including empty fields).
2. To check the changes in the referred item which triggered the SUSPECTED badge, click the Changes tab. To check the changes made in the original work item, click the Derived Item Changes tab:
3. To merge recent changes or any other differences between the two work items, click Apply on the Merge tab:
You can decide how you want to merge changes: from the referred item to the work item or the other way round. Use the left and right arrows next to Apply to merge changes as applicable.
You can simultaneously apply all changes from one item to the other by using the arrows next to Apply in the top row.
| | You can only merge differences and changes between work items of the same type, such as, requirements or user Stories. If the original work item and the referred item are of different types (for example, a software task has an upstream reference which is a requirement or a user story), the Merge tab is not available when you click the SUSPECTED badge. |
4. To clear the suspicions without merging any changes, select the Clear Suspected checkbox in the top left-hand corner:
If you set Omit Merge for any field in the tracker (see Setting Default Reference Settings per Field), changes made in that field are listed under Fields not merged automaticallyon the Merge tab.
5. After you finish merging changes, click Save to apply the changes.
To close the Merge dialog box without merging any changes, click Cancel, or click 
in the top right-hand corner of the dialog box.
in the top right-hand corner of the dialog box.| | You can also clear a suspicion by clicking  next to the SUSPECTED badge in the reference field (without opening the Merge tab). |
Codebeamer asks for a confirmation:
Click Yes.