Serena Software Inc. this week announced improvements to its enterprise change management system, Serena ChangeMan Dimensions.

The product unveiling is the company?s largest since its US$380 million acquisition of Merant in March, Serena said.

Version 9 of ChangeMan Dimensions features improved collaboration to boost developer productivity, end-to-end traceability to ensure regulatory and audit compliance, and management of complex development projects across dispersed locations.

Dimensions 9 is part of the Serena Application Framework for Enterprises (SAFE), which is the company?s vision for helping IT manage change through process automation. The product is integrated with Visual Studio .Net and IBM Eclipse-based tools, including WebSphere Application Developer, thus enabling development teams to work in their preferred IDE, according to Serena.

?We now support greater functionality within the IDE, better (managing) the increasing complexity of the application development environment,? said Ashley Owen, director of product marketing for SCM solutions at Serena.

Also featured is extended automated build management to record the software bill of materials. Additionally, closed-loop change management is provided across the application life cycle, via bi-directional integration with life cycle tools such as Telelogic Doors, Mercury TestDirector, and Remedy IT Service Management.

To boost regulatory and audit compliance, Version 9 supports electronic signatures to ensure that assets and change approvals are executed by authorized personnel. A ?Traceability Matrix? provides a summary of proposed and authorized changes as well as a list of impacted work items.

Multi-site development is improved by replicating assets and configurations and coordinating change authorizations and work items as a single unit across multiple sites, Serena said.