3SL Blog (Structured Software Systems Ltd)

5th May 20235th May 2023

May Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the May 2023 newsletter from 3SL!

This newsletter contains a mixture of news and technical information about us, and our requirements management and systems engineering tool “Cradle”. We would especially like to welcome everyone who has purchased Cradle in the past month and those who are currently evaluating Cradle for their projects and processes.

We hope that 3SL and Cradle can deliver real and measurable benefits that help you to improve the information flow within, the quality and timeliness of, and the traceability, compliance and governance for, all of your current and future projects.

If you have any questions about your use of Cradle, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL Support.

3SL SaaS

Deploying Cradle as SaaS (software as a service) is becoming an increasingly attractive option for many organisations. Using SaaS greatly simplifies the deployment of Cradle as there is nothing that you, or your corporate IT, need to do.

We ask for the names of the people who will use Cradle, and the IP addresses from where they will access Cradle, and then we do the rest.

You and your colleagues get access to the latest Cradle, backed by our internationally renown technical support, with no need to be concerned about IT services, data integrity, backups or any of the other details that can be a burden for an in-house installation.

For more information, please look here. If you would like to talk to us about SaaS deployments of Cradle, please click here.

Baselines and Snapshots

Cradle provides two mechanisms to protect sets of information and provide read-only access to information as it was in the past.

Baselines

Baselines is the mechanism in Cradle’s Configuration Management System (CMS) to protect information from changes. Each baseline is a named repository for the state of a project at a specific point in time. A succession of baselines can be created over the life of a project, each containing more and more information as the project completes its sprints, iterations or phases.

Items can be registered into an open baseline and are given a version number: 01, 02, 03 … The version number assigned to each item is either 01 if there are no baselined instances of that item, or it is 1 higher than the highest version already in the database.

When the baseline is closed:

Unchanged items from the previous baseline migrate into (become a part of) the new baseline
A copy of all current links (cross references) is saved with the baseline
A list of the latest items and their versions is saved for the baseline

Snapshots

A snapshot is a copy of all the information in a database. Its contents can be viewed, read-only, at any time in the future. A succession of snapshots can be created over the life of a project. In effect, a snapshot is simply an online backup, a copy of a database.

A snapshot is a copy of an entire database. When a snapshot is created, everything in a database, including all of its baselines and definitions (excluding Personal and System scope) are copied into a separate area. Every snapshot is separate from all other snapshots and is separate from the live database.

Creating a snapshot is similar to making a backup copy of the database, except that this backup is directly accessible from within Cradle.

Comparison

#	Characteristic	Baseline	Snapshot
1	Summary	Creates a new approved set of items and links in a database that can be viewed RO.	Copies an entire database and related definitions to create a new database that can be viewed RO.
2	User Benefit	RO view of previous baseline that can be used for queries, view data, run metrics, publish reports or documents	RO view of everything in the database as it was in the past, for queries, view data, run metrics, publish reports or documents
3	Additional Items	None	None
4	Additional links	Duplicates all current links	None
5	Database Size	Adds some items and copies all links	None
6	Disk Usage	Small to medium increase	Medium to large increase

For more details, please see our blog post here.

Circus Starr

3SL are proud to announce that we are supporting Circus Starr!

The community interest circus company are dedicated to making a difference to the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged children in Barrow-in-Furness and across England through the magical art of circus. We are pleased to support our community, and this accessible and inclusive event is such a worthy cause.

To find out more about how you can support the circus with a purpose visit www.circus-starr.org.uk or call +44 (0) 1260 288690.

The Coronation of King Charles III

Many people across the country and the Commonwealth will be celebrating the Coronation of His Majesty The King and Her Majesty the Queen Consort over a weekend of special events on 6th to 8th May 2023.

International Nurses Day

Every year International Nurses Day is celebrated on 12 May to commemorate the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday. This day also celebrates the contribution done by nurses to society around the world. On this day the International Council of Nurses organisation produces an International Nurses kit to educate and assist health workers globally with a different theme every year.

"Nurse" Photo by Laura James from Pexels — Nurse

World Multiple Sclerosis Day

On 30th May it is World Multiple Sclerosis Day. World MS day takes place on 30th May every year. Share stories, raise awareness and campaign with everyone affected by MS.

Social Media

We congratulated our customer ZF Group on the opening of their West Coast Mobility Hub which is a cutting edge facility dedicated to shaping the future of mobility.

Borg Warner were presenting how H2-ICE enables fast and efficient transportation at the World Hydrogen 2023 Summit & Exhibition.

Siemens Mobility demonstrated how their pioneering Vectron Dual Mode locomotives combined advantages of full featured diesel locomotive with those of electric ones.

We congratulated Horiba on obtaining UKAS accreditation against ISO17021-1.

Roche confirmed that the US FDA had granted approval to their new combination treatment for certain types of previously untreated diffuse large B cell lymphoma. This makes it the first therapy in nearly 20 years approved by the FDA for people with this aggressive disease.

Looking Back!

Last month we discussed:

We would also like to thank all attendees on our Risk Management course which we provided in April.

We also received a fantastic review from one of our customers:

“When there have been technical difficulties, the staff have been frequently quick, knowledgeable, and able to help restore normal operations. The level of service is above the levels of several large name companies, I struggle to think of what more I can ask for.”

We appreciate all feedback as this helps us to both assess and look to improve both the products and services we provide.

Still to Come this Month

Test Execution Course – May 23rd to May 24th

26th April 2023

Circus Starr

Supporting Circus Starr

3SL are proud to announce that we are supporting Circus Starr!

The community interest company are dedicated to making a difference to the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged children in Barrow-in-Furness and across England through the magical art of circus. We are pleased to support our community, and this accessible and inclusive event is such a worthy cause.

To find out more about how you can support the circus with a purpose visit www.circus-starr.org.uk or call +44 (0) 1260 288690.

19th April 202318th April 2023

Marking Category Values as Obsolete

When setting up a single value pick list or multiple category, you can define any number of possible values. These can be chosen by a user as the value of the category in an item.

However, over time, category values may no longer be relevant.

Removing the values from the project schema would be the wrong course of action as values could still exist in items (possibly in old baselines) that would raise errors in item integrity checks and could cause problems when data is imported. For example, data that used to be valid can no longer be imported unless extra import options are selected to ignore the validation of data.

Set Category Values as Obsolete

Instead of deleting those values from the project schema, you can set category values as obsolete so that the value can no longer be entered by users but the historical values remain valid.

In this example, Project A might have been completed so is no longer valid to set for future items. Also, Department 1 might not be responsible for any future items but they were responsible for historical ones.

Obsolete category value option — Marking a multiple value category value as obsolete

Once set, any items that had been set to the obsolete value remain valid. However, users can only enter the values that are currently valid; not the ones that are marked as obsolete.

Categories in a form — Items only allow valid values to be set

When querying the database, you can still set the query criteria to search for items that are marked as obsolete.

Querying for obsolete category values — Querying the database on category values marked as obsolete

Any validation checks on items in the database will return without error because the value remains defined in the schema.

6th April 202328th March 2023

Hiding Unused Item Types

Each Cradle project contains item types that can be linked together by cross references:

You define the types of items, their characteristics and their attributes
You define the types of cross references and their attributes, and the rules by which they link items

There are several item types that are included by default in Cradle, such as:

Source documents – captured using Document Loader
Formal documents– formal saved Document Publisher output
Requirements – standard requirement type that you might wish to replace with a system note type instead
Events – used in the analysis stage of a project to model the environment of a system and to describe how the system interacts with this environment
Essential Domain – analysis models
Implementation Domain – design models
Project plans – integration with Microsoft Project
Before hiding unused item types
Some of the item types might not be necessary in your schema so you can remove unused item types/information in the Miscellaneous section of Project Setup:
Setting item types to be hidden

Once applied and WorkBench restarted, you will no longer see the item types/information you have chosen to hide. This includes:

Project sidebar nodes
Sidebars
Menus
Item type chooser
Query, View and Form Details dialogs
After hiding unused item types

This also applies to the Web Access default and basic user interfaces.

5th April 20235th April 2023

April Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the April 2023 newsletter from 3SL!

If you have any questions about your use of Cradle, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL Support.

Is SaaS Beneficial?

Traditionally, software was installed on in-house computers. You managed the hardware that ran the software, ensured the integrity of the data created with the software with appropriate backups, and applied all the operating system and firmware updates needed to keep the system running properly.

Increasingly, individuals and companies simply want to use software, and have someone else host it, ensure the integrity of the data that they create, and manage the resilience of the underlying hardware and software infrastructure.

This is SaaS – software as a service.

Most large software companies try hard to force all customers to use SaaS by buying subscriptions. For example, although it is possible to buy Microsoft and Adobe products to install in-house, you have to work hard to find the part of their websites where such purchases can be made.

SaaS is charged on a per user per month basis for the functionality used. You pay more as you add users and as you access more functionality. You can stop the service when access to the software will be removed, all your data will be deleted, and you will stop being charged. This is all reasonable.

Some SaaS Benefits

SaaS brings benefits including:

You do not need to provide resources (hardware or VMs) to run the software
You do not have to maintain these resources nor provide the staff to perform this maintenance
You can easily react to short term needs
You do not need to provide integrity for the data that is created
You do not have any costs if you don’t need the resource for a while

Problems with SaaS

Of course there are also disadvantages to SaaS:

It will be more expensive than deploying in-house, typically after 2 years
You have no direct access, so you are reliant on your SaaS provider being responsive and complying with the SLA – you do have a Service Level Agreement don’t you?
You cannot directly interact with the software and must rely on the SaaS provider’s competence with the software and their understanding of what you want to achieve. This could cause delays or errors.
You do not have physical control over your data or the hardware that hosts it
Your data may be exposed by being given to third parties without your knowledge or consent, given such as the US Patriot Act (parts of which are still in effect) and the collaboration between groups including the EU and 5 Eyes – this includes all data centres managed by US companies regardless of their location, so be mindful when considering US-owned Infrastructure as a Service such as, but not only, Azure and AWS
You have to manage the IP ranges that are to have access, unless your SaaS allows access by the entire Internet

Is a Cradle SaaS Worth It?

This depends on your situation. In general:

if you do not have an IT organisation, or
if Cradle is too small to be applicable to your IT organisation

and:

if you are confident that 3SL understands Cradle and will be responsive to your needs and
if the SLA and Cradle SaaS are acceptable (see the 3SL Cradle End User SaaS Agreement – EUSA), and
you have agreed a location for your data (within 3SL or in a SaaS Virtual Private Cloud – VPC – that 3SL will build for you in an agreed location)

then, yes, SaaS is a good solution as it allows you to concentrate on using Cradle to the benefit of your projects and leaves the management of the Cradle infrastructure to others.

Fixed IPs for Cradle SaaS

We do not want a Cradle SaaS to be accessible by the entire Internet. Each Cradle SaaS includes an external firewall that specifies the IP addresses or ranges (CIDRs) of the locations that are allowed access. Access from any IP address is ignored if it is not in this list of allowed locations.

This method works well except when a user’s IP address is not fixed. A user’s IP address is not fixed if they access the SaaS from either:

many locations, such as customer sites, hotel rooms, train stations, public tea rooms, or
a domestic Internet connection where the ISP assigns a different IP address to the user every time that they connect to the Internet

In these cases, 3SL will consider the size of the IP address range. A small IP address range may be acceptable to both you and 3SL. For example, the CIDR:

78.37.252.0/22

is a range of 1,024 IP addresses 78.37.252.0 to 78.37.255.255 inclusive. In general, 3SL will not accept CIDRs of more than 64 addresses.

The solution to this problem is to have a fixed IP address.

Fixed IP Addresses and VPNs

If the end user’s location is not fixed or does not have a fixed IP address, they can get a fixed IP address by:

An organisation may provide a VPN. If so, then route the user’s connection to the Cradle SaaS over this VPN. This has two advantages. First, the connection from the end user’s computer is encrypted by the VPN, so it can be used safely from highly insecure locations such as tea shops or hotel rooms. Second, the connection to the SaaS will be from the organisation’s fixed external IP address. This is transparent to the end user. The end user simply starts the VPN as they will for all company work, and then connect to the Cradle SaaS.
A fixed IP address can be purchased from a range of providers, such as are listed here
For an extra fee, 3SL can provide a reverse proxy server that provides a VPN. The end user connects this VPN using authentication details from 3SL, typically a certificate issued by 3SL. The connection to the Cradle SaaS will come from the reverse proxy server, which has a fixed IP address. This method is also secure as it uses an encrypted VPN connection, and so it is safe to use from insecure locations.

Happy Easter

Easter, also called Pascha or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday.

We would like to wish all our customers, prospects, distributors and suppliers a Happy Easter:

St George’s Day

Saint George’s Day is the feast day of Saint George, celebrated by Christian churches, countries, and cities of which he is the patron saint:

Depicting the legend of St George in an ACD — St. George as a UML Activity Diagram (ACD)

If you ever want a reminder of the legend of St. George the diagram above may be handy. For more information see the Cradle help section for ACD

We would like to wish all our customers, prospects, distributors and suppliers a Happy Saint George’s Day.

World Autism Acceptance Week

World Autism Acceptance Week is on Monday 27th March to Sunday 2nd April with Autism Awareness Day on 2nd April. The theme for 2023 is colour.

The National Autistic Society provide support for autistic adults and children and their families.

Parental Alienation Awareness Day

Parental Alienation Awareness Day is on 25th April each year. This is a global campaign to raise awareness of Parental Alienation. It is an opportunity for parents, grandparents, extended family members or friends to come together to access information, advice and to enable connection and support for others affected by Parental Alienation.

Social Media

Twitter

We helped to celebrate and raise awareness on both #InternationalWomensDay and #WorldDownSyndromeDay.

#hensoldt were exhibiting at #HeliExpo (booth 5614) where they talked about airborne portfolio covering mission systems, situational awareness and certified lightweight flight data recorder. Hensoldt also won contracts from #Hyundai Heavy Industries to provide six offshore patrol vessels and two corvettes which are currently being constructed for the Philippine Navy.

Congratulations to the team at @SafranSeats who had been recognised by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development at the CIPD Wales Awards for being the Best Wellbeing Initiative in the region for a large company.

@MirionHQ were exhibiting (booth 3) at the Cyber Security Implementation Workshop where they provided an insight into their solutions for cyber security, command and control and lifecycle management.

@Roche and Lilly have joined together to enhance early diagnosis of Alzheimers disease.

Looking Back!

Last month we discussed:

We would also like to thank all attendees on our Document Publisher course which we provided in March.

Still to Come this Month

Risk Management training course

31st March 202323rd March 2023

Next and Previous

When a query is run in WorkBench, the tool will return a list of the items matching the criteria specified.

As a Cradle database can contain any number of items of information a query could find 0 to 1 million items.

The time taken to find so many items could be excessive. Therefore, queries find and return items from the database in blocks. The default size of a block is 1000 items but can be extended to 8000 items in UI Control user preferences:

User Pref Options — Retrieve Item Options in User Prefs

This means that when you run a query it will return at most N items.

Navigating between Blocks of Data

When the block is shown in the WorkBench UI, it is preceded by Previous… and followed by Next….

If you select these, then the query is re-run to find the next block or the previous block of items.

In this example, clicking the Next… option will retrieve the next set of items in the query:

Selecting Previous… again will return you to the previous block of items.

Reporting Items

If you are creating a report or publishing a document using a query, it is likely that you would NOT wish to be restricted by blocks of items.

Reports allow you to specify:

Selected items – items highlighted in the query
All items in this set – the block of N items
All matching items in database – the totality of items matching the query criteria
Publish Table options

22nd March 20235th April 2023

March Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the March 2023 newsletter from 3SL!

If you have any questions about your use of Cradle, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL Support.

Cyber Essentials Assessment

Certified for Cyber Essentials

We, Structured Software Systems Limited (3SL), have been successful in our re-assessment under the Cyber Essentials scheme for another year.

As a Government-backed, industry-supported scheme, Cyber Essentials aims to help organisations protect themselves against common online threats.

By being certified compliant with Cyber Essentials, you can be assured that 3SL’s IT systems have, at the very least, a secure Information Security Management System (ISMS) and a robust set of operating principles and controls to safeguard our, and our customers’ information.

ISO9001

3SL are proud to announce their fourth year recertification for ISO9001. The team working with the audit said we passed with flying colours and there were no non-conformances. This is a testimony to all who have helped throughout the year improving and recording our processes.

The ISO says of the scheme

“ISO 9001 sets out the criteria for a quality management system and is the only standard in the family that can be certified to (although this is not a requirement). It can be used by any organization, large or small, regardless of its field of activity. In fact, there are over one million companies and organizations in over 170 countries certified to ISO 9001.
This standard is based on a number of quality management principles including a strong customer focus, the motivation and implication of top management, the process approach and continual improvement. These principles are explained in more detail in ISO’s quality management principles. Using ISO 9001 helps ensure that customers get consistent, good-quality products and services, which in turn brings many business benefits.”

INCOSE

3SL are pleased to be advertising in the latest INCOSE members newsletter. You can find our latest publication here.

INCOSE Logo

3SL Inc SAM Registration

Our US partner, 3SL Inc, have successfully renewed their System for Award Management (SAM) registration for another year. This allows them to provide our products and services to the US government.

Happy Mothers Day

Mothers Day 2023 was on Sunday 19th March in the UK and Sunday 14th May in the USA. In other countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal, Sunday 19th March 2023 was Fathers Day where as the rest of the world, will celebrate it on June 18th 2023.

“Happy Mothers Day”

St Patricks Day

17th March marked St Patricks Day. St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and St Patricks Day is a national holiday in the Republic of Ireland although the day is celebrated all over the world.

3SL hope you all had a wonderful St Patricks Day.

Spring Time is Here!

On 20th March it was the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere and the first day of autumn in the southern hemisphere. This date marks the Astronomical spring equinox where as the Meterological spring started on the 1st of March.

British Summer Time

Daylight savings begins on 26th March so remember the clocks go forward 1 hour at 1am here in the UK and throughout the EU. Let’s hope for a beautiful summer.

Looking Back!

Last month we discussed:

16th March 202315th March 2023

Baseline Integrity Check

In certain situations, it may be necessary to stop a baseline from being closed if a condition has not been met. For example, if items have been registered in the baseline but items that are linked have not been.

Having this option set will ensure that all relevant data will appear in your completed baseline.

Setting the Baseline Item Integrity Check

To set this option, navigate to the Configuration Management options in Project Setup and tick the Baseline Item Integrity Check option:

You also have the ability to set a rule for the direction of the link/dependence:

All items linked to baselined items are also baselined (default option)
Baselined items’ source items are also baselined
Baselined items’ destination items are also baselined

Exclusions

You can also exclude item types or link types from being bound by this setting:

Failing the Check

If any of the checks fail, an error message will be shown with a report showing the items that caused the close baseline operation to fail:

10th March 20232nd March 2023

Adding Data to Multiple Selected Item Frames using CSV Export / Import

Introduction

WorkBench has the ability to select multiple items and modify some attributes and categories using the Properties dialog.

However, what if you wanted to add data into selected item’s FRAMES?

In this example, we will show how this can be achieved using CSV export / import.

Adding data to multiple selected item FRAMES

Create a CSV File

Export your item type to CSV. You only need to map the default attributes Identity, Type, Draft and Version that are already pre-set. The other attributes/frames/categories do not need to be exported.
Export Items Dialog
Setting Required Attributes
Open the CSV file in Excel and add a column representing the new frame.
In this example, we are adding a new frame named TEST and adding the text “My Text” in this frame for all (or selected) items.
You could, of course, add different text content for each of these cells.
Add Frame Column to Excel
Add a Frame in your WorkBench Project
If you don’t already have the frame, you can add a new frame to the item type in Project Setup now. This is the frame where we will add content en bloc.

Importing The CSV File

Select Import with the file type CSV and the required item type ensuring that the Overwrite option is set to Merge and press Import.
Note also that there are options here to update the modification date / last modifier and also whether to add an entry to the items’ edit history.

Map the fields ensuring that the added frame is mapped

You will see that the new frame has been added with content for all items and the previous content remains intact

2nd March 20239th March 2023

3SL Support and Call Logging

Sources of Information

3SL provides several sources of information should you or your colleagues require some assistance in your usage of Cradle.

Extensive documentation in PDF documents accessible from the Help Ribbon
Reference on our website – http://www.threesl.com/pages/reference/
Blog – https://www.threesl.com/blog/
Help – https://www.threesl.com/cradle/help/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/threesl
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/groups/4027985
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/3SLCradle

However, should you require additional assistance, reporting a bug or suggesting an enhancement, additions to our documentation etc, you can contact 3SL directly via Support Services:

Contacting 3SL

When seeking support, we suggest assigning a Cradle liaison/Project Administrator as the users’ first point of call as they should already have undergone some form of Cradle training. If this person cannot provide an answer, then our support team will be available to assist.

3SL Support Services

Technical Support Department is available 9am – 5pm GMT Monday to Friday but often also available outside of these hours via email support@threesl.com . Our landline is +44 (0)1229 838867.

Support Call Logging

When communicating with 3SL via email, we will initially assign you a call number and a support engineer to address any problems that you might have. Please provide as much information about this call as possible so we can quickly resolve the call without any misunderstanding. The details that we like to receive are:

Name and full contact details
Area of Cradle with the problem
Your perceived priority for the problem
Operating system information
Cradle version
Means of reproducing the problem

Screenshots, error logs and data (sanitised or raw) are especially welcome to allow us to quickly and easily reproduce any problems.

Any bug reports or enhancements will be tracked in our database and you will be informed when an update is available.

Web Meetings

Should there be any confusion or further information required about a call, you or 3SL may suggest a demonstration via a Web Meeting.

3SL generally uses GoTo Meeting as our meeting platform but we can also use your corporate default platform such as Microsoft Teams.

Cradle Training

3SL offers training courses in the administration and practical usage of Cradle as:

Online “public” training interspersed throughout the year
On-site or online “private” training

These training courses cover subject areas such as:

System Administration
Project Administration
General User
Requirements Management
Document Publisher
Configuration Management
Risk Management
Test Management and Execution
Systems Modelling

3SL SaaS

Baselines and Snapshots

Baselines

Snapshots

Comparison

Circus Starr

The Coronation of King Charles III

International Nurses Day

World Multiple Sclerosis Day

Social Media

Looking Back!

Still to Come this Month

Supporting Circus Starr

Set Category Values as Obsolete

Is SaaS Beneficial?

Some SaaS Benefits

Problems with SaaS

Is a Cradle SaaS Worth It?

Fixed IPs for Cradle SaaS

Fixed IP Addresses and VPNs

Happy Easter

St George’s Day

World Autism Acceptance Week

Parental Alienation Awareness Day

Social Media

Twitter

Looking Back!

Still to Come this Month

Navigating between Blocks of Data

Reporting Items

Cyber Essentials Assessment

ISO9001

INCOSE

3SL Inc SAM Registration

Happy Mothers Day

St Patricks Day

Spring Time is Here!

British Summer Time

Looking Back!

Setting the Baseline Item Integrity Check

Exclusions

Failing the Check

Introduction

Adding data to multiple selected item FRAMES

Create a CSV File

Add a Frame in your WorkBench Project

Importing The CSV File

Sources of Information

Contacting 3SL

3SL Support Services

Support Call Logging

Web Meetings

Cradle Training