If you need to create a text ‘link’ or ‘URL’ to enable directly starting Cradle WorkBench or WebAccess and opening a particular item you can. The link shared, say by being pasted into an email or a Microsoft® Word document.
Creating the Uniform Resource Locator
This can be done from the item itself within WorkBench. Use the ‘Cradle URL’ button on the Tools menu on the ribbon, or on the command line with the c_url utility.
Cradle URL
You have an option to create a URL to open in WorkBench or Web Access. You can optionally include the username that you want to use to connect.
A URI scheme defines the structure of your Uniform Resource Locator.
This gives a few more options on how the link will behave. For an item you can specify the ‘Form’ for a Query you can specify the ‘View’
Open your URL
Copying and pasting the created link into a browser, will launch the appropriate application. If opening a WorkBench URL you may need to ‘Allow’ your browser to open it. If given the option you may need to select the file ? rather than the search ? option. Then enter your login details.
Et Voilà!
Cradle WorkBench or WebAccess will be displaying your query or item.
Items in a database can have many different fields, some or all of which may need their spelling checked. On Cradle installations with Tool Suite the Spellchecker tool can check items that are returned by a query.
Launch Spellchecker, and login. (This can be done by launching the standalone application or selecting it from the Tools menu in WorkBench)
There are a number of versions of the Cradle single user licence. All the same great product suite, just with different parts enabled. If you have 249* new pound coins you could get your requirements into shape. The new pound coin was introduced on 28th March 2017. Follow information about it, and other money facts, with the Royal Mint. (#NewPoundCoin) 3SL are quite happy to accept the old coins up until the 15th October 2017. With a little more, your requirements and end to end processing with the Pro version. Add on further and get the system engineering version, which includes modelling.
Cradle-RM Desktop Version 7.2
Where Cradle really comes into its own is with the Enterprise version. Licences are tailored depending on the number of users and which functions they need to access. Contact us to discuss your requirements. * Price March 2017 for up to date prices visit the shop.
Update:
Sept 2017 – Only a month left
Countdown with a month to go – The legal tender status of the round £1 coin will be withdrawn at midnight on Sunday 15th October 2017.
The purpose of Multiple Data Cells in a view is to allow more data to be consolidated in one place. It might me that a reference number is made up from categories storing ‘Part‘, ‘Sub-Part‘ and ‘Version‘. This may need to be formatted in a cell as part:sub-part/version. This can be achieved by setting the format of a multiple data cell in the Cradle view.
This image shows the TEST STATUS:TEST TYPE and Text from the test being combined in one cell.
Multiple Cell – Preserve Line Breaks
New Cradle-7.2 View Feature
Initially the cell string was formed by combining the text from single line entries from categories, the group, description and possibly piece of text from a frame. Customers have found the multiple data cell useful and have been combining data from frames with multiple lines. Whilst the drive is still to show as much data in a combined block, those using, say lists as in the example shown, found that the removal of line breaks in the display altered what was being conveyed. It is now, therefore, possible to select the ‘Preserve line breaks’ option in the ‘Multiple Data Cell Setup’, ‘Edit Attribute’ dialog.
Cradle has supported KPIs being shown in the sidebar of WorkBench or Web Access for a number of years. This gives a quick overview of the health of the project. It’s giving a rating for each of the measurements and coloured highlighting to draw attention to those areas that need further input.
Traditional Dashboard
Due to its compactness, this table style allows many KPIs to be shown in a small space. However, one of the limitations with this approach is that the scale of the measurement and the relative position of the current value are not immediately obvious.
Bring on the Dials
A dial on the other-hand can display the full range, and the relative position. This allows a much faster assimilation of the data being shown to the user.
Dashboard Dial Sizes
New Cradle 7.2 Dashboard Dials Feature
Cradle’s dashboard dials are available in a number of sizes, thus allowing more important dials to be clearly seen. The size is set per dial as:
Large
Medium
Small
Minimal
There are also a number of styles available for the dashboard as a whole:
Round 270°
Round 180°
Round 140°
Text
These can be displayed with the following pointer types:
None
Triangle
Stick
Needle
Coloured
Dashboard Styles
It’s also possible to print these dials to the standard Cradle outputs:
Cradle can import data from external files in different formats. One of the most common formats is CSV / TSV (comma separated value and tab separated value). When data is imported from CSV / TSV files, you can choose different import overwrite options. The option that you choose will control whether your data is imported and, if it is imported, which existing data in your database will be kept, or replaced by data from the import file.
Items and Attributes
To explain these options, let’s use a simple picture to represent an item and the attributes inside it:
An Item With Some Attributes
Example
Lets say in your Cradle database you have an item with the following attributes:
A Cradle Database Item with Some Attributes Set
meaning that the item in the database has values set in the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th attributes.
In a spreadsheet you have a row with data in columns corresponding to the 1st, 2nd and 5th attributes of the item in the database:
An Item in an Import File with Some Attributes Set
Import Overwrite Options
Option A – Overwrite On
If Overwrite is On then, for each row in the spreadsheet or each record in the CSV / TSV file, Cradle will find the work-in-progress item (if any) and delete everything inside it, and completely replace the contents of the work-in progress item with the data from that record or spreadsheet row.
You would get the following result:
Import Overwrite Options – On
As you can see, only the data from the file or spreadsheet (the yellow cells) are now in the item, all previous attributes (the blue cells) are now gone.
Option B – Overwrite Off
If Overwrite is Off then if there is an item in the database for the record in the CSV / TSV file, or row in the spreadsheet, no import will occur. If there is no item in the database for the record or row, then the result is the same as Overwrite set to On.
Option C – Overwrite Merge
This is the more interesting case!
If Overwrite is Merge then, for each row in the spreadsheet or record in the CSV / TSV file, Cradle will find the work-in-progress item (if any) and replace the attributes of that item with the columns from that row in the spreadsheet (or field i the CSV / TSV file) so any attributes in the item that have not been mapped to a column in the spreadsheet row (or field in the CSV / TSV file) will be left alone.
So the attributes that already exist in the item in the database and the attributes in the spreadsheet row or file record are merged:
Import Overwrite Options – Merge
You would get the following result:
Import Overwrite Options – Merge
Attributes in the spreadsheet row or file record have been loaded into the item. All other attributes in the item have not been changed.
Summary
Setting Overwrite to Merge is useful to add data to database items from an external CSV / TSV file or Excel spreadsheet. Any attributes not in the external file are not affected by the import.
To get more help importing information into Cradle, explore the Cradle help here.
Most people are familiar with a ‘find and replace’ function in a word processor document. However, when you have thousands of items in a database, it’s not very easy to open each one and search through for the replacement term. You could run a query, but then you’d still need to know which attribute of the item the query should match.
Allowing the search to take place at the database level ensures that the items are found that contain the term. Rather than just ‘finding’ in the visible text on the screen.
Find and Replace in Selected Items
New Cradle-7.2 Find & Replace Feature
If items are visible as the result of running a query, for example, it is possible to select all those items and perform the find and replace within the attributes of those items.
Clicking each item in the left hand column of the dialog will show the attribute in the right hand part of the dialog that matches.
The user can optionally double click the ‘Yes’ in the ‘Replace’ column to prevent this substitution occurring.
Alternatively users can select a query to run to source the items in which replace will occur. In both cases a report to detail which items were changed can be printed by checking the box at the bottom of the dialog.
Starting with the Cradle-7.2 release, we have included digital certificates in the executables in the Cradle system engineering tool distribution for Windows, including the Cradle installer itself.
Digital Certificates
Like a passport or a driver’s licence, digital certificates are issued by a Certificate Authority (CA) to provide proof of identity, in this case for verifying the identity of online entities. However, instead of containing a photograph and the signature of the certificate’s owner, a digital certificate binds the owner’s public key to the owner’s private key.
3SL (our full company name is Structured Software Systems Limited) has obtained a digital certificate from the CA Symantec that we can use to identify any file as being something that we have produced.
Cradle Systems Engineering Tool
3SL’s system engineering tool Cradle contains many executables and other files. These files are supplied as a single distribution file, such as:
Cradle72_Setup.exe
It is helpful to us, and to anyone who receives the Cradle software distribution or who looks at any executable that is claimed to be part of the Cradle system engineering tool, to know that:
The distribution
The files inside the distribution
have come from 3SL and have not been changed in any way after they were created by 3SL.
So, starting with Cradle-7.2, 3SL has digitally signed:
The Cradle software distribution
The executables inside the distribution
with our digital certificate.
Benefits
Using a digital signature brings several benefits to anyone who installs or uses Cradle.
Anti-Virus Products
Occasionally, some AV products have incorrectly claimed that a file in Cradle contains a virus. These incorrect reports are called false positives.
Now that Cradle executables are digitally signed, we expect that your AV product will report fewer false positives.
Installation
Since the Cradle installer is digitally signed, Windows will display the friendly blue User Account Control (UAC) dialog at the start of the Cradle installation:
Windows Detects 3SL in Cradle System Engineering Tool Installer
instead of the warning yellow UAC dialog.
Executable File Properties
You can verify the digital signature in the Cradle installation files:
View Digital Certificates in Cradle Executables
If the file does not contain a digital certificate, then you know that the file has been tampered with since 3SL created it, or it was not created by 3SL at all.
Information Assurance
The use of digital certificates is part of 3SL’s commitment to ensuring that Cradle contributes to the information assurance practices in your organisation. You can find more details about other information assurance aspects of Cradle in our white paper here.
Summary
We hope that 3SL’s use of digital certificates in the distribution of, and executable files within, the Cradle system engineering tool will be helpful when you next install Cradle and when your AV products next scan a Cradle installation!
World Water Day (22 March 2017). We should celebrate that we are part of the 90% of people that have access to clean safe drinking water.
Water for All
We would like to encourage our readers to help the 10% of the world’s population that face dirty or diseased water by supporting charities like WaterAid by having a collection and possibly turning #Blue4Water!
Imagine you have a project and teams of people working on it. You can control who sees what by placing staff in different teams (for information watch this video about collaborative teams). You can provide skills based access to individual frames within the item. However, there maybe one type of item which only certain team members can see, maybe a Finance item. The solution is to set a skill for the item type. Ensure those who are allowed to view the item type have the skill. For those assigned the required skill, all the other access controls still get applied, (CM status, security clearance and ownership). For those without the skill, the item type disappears from existence, it is as if the project schema had not defined the item.
Skills Based Item Access
Login to WorkBench as a user who can modify the schema
Start Project Setup from the Project tab, set Options to User Settings and select the Skills tab
Select New and define a new skill
Set Options to Item Definitions and select the Item Types tab
Select the item type to be controlled and choose the new skill from the Required skill: drop-down list
Save the schema and close Project Setup
From the Project tab, select User Setup and for each user who is to be able to see the item type, select that user, select Skills, add the new skill to the user’s user profile and save the profile
RO Skill Based Access Feature
New Cradle-7.2
Now imagine the scenario that you want team members to see an item type but you don’t want them to be able to change any aspect of it. The latest version of Cradle allows you to set Read-only access for these item types.
Skill Based Access Levels for Items
Related Items
To restrict access to categories alone, this article will help.
