Managing your Cradle Environment

A Fully Customisable Systems Engineering Environment

We use definition files to define your Cradle environment to your project’s needs.

  • Queries – how we filter items in the database
  • Views – how we view the lists of filtered items
  • Forms – how we see individual items
  • Matrices – how we view results of queries and linked items in rows and columns
  • Metrics – how we can see the numbers of items meeting a criteria
  • Reports – how we output exported tables containing a set of query results formatted according to a particular view and table style.
  • Dashboards – management summary that can define KPIs
  • Navigations – how we filter cross references
  • Startpages – how we provide a range of selectable actions, each of which either displays a PDF file, opens a specific page in the Cradle help, opens a particular dialog or runs a query, report or similar. The start page is displayed in the main working area of the WorkBench UI and is fully customisable
  • Sessions – store information about your required WorkBench environment such as window dimensions, current project, opened queries, reports etc. to be loaded upon login
  • Graphical Print Settings – how we print diagrams
  • Hierarchy Diagram Properties – style in which we show items
  • Capture Setups – how we are to capture items in Document Loader
  • Report Styles – styles available for reports which include font, alignment, underline, etc.
  • Graph Styles -styles available for graphs which include fonts, grid size, axes size, etc.
  • Export Formats – settings of exports to reuse at a later time
  • Import Formats – settings of imports to reuse at a later time

All of the above are available in WorkBench and subsets are available in other tools, e.g. you can run queries in WebAccess or use Import Formats with c_io

For more information on how to setup these definition file please see definitions section of our online help.

These definitions are stored in one of several areas:

  • Project – visible to all members of the Cradle project (PROJECT privilege is required)
  • User Type – visible to all users with your user type in this project
  • Team – visible to all members of your current team in this project
  • User – visible only to you when logged in as this Cradle username in this project
  • Personal – visible to a specific machine login username, across all projects to which  he/she has accesses
  • Automatic – visible to all members of this Cradle project (you cannot save definitions with this scope). Automatic definitions are created as a starter set when an item type is defined. They are a good starting candidate for editing and then using ‘Save As
  • System – you cannot save definitions with this scope

Managing Definitions

WorkBench provides the ability to manage your Cradle environments via:

  1. Definitions Sidebar
  2. Definitions Manager
Managing definitions scrrenshot
Managing definitions

These allow you to copy, move or delete definition files through the WorkBench interface.

Using these methods to manage your definitions enables you to reduce the number of stored definitions within a project by allowing users to share definitions at the team-level as opposed to users having their own copies of the same definitions.

Redundant Definitions

To reduce the amount of redundant definitions, it is possible for the user to create a User Definition opposed to creating a Project definition if it is for personal use. It is also possible to delete previous Definitions if they are no longer required.

Examples

A user could:

  • Move definitions from a user to that user’s team, or to the project, for everyone to use
  • Copy definitions from one team to another team or a member of another team
  • Move definitions from a user to become accessible by all users of a specific user type
Updated Article 04/02/2019 – Added info on Redundant Definitions

Using a Company Templates for Document Publisher

Company Templates

Does your company use different types of Microsoft® Word template for different types of document? Did you know that you can use those company templates inside Document Publisher?

Document Publisher has different locations you can save the files to but it can also open files from outside these locations as well. These files will then be shown as ‘local’ and can then be edited in Document Publisher. Once you are happy with the company template it can be saved to any one of the locations the user has access to within Cradle.

Loading an External Template

Select the File menu and then New, then From Existing Template and select the template type the user wishes to open. Once the Template dialog opens, click the Local... button.

Opening New From Existing Template
Opening New From Existing Template
Document Publisher Open Template dialog
Document Publisher Open Template dialog

This will then open explorer in which the user can then locate and open the file they require.

Explorer through Document Publisher
Explorer through Document Publisher

This will then open the file named as NewTemplate and not as the name of the file you have opened from. Once you have added at least one tag, Document Publisher will allow you to save the template.

Saving a File

The first is to select the File menu and Save, then the Template dialog opens, the user can either save it to one of the locations they can access or as below, select the Local… button and rename and save it through Explorer.

Saving templates through Explorer
Saving templates through Explorer for Document Publisher

This will then save the file to that location and show in Document Publisher as (Local).

Showing template is saved Local
Showing the file is saved as Local and not in a Cradle Location.

This file when finished can then be saved into a Cradle location e.g. Project so it can then be published through WorkBench. To do this the user will click the File menu and then Save and when the Template dialog opens, select the Location the user requires and change the name they want the file to have.

Template Dialog using the Project Location
Saving in the Project location and new name for the file.

This will now show it is saved in the project location. This can be done to any location the user has access to.

Tempalte in project area
Template is now saved in the Project Location

To see how to Publish through WorkBench, click here

For Publishing a draft template, click here

For free Microsoft® Office templates and themes, click here

Maintaining and Repairing your Cradle Databases

Problems with your Database?

In the rare occasion that something has gone terribly wrong with you database, here are some things that you may find helpful:

Retrieving Licence Statistics

If you are finding that you are running out of licenses or you just want to have an overview of license usage over a period of time you can use c_usage which can be run to output the information from Cradle into an excel file. You then copy this date from the excel file into a spreadsheet we supply called c_usage.xls which once the data has been pasted into the spreadsheet will then update it’s other worksheets which will display the corresponding information in graphs.

For more information on how to retrieve licence statistics please see our online help.

Retrieving Specific Error Logs

All components of the Cradle software distribution include crash resistance such that, in the event of an internal error occurring within the software component, internal recovery action is taken, and the software component remains running.

In all cases, the recovery action includes adding an entry to an error log file that provides a complete description of the internal environment of the software component when the problem arose.

This log could potentially become quite large over time and you may only want retrieve one or more entries from this log, c_errlog can be used to retrieve one or more entries from the error log files produced by Cradle.

For more information on how to parse an error log file please see our online help.

Checking the Version of your Cradle PDB Files

Check the version of your database files
The c_pdbver utility allows you to determine the version of your database files, it check the filesets are compatible with a version number you specify and confirms whether or not each fileset is in the specified version.

pdb_ver result
7.3 compatibility check

For more information on how to check the version of database files please see our online help.

Checking and Repairing Database files

If you have had a machine crash or hardware failure when Cradle was writing to the database files you may want to check and repair the database file to ensure you don’t see any further corruption to your database. We supply a utility for this called dcheck that checks and repairs damage to the ISAM files within a Cradle PDB.

For more information on how to check/repair database files please see our online help.

 

 

How do I manage my Linux Cradle server when I have no GUI?

Managing your Cradle server via Command Line

Quite often you may find that the server machine you install the CDS and CWS on may not have a graphic user interface, in this case you can manage your Cradle server via a command line

How to Install a Security Code

The c_config command allows you to update a Cradle Security Code

Format
c_config -i code
Example
c-config -i BWEr-DSWe...

How to Start/Stop/Restart the Cradle Database Servers

The c_start command allows you to start, stop, restart or test the Cradle Database Server (CDS) and/or Cradle Web Server (CWS).

Format
c_start {start | stop | restart | test} {cds | cws | all}
Example
c_start start cds
Variations
CommandResult
c_start startstart cds + cws
c_start start cdsstart cds only
c_start start cwsstart cws only
c_start start allstart cds + cws
c_start stopstop cds + cws
c_start stop cdsstop cds only
c_start stop cwsstop cws only
c_start stop allstop cds + cws
c_start restartrestart cds + cws
c_start restart cdsrestart cds only
c_start restart cwsrestart cws only
c_start restart allrestart cds + cws
c_start testgive process numb of cds + cws
c_start test cdsonly give process numb of cds
c_start test cwsonly give process numb of cws
c_start test allgive process numb of cds + cws

How to Manage Cradle Projects

The c_prj command is used to create, delete, lock and unlock Cradle projects.

Format
c_prj.exe [-create
              -code <projcode>
              -title <project title>
              -path <project location>
              [-pid <project PID>]
              [-schema <schema name>]]
          [-delete
              -code <projcode>
              -password <MANAGER password>
              [-method {all | pdb | reg_only}]]
          [-lock
              -auth <user>,<password>,<projcode>
              [-allow_user <user>]]
          [-unlock
              -auth <user>,<password>,<projcode>]
Examples
c_prj.exe -create -code TEST -title "Test Project" -path /home/apps/temp/projects/test -pid TEST01 -schema empty

Will create a project with a project code of TEST, a title of Test Project in the /home/apps/temp/projects location with a PID of TEST01 using the empty schema.

c_prj.exe -delete -code TEST -password MANAGER PASSWORD -method all

Will delete the TEST project along with the registry entry, database files and directories.

 

Exporting a Single Item Frame using ‘getframe’ with c_io

Exporting

A user can export a single item’s text or binary frame and place it in a file using getframe. A batch file is great for this as a user can use copy and paste the same command line numerous times,  replacing the identity for each line. Then when run, all the frames will be quickly exported.

The start of this command line is the same as for all main options, using the path and login details.

The -getframe options are as follows:

Options for getframe in c_io.exe
The options for getframe in c_io.exe

-getframe option sets the frame name to be output for the first item that matches the query or identity (if used).

-file sets the name and location of the file to be output

-query option sets the query to be used

-qloc sets the location of the -query option

-identity over rides any set within the used query

c_io.exe Batch File GetFrame Examples

"%CRADLEHOME%\bin\exe\windows\c_io.exe" -login admin,ADMIN,demo -getframe NOTES -file "C:\Temp\notes.txt" -query "Req - All" -qloc automatic

Using -identity

"%CRADLEHOME%\bin\exe\windows\c_io.exe" -login admin,ADMIN,demo -getframe TEXT -file "C:\Temp\REQ-2_TEXT.txt" -query "Req - All" -qloc automatic  -identity "REQ-2"

"%CRADLEHOME%\bin\exe\windows\c_io.exe" -login admin,ADMIN,demo -getframe PICTURE -file "C:\Temp\REQ-9_PIC.jpg" -query "Req - All" -qloc automatic  -identity "REQ-9"

Helpful other c_io options

There are several helpful options especially when using in a batch file.

-log allows a user to specify a name for a log. This is the log that will have the details of the actions performed during the  import.

-noldap allows users to bypass using LDAP when running a command line or batch file.
-errorstack option is for logging any issues with the import

"%CRADLEHOME%\bin\exe\windows\c_io.exe" -login admin,ADMIN,demo -export "C:\Temp\all3.exp" -type all -noldap -errorstack -log "C:\Temp\all4_log.log"

"%CRADLEHOME%\bin\exe\windows\c_io.exe" -login admin,ADMIN,demo -export "C:\Temp\pdb3.exp" -type pdb -noldap -errorstack -log "C:\Temp\pdb3_log.log" -verbose

Options not used within a batch file

There are a couple of options that are not used in a batch file. The reason is that they are only useful in a command line, in a command prompt as they show pop ups with information on them.

-ver lets the user see what the version number, date and time of the build they are using.
-help option allows a user to see the command line options.

Links to Other Batch File Options

Read Publishing a Formal Document Using a Batch File article for information of formal documentation.

Details of importing can be read in Importing Using c_io in a Batch File

 

Cardinality Control in Link Rules

The Cardinality Values and Uses

In the latest release of Cradle using Cardinality in a cross reference has been introduced. This extends the capability of controlling cross references to the point of how many relationships an item can have.

The Many-to-Many Relationship

This is the default option for a rule when it is first set. This is also the default option when a rule is imported from an older version which does not have this option. This cardinality relationship is applied to:

  • Most of the link rules in the as-supplied Cradle demonstration databases DEMO and SYSM
  • Most of the link rules in the as-supplied default schema and quick-start
Demo Link Rules showing the Cardinality
Showing One to Many and Many to Many Cardinalities

The One-to-Many Relationship

This cardinality is used for parent-child relationships between items of the same type. Furthermore this option is applied to:

  • Parent-child link rules in the as-supplied Cradle demonstration databases DEMO and SYSM
  • Parent-child link rules in the as-supplied default schema default and quick-start

The Many-to-One Relationship

This option will allow many items linked down to a single item. Many users can be assinged to one Requirement.

The One-to-One relationship

This is mainly for links like a single result file to a single test file.

Link Rule Setup options
Showing the Cardinality option within the Link Rule Setup

The new cardinality option is for all item types which includes all the modelling types as well.

Hence if a user tries to set linked items which are against the rule they will see an error which will deny the links and the links will not be created.

Stopped by Link Rule Error Message
Error Message

Restrictions on use

Finally there are restrictions in how this option is accessed. For instance a Link Group cannot be used in conjunction with the Cardinality. Also the options to create or modify cross references must be checked or the Cardinality option will be disabled.

For information on getting started in Link Rules click here

August 2017 Newsletter

Hello August

Wow what a busy month July has been here at 3SL. The last weeks before a release are always complex. So many things to do checking off the release checklist.

Cradle 7.3 is Here

Cradle 7.3
Cradle 7.3

Cradle 7.3

3SL are pleased to announce the new features of Cradle 7.3

  • Cross reference cardinalities in link rules – One to Many, Many to Many, or Many to One, you decide.
  • Categories – Control read-write access by a user’s skills.
  • Frames – Those containing a category picklist can have a default value.
  • Frames – Colour usage defaults for picklist frames.
  • Frames – Extend Find/Replace to also work with RTF frames.
  • Dashboard dials – Support for a ‘Line’ pointer style added.
  • Metrics – Support for  element calculations.
  • InstallShield – Improved and  simplified
  • Configuration Management – Submission of  related items, and integrity checks for baselines
  • Items – Deleting/recovering items will record in the modification date.
  • Items – Set owner can including related items.
  • Cradle URL – Support to optionally specify a view.
  • Views -New Generic Configuration Management system view.

Social Media

Twitter

Welcome new followers. The Lake District became a UNESCO World Heritage Site which caused quite a bit of chatter on Twitter

The English Lake District from Barrow-In-Furness
View of the Lake District from Barrow

Hints of the Month

Need to create a default schema for your new projects? This article New Default Schema tells you how.

Got one of those oops moments or changes of mind? Reverse or rewind the item’s changes.

Let’s chat about this requirement/feature/risk. Why not add a discussion?

If you have lots of projects you need to keep logging in and out of, let Project Manager take the strain.

You can read Hints & Tips in the 3SL Blog.

Cradle 7.3 – Now Available

We are pleased to announce the latest Cradle release!

3SL customers with active maintenance have been sent an e-mail notification of this release, and details of which enhancement requests and bug reports are in it.

Cradle 7.3
Cradle 7.3

New Capabilities

This release contains a range of new capabilities that are described in its release notes:
https://www.threesl.com/downloads/download.php?version=v7.3&section=software&filename=rm00777-V73ReleaseNotes.pdf

Some of the highlights are:

  • Metrics – Calculations on metric results
  • Configuration Management – Related item submissions
  • Categories – Skill based control
  • Link rules – Cardinality control
  • Item Ownership – Set item ownership of item’s related items
  • New Cradle and Toolsuite installers

Download

It is available from our website here:  https://www.threesl.com/downloads/software.php

You need a new Security Code for 7.3, other Security Codes cannot be used. There is a database conversion from 7.2 to 7.3. The converter will run automatically if you install Cradle-7.3 over the top of, in the same directory as, the earlier version of Cradle from which you are upgrading.

You must upgrade all Cradle installations to 7.3. Cradle-7.2 clients cannot connect to a 7.3 server, and a 7.3 server cannot serve Cradle-7.2 clients.

We hope that you will welcome the new capabilities in this new version!

Printing Diagrams using printdiag with c_io.exe

Printing many individual diagrams through WorkBench can be slow and time consuming. Using the option -printdiag in c_io.exe, a user can then print many diagrams at once. Once the first command line has been set up, it can be copied, pasted. The file name and the identity can be altered for each diagram that the user requires printing.

The options to do this are:

printdiag options in c_io.exe
The printdiag options in c_io.exe

Required Options

-printdiag allows a user to set the type of output for the diagram. The types currently used for this are:

  • hpgl – Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language
  • ps – PostScript
  • rtf – Rich Text Format
  • svg – Scalable Vector Graphics

Elective Options

-onlydiag will output the diagram without a surrounding frame and the details which the frame contains.

-catcode will print the category value in the diagrams border.

-portrait will cause the diagrams to be output into a portrait orientation rather than the default of landscape. This option is only used in conjunction with -printdiag, it will not work with any other c_io.exe options.

-file sets the name and location of the file to be output.

-query set the query to being used and as before -qloc sets the location

-identity overrides any identity set within the used query

-printdiag Batch File Examples

"%CRADLEHOME%\bin\exe\windows\c_io.exe" -login admin,ADMIN,demo -printdiag svg -file "C:\Temp\DFD_C.svg" -query "Diagram - Ess DFD" -qloc project  -identity "C"

"%CRADLEHOME%\bin\exe\windows\c_io.exe" -login admin,ADMIN,demo -printdiag rtf -file "C:\Temp\eFFBD_133.rtf" -query "Diagram - Ess eFFBD" -qloc project -portrait -identity "1.3.3" -onlydiag

Helpful other c_io options

There are several helpful options especially when using in a batch file.

-log allows a user to specify a name for a log. This is the log that will have the details of the actions performed during the import.

-noldap allows users to bypass using LDAP when running a command line or batch file.
-errorstack option is for logging any issues with the import

"%CRADLEHOME%\bin\exe\windows\c_io.exe" -login admin,ADMIN,demo -export "C:\Temp\all3.exp" -type all -noldap -errorstack -log "C:\Temp\all4_log.log"
"%CRADLEHOME%\bin\exe\windows\c_io.exe" -login admin,ADMIN,demo -export "C:\Temp\pdb3.exp" -type pdb -noldap -errorstack -log "C:\Temp\pdb3_log.log"

Options not used within a batch file

There are a couple of options that are not used in a batch file. The reason is that they are only useful in a command line, in a command prompt as they show pop ups with information on them.

-ver lets the user see what the version number, date and time of the build they are using.
-help option allows a user to see the command line options.

Related Posts

Read Exporting using c_io in a batch file article for information on how to create data transfer files from Cradle.