December 2018 Newsletter

It’s Beginning to Feel A Lot Like….

3SL Snowflake bauble
Christmas 2018
  • Cross bullet pointThere should have been some acceptance tests associated with these requirements.
  • Cross bullet pointThe customer’s changes might be what they want for Christmas, but we’re unsure of the impact
  • Cross bullet pointThere might not be enough time to finish this project by the end of the year.
  • Cross bullet pointWe’ll forget the designs in our heads after a few party sherries and not know what to do in January.
  • Tick bullet point It’s time to relax and enjoy the festive period, our project is in Cradle.

Whilst we’re sure our customers align with the last point, its worth noting these seasonal holiday reminders.

Discussions dialog showing multiple comments
Discussions Dialog in WorkBench
  • Make sure you have backed up your databases. By export or disk image – just in-case a power hiccough in bad weather causes a server fail.
  • Backups to keep you data safe
  • Storing on a NAS
  • Ask your I.T. department whether there is any planned downtime over the break.
  • Use the Cradle login message (here’s how to setup) to inform users.
  • Send Alerts to all in the project.
  • When viewing Tasks in Cradle, consider increasing the “Days before Start date” and “Days before Finish Date” in the schema so that you can see what’s going to start, or be due when you return to work.
  • Team leaders should run queries with the owner set to staff who are on long vacations, so plans can be made to deal with issues involving their items while they are away.
  • Use Discussions on items to record thoughts and ‘To Do’ points rather than half a pad of Post-it® notes.

Cradle Subscriptions

Mini Poll

Results of the SaaS verses traditional ownership poll
SaaS ‘v’ Traditional Ownership Poll

We asked you about subscription products. You answered our Mini Poll, and said that ‘horses for courses’ is the rule of thumb when selecting SaaS or conventional ownership. We’re happy to say Cradle is available in whichever guise suits your business.

Cradle Release

showing the setting up of matrix variables in a navigation
Navigation with MATRIX variables

The latest release of Cradle 7.4.2 contains a new Matrix feature. A matrix allows items linked items to be shown as a set of rows and columns with the cells representing the links between them. It is also possible to show the items in the rows linked to the items in the columns via a third item type represented in the cell. For example, rows representing requirements, columns representing results and the items in the cells representing the tests between the two. The new feature lets users filter the items shown in the matrix cells based on the value of a column or row item appearing in the cross reference attribute. This is set up as part of the navigation that is followed between items.

We have also upgraded our OpenSSL to use version 1.3 TLS.

There are a number of small bug fixes including diagram drawings, workflows, importing with overwrite.

As usual anyone with a current 7.4 code is entitled to download the latest release. Anyone with current maintenance is entitled to upgrade any previous version to this latest release.

Black Friday / Cyber Monday

Well done if you managed to take advantage of our £50 per licence/product deal.

INCOSE

INCOSE logo
INCOSE

We had a great time at INCOSE EMEASEC 2018 conference in Berlin and enjoyed meeting all those who visited us.
Missed the conference or our stand? Don’t forget you can still download an evaluation copy of Cradle

Social Media

Twitter

clever engineering loo on the moveWe love keeping an eye on what’s new in the field of engineering. Did you realise how much the humble loo on the move has changed? #WorldToiletDay

We celebrated Saint Andrew’s Day  by constructing a COD (Collaboration diagram) showing how the Picts and Scots faced the Angles.