Yes you can control the shape of a HID (Hierarchy Diagram). In the hid properties you can control the shape and data shown in your HID.
The cross reference links between each item control the connections shown on the HID. The whole HID layout can be Vertical or Horizontal. The number of levels shown when first rendered (rather than dynamic click and expand) can be controlled. Whether an item is shown more than once if it has multiple cross references and general layout parameters. These are further detailed in How to Set Hierarchy Diagram Properties. Once you are happy with the layout it can be saved for use next time you need a similar pattern.
HID Properties Dialog
Your data may produce a short wide tree or a long narrow tree. This can be difficult to see on the screen. This video shows how changing the pivot point, (the node at which the orientation changes from listing horizontally to vertically) can alter the overall display to be more usable.
Support have asked me to switch on tracing, what is it, and how do I do it?
Occasionally some customer installations don’t allow Cradle to function as required. In order to get to the bottom of this the Cradle Support Team may ask you to ‘turn on tracing’. This will give a comprehensive report of what’s happening internally in Cradle. You can then send these logs for diagnosis. This will then help us resolve your installation issue as fast and efficiently as we can.
Cradle Tracing Configuration
The files
The files trace_options and trace_config control how tracing is performed. By default they are located in %CRADLEHOME%\admin\trace
trace_options
This file controls when to collect, and is used to simply switch tracing on or off. Setting CDS_USE_TRACE to true will set CDS (Cradle Database Server) tracing on. The file must be the one located on the machine running the CDS. Setting COM_USE_TRACE to true will set tracing on for any client communications. The file that you alter must be on the client machine in question.
The TRACE_CONFIG option allows you to choose which file you want to use to control the tracing, most of the time we suggest you leave it as trace_config in the same directory.
trace_config
This file controls what to collect and where to send the output. The CDS_TRACE_LEVEL and COM_TRACE_LEVEL both control how much tracing to do from LOW, through MEDIUM to HIGH. This will give basic ‘someone logged on’ reports at LOW through to ‘this message was sent from this process to that client’ at HIGH. Support will advise which level to use, but be wary of leaving HIGH switched on for too long as it will create very large reports.
The CDS_TRACE_LOG and COM_TRACE_LOG are the location where we will write the file. The default logs folder is usually best.
When you have finished tracing don’t forget to set the values in trace_options back to false.
A discussion is a hierarchy of comments for an item. The discussions in Cradle concept is similar to email threads:
Every item can have arbitrarily many, arbitrarily large, discussions
Each discussion has a hierarchy of 1 or more comments
Each discussion can have a decision
People can contribute to a discussion.
The discussions mechanism is very powerful. We suggest it can be used:
To record discussions as part of formulating requirements and other items in the database
As a change proposal system
As an informal CM system
Contents of a Discussion
A discussion contains:
A decision – this applies to the entire discussion containing a status with a value of Open, Agreed, Rejected or Suspended, a reason which is a short summary of why the decision was reached, the Cradle username of the person who recorded the decision and the date and time that the decision was made
A hierarchy of comments, each comment containing a subject, a block of text that constitutes the comment, the Cradle username of the person who created the comment and the date and time that the comment was created
Creating Discussions
When created your new discussion, its decision is set to Open. You can respond to a comment by adding a new comment that is then attached to the existing comment. The same user or another user could respond to either of these comments. Therefore creating a hierarchy of comments.
Please note that comments cannot be changed once committed.
Discussions Dialog in WorkBench
Querying and Reporting on Discussions
Discussions can be reported and included in documents. You can also search the database for items based on their discussions, for example:
Discussions where you have made a comment
Discussions where comments have been made in the past week
Where you need to make a decision on a discussion
For further information on discussions in Cradle’s WorkBench click here. If you would like to see how to work with discussions in Web Access click here.
Do you want to update your existing frame types which were originally supplied by 3SL or add any newly supplied frame types from 3SL, to your project?
Has your project been running for a long time, if so does your project support the latest types of files used by third party programs for example Microsoft®’s .vxdx extension files. No need to worry, 3SL supply a range of popular frame types and give you the option to easily update your existing projects to include these.
In project setup under frames types there is an update button which when clicked will bring up a “Update Frame Types” dialog that shows:
All supplied frame types
Whether the frame type already exists in your project
Update frames types dialog
If you click OK the frames which are missing will be added to your project schema but your existing frames will remain untouched.
You also have the option to tick the “Overwrite existing frame types” which, as well as adding the missing frames, will update all the existing frame types with the latest settings supplied by 3SL.
For further information on frame types please refer to the Cradle online help.
Did you know you can perform basic summary metric calculations without having a metric licence in Cradle?
View Summary Metric
We all run queries to produce lists of data that match certain criteria.
In the example shown it would be possible to run the query to return only water constituents with the Group set to Harmful. Whilst this would produce useful results, it may be more important that other items are showing too, so they can be seen in context. By setting a View Summary MetricOperation of count and Action of = with a Valueof ‘Harmful’ it is possible to see a simple count of the constituents grouped as ‘Harmful’ in the sidebar.
Read our help for more information about simple Summary Metrics.
It’s Friday 30th June and it’s National Cream Tea Day
National Cream Tea Day celebrates a very British tradition of tea and scone. There is a long ‘ranging’ debate as to whether the clotted cream should be spread first then the jam or the jam first followed by cream. This debate has separated Devon and Cornwall for years!
From a design point of view, we offer the following:
If using clotted cream instead of butter, then it can be spread first with a small dollop of jam atop.
If you are using whipped cream then it always has to go on after the jam.
Our Extended Functional Flow Block Diagram (eFFBD) allows the user to choose the Devon or Cornwall route. Flexibility in a system’s functions is a crucial part of modelling. Now if you have that #FridayFeeling – go and enjoy a cream tea.
National Cream Tea day – eFFBD
Feel free to share our post with #NationalCreamTeaDay
It would be a bit silly to have a requirements management tool and not use it to manage your requirements, wouldn’t it? Cradle’s continued development is controlled within Cradle. Changes, testing and feature management are all controlled in a Cradle database. This allows us to track each change from the initial proposal or enhancement request through development and testing through to final documentation and release.
Ongoing Feature Development
This is the basic case of ‘Cradle designed in Cradle’. You can see from this sneaky peek at our 7.3 release a number of features you’ll benefit from in the coming months.
Cradle Development Database
Obviously we have removed customer references, but this simple view shows the ‘Change‘ items that follow a lifecycle through Cradle. The Change has a set of Test Cases written to cover different aspects from usability through to access permissions and of course that it matches the original design requirement.
Change to Test Result HID
During development and testing it is useful to get a quick overview. The hierarchy diagram above shows a simple view tracing from the feature through the Test Case to the Test Result. (GC: Luckily they all show ‘pass’ which is a relief as it is a feature I coded!)
Larger features
Again it is a case of Cradle designed in Cradle. For example Cradle 7.1’s SysML functionality, a separate project was used, as there were more collaborators, and the design team was spread both sides of the Atlantic. The view below shows multiple item types linked together, the «relationships», linked to the symbols, reported for the ‘act’ diagram type.
Multiple Cradle Database Server (CDS) Environments
Cradle supports multiple Cradle database servers, in a single environment, based on the CDS Host Access List. The following file contains a list of the TCP/IP hostnames of the hosts that the CDS will respond to:
Windows – %CRADLEHOME%\admin\cds_hosts
Linux – $CRADLEHOME/admin/cds_hosts
The file is empty by default, which mean a CDS will respond to all hosts.
Two or more Cradle systems may be installed and operate in the same network by ensuring that each CDS has a non-empty Host Access List that defines the lists of hosts that are to be serviced by that CDS. Multiple Cradle systems are consequently achieved by ensuring that the hosts used to run the CDSs appear in the Host Access List of only one CDS.
Multiple CDS on the same network
Clients Connecting to Multiple CDS
Each Cradle client such as WorkBench may be executed on a host which is in the Host Access List of more than one CDS. In this case, WorkBench should be told which CDS it is to connect to, for example by using the command-line option: -cds hostname
Methods of connecting Cradle tools to a CDS
There are several methods of specifying which CDS, when you have multiple Cradle database servers, a client is to use, or alternatively a client can attempt automatic CDS discovery.
-cds command line option
Cradle tools for example the WorkBench client, supports a -cds command line option that takes an argument which is interpreted to be either the hostname or IP address of the machine where the CDS is executing.
-cds hostname
If invoked with this command line option, the WorkBench client does not attempt CDS discovery via broadcast, but instead attempts to link directly to the CDS on the specified machine.
CRADLE_CDS_HOST environment variable
If a -cds command line option has not been specified, the WorkBench client tests for the presence of a CRADLE_CDS_HOST environment variable, and if defined, uses its value as the hostname or IP address of the host executing the CDS.
In this case, WorkBench does not attempt CDS discovery via broadcast, but instead attempts to link directly to the CDS on the specified machine.
Automatic CDS discovery by broadcast
If a CDS host has not been specified through other means (such as via the –cds command-line option, or CRADLE_CDS_HOST environment variable), a Cradle client such as WorkBench will attempt to locate a CDS automatically by broadcasting. If the client can connect to two or more CDSs and is using this method, the client will connect to which ever CDS responds quickest.
For a more in-depth look at environments with multiple Cradle database servers, please refer to our online help.
Annually on June 27 National Sunglasses day commemorates the importance of wearing ultraviolet (UV)-protective eye-wear #NationalSunglassesDay
It is time to stop viewing Requirements Management through rose tinted spectacles.
Rose Tinted Views
If you really believe office tools are up to the job of helping plan and manage your most important developments, you could be looking through rose tinted spectacles.
All too often it is believed that a spreadsheet or word-processor document is sufficient to manage a set of requirements. Only when a project is asked to change a requirement or how they intend to test a feature do things become unstuck.
If a single component is used in a number of places in the project (whether this is a nut or a software module) how easy is it to find all the places that may need attention when the supplier changes the specification?
If something fails, how simple is it to get from the design backwards to the requirement that it was derived from or forwards to the test case that was used to demonstrate it?
Link rules are used in Cradle as a way of defining constraints for cross reference operations within a project. They specify who can manipulate cross references, the link types that can be used, between what types of item, and which items of these types. This guide to getting started with link rules will help first time users understand the concepts.
The level of detail for each link rule can vary as required for your project’s needs. On one hand they can be very simplistic, allowing links of any link type between all item types. On the other hand they can be more detailed and specific, allowing links between different item types, models and individual item identities.
Throughout this blog post, and future posts, we will explore the Link Rule Setup dialog. These posts will cover the different options available and the result this will have on cross references between items in your project.
