Document Publisher allows you to use Microsoft Word to construct arbitrarily large and complex documents from data sets in a Cradle project database. Word documents or reports are user-defined through Word templates constructed with tags or bookmarks that are keyed to access database information and define the layout/format of the information in the output document.
The first scheduled publishing course of 2023. Cradle report creation training – Document Publisher March 2023 course.
“Once you have managed your requirements and development, producing a comprehensive report, automatically based directly on the project data, provides an essential deliverable”
Online Course
Businesses that have Cradle for their Requirements Management or Systems Engineering process can benefit from additional Cradle tools.
Document Publisher is a Windows® based publishing tool that allows professional documentation to be produced directly from the data within your project’s database. Fully understanding how to configure templates and data manipulation will offer the best output for you to provide to your stakeholders and customers, regulators and other interested parties.
Public Document Publisher Course March 20th to 23rd 2023
Often the document production task is run by an individual or a very small team. Therefore, this public online course will offer a cost effective way of providing training. You’ll benefit from all the normal learning, but will have the chance to network and share with other virtual attendees from other industries. However, if you have a larger team courses can be tailored and held at your premises / virtually depending on restrictions and requirements at a date and time to suit see here. This will be conducted over four ½ days.
PC/Laptop – internet browser & Cradle installed **
Soft copy course materials, and printed certificate
If you would like to be kept in touch with the details for this Training Course – Document Publisher March 2023 please send an email to salesdetails@threesl.com.
The second scheduled publishing course of 2023. Cradle report creation training – Document Publisher September 2023 course.
“Once you have managed your requirements and development, producing a comprehensive report, automatically based directly on the project data, provides an essential deliverable”
Online Course
Businesses that have Cradle for their Requirements Management or Systems Engineering process can benefit from additional Cradle tools.
Document Publisher is a Windows® based publishing tool that allows professional documentation to be produced directly from the data within your project’s database. Fully understanding how to configure templates and data manipulation will offer the best output for you to provide to your stakeholders and customers, regulators and other interested parties.
Public Document Publisher Course September 18th to 21st 2023
Often the document production task is run by an individual or a very small team. Therefore, this public online course will offer a cost effective way of providing training. You’ll benefit from all the normal learning, but will have the chance to network and share with other virtual attendees from other industries. However, if you have a larger team courses can be tailored and held at your premises / virtually depending on restrictions and requirements at a date and time to suit see here. This will be conducted over four ½ days.
PC/Laptop – internet browser & Cradle installed **
Soft copy course materials, and printed certificate
If you would like to be kept in touch with the details for this Training Course – Document Publisher September 2023 please send an email to salesdetails@threesl.com.
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 problems in your use of Cradle, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL Support here.
Artemis I
Artemis I Launch
Cradle has been an integral part of the Constellation and Artemis programmes for many years, being central to the toolchains in both government and in industry.
We would like to extend our congratulations to NASA’s Exploration Systems Development mission directorate for the successful launch of Artemis I.
Follow the progress of the Artemis I mission through NASA.
32-Bit vs 64-Bit
For our next major release – Cradle-8.0 – we propose to remove support for:
32-bit Windows
32-bit Microsoft Office
32-bit Linux
We would like to know if this would have adverse effects for any of our current customers and any potential customers. If you believe that removing 32-bit support from Cradle would affect you or your company, then please send your views and opinions to 3SL Supporthere.
Cradle-8.0 will not be released until mid 2023 at the earliest.
New User Training Course
We have a new training course available: Cradle User Course. This course is ideal for:
Anyone who is new to Cradle and needs an overview
Anyone who is joining a team that has been using Cradle for some time
Anyone who has not used Cradle for some time and needs to update their skills
Configuration Management in Cradle, including baselines, workflows, simple reviews, team reviews, formal change, audit trail and how to advance information to the next stage within their lifecycle
The UK government provides the G-Cloud procurement framework for its departments and agencies. G-Cloud 13 is the latest instance of that framework, agreement number RM1557.13, and is available between 9th November 2022 and 8th November 2023.
G-Cloud used to be delivered through the Digital Marketplace. In its latest form, G-Cloud is being delivered through the Public Procurement Gateway (PPG) managed by the Crown Commercial Services (CCS). You can find G-Cloud 13 in the PPG here.
3SL is pleased to announce that we have been accepted into G-Cloud 13, and that Cradle is available as a variety of SaaS services through Lot 2 in this framework, and a range of training and consultancy services are available through Lot 3.
Cradle SaaS Services
A wide range of SaaS services are available through G-Cloud 13 Lot 2. For a summary of this Lot, please see here.
Each service includes Cradle licences, a user-configurable schema, and a comprehensive support package. The SaaS can be delivered for both UNCLASSIFIED (IL0) and OFFICIAL (certified IL3) deployments. The services are:
Agile Collaboration
Agile Software Development
Agile Software Management
Application Lifecycle Development
Application Lifecycle Management
Business Analysis
Business Process Modelling
Defect Tracking
Enterprise Architecture
Integrated Risk Management
Integrated Test Management
Lifecycle Management
MBE Model Based Engineering
MBSE Model Based Software Engineering
MBSE Model Based Systems Engineering
Requirements and Testing
Requirements Engineering
Requirements Management
Risk Assessment
Risk Compliance
Risk Management
SysML Modelling
Systems Engineering
Test Execution
Test Management
Test Planning
UML Modelling
The PPG infrastructure is still in development. CCS have advised that direct links to individual services in the G-Cloud Lots will be available at the end of this year. 3SL will post an update when such links become available.
In the meantime, please contact 3SL here to discuss acquiring a Cradle SaaS through G-Cloud.
Cradle Training/Consultancy
A range of configurable services are available to support a Cradle deployment through G-Cloud 13 Lot 3. For a summary of this Lot, please see here.
These services are:
Consultancy
Administration Training
Fundamentals Training
Advanced Lifecycle Training
The PPG infrastructure is still in development. CCS have advised that direct links to individual services in the G-Cloud Lots will be available at the end of this year. 3SL will post an update when such links become available.
In the meantime, please contact 3SL here to discuss Cradle training and consultancy services through G-Cloud.
3SL would also like to thank all of our customers, evaluators and potential customers who have found the time to send feedback on our services, such as evaluations, training courses, Cradle support and so on.
We understand how busy you are.
Your responses are essentialto help us both monitor and seek to improve the services we provide to you.
Some issues have been detected when running our Toolsuite applications (Document Loader or Document Publisher), e.g. when running dual monitors, with certain scaling settings etc.
Example of Toolsuite Errors
Sometimes when having more than one monitor connected you may see one of the following error messages.
Solutions
The following solutions can fix the problem without having to remove the monitors.
Scaling
Set the scaling of both monitors to 100%
Restart your machine
Resolution
Set the resolution of both monitors to be the same
Advanced scaling
In Display settings click Advanced scaling settings
Enable Let Windows try to fix apps so they’re not blurry
Restart your machine
High DPI scaling override
Right click on DocPub.exe and choose Properties. Note: if your problem is with Document Loader then just follow the same steps but for DocLoader.exe
In the Compatibility tab select Change high DPI settings
Enable Override high DPI scaling behaviour
Restart your machine
Program DPI
If the above doesn’t work then in the same dialog as High DPI scaling override enable the Use this setting to fix scaling problems…. within the Program DPI section
Optimise for Compatibility
Open Word Options
Select the General tab
In User Interface options ensure the When using multiple displays option is set to whichever option is not currently set
The second scheduled publishing course of 2022. Cradle report creation training – Document Publisher October 2022 course.
“Once you have managed your requirements and development, producing a comprehensive report, automatically based directly on the project data, provides an essential deliverable”
Online Course
Businesses that have Cradle for their Requirements Management or Systems Engineering process can benefit from additional Cradle tools.
Document Publisher is a Windows® based publishing tool that allows professional documentation to be produced directly from the data within your project’s database. Fully understanding how to configure templates and data manipulation will offer the best output for you to provide to your stakeholders and customers, regulators and other interested parties.
Public Document Publisher Course October 2022
Often the document production task is run by an individual or a very small team. Therefore, this public online course will offer a cost effective way of providing training. You’ll benefit from all the normal learning, but will have the chance to network and share with other virtual attendees from other industries. However, if you have a larger team courses can be tailored and held at your premises / virtually depending on restrictions and requirements at a date and time to suit see here. This will be conducted over four ½ days.
PC/Laptop – internet browser & Cradle installed **
Soft copy course materials, and printed certificate
If you would like to be kept in touch with the details for this Training Course – Document Publisher October 2022 please send an email to salesdetails@threesl.com
Make your output shine with the first publishing course of 2022. Cradle report creation training – Document Publisher March 2022 course.
“Once you have managed your requirements and development, producing a comprehensive report, automatically based directly on the project data, provides an essential deliverable”
Online Course
Businesses that have Cradle for their Requirements Management or Systems Engineering process can benefit from additional Cradle tools.
Document Publisher is a Windows® based publishing tool that allows professional documentation to be produced directly from the data within your project’s database. Fully understanding how to configure templates and data manipulation will offer the best output for you to provide to your stakeholders and customers, regulators and other interested parties.
Public Document Publisher Course March 2022
Often the document production task is run by an individual or a very small team. Therefore, this public online course will offer a cost effective way of providing training. You’ll benefit from all the normal learning, but will have the chance to network and share with other virtual attendees from other industries. However, if you have a larger team courses can be tailored and held at your premises / virtually depending on restrictions and requirements at a date and time to suit see here. This will be conducted over four ½ days.
PC/Laptop – internet browser & Cradle installed **
Soft copy course materials, and printed certificate
If you would like to be kept in touch with the details for this Training Course – Document Publisher March 2022 please send an email to salesdetails@threesl.com
An overview of the Toolsuite Products in Cradle Software
Toolsuite is a set of tools which utilises the applications in Microsoft® Office. These tools will only work on a Windows environment utilising MS Office from 2007 and up.
Supported Versions and Platforms
The Toolsuite supported versions of MS Office are:
2007 32‐bit
2010 32‐bit and 64‐bit
2013 32‐bit and 64‐bit
2016, 32‐bit and 64‐bit
Any of the Click To Run (CTR) Office suite is also supported by Cradle Toolsuite.
This can be on any of the following Windows platforms:
7 32‐bit and 64‐bit
8.1 32‐bit and 64‐bit
10 32‐bit and 64‐bit
Also it can be installed on the following servers:
2008 R2 32‐bit and 64‐bit
2012 64‐bit
2012 R2 64‐bit
2016 64-bit
Tools
The different tools within the suite utilise the following Office applications:
Word
Document Loader for loading documents
Document Loader Screen
Document Publisher for creating and printing of official documents
Spellchecker to check the spelling in item frames
Word/document frames for items e.g. .doc and .docx frames
Document Coverage shows the items covered by a document
Document Compare compares different versions of source documents against each other
Word frame to RTF Frame converter
Excel
Add-in for imports
Excel Add-in
Excel frames for files
Project
Add-in for importing and exporting to a project file
Project frames for files
Visio
Plug-in allows import of pages and symbols as items
Visio frames for files
PowerPoint
Allows WorkBench to print diagrams to RTF and convert the file to PowerPoint presentations.
Installing Toolsuite
For a successful install of Toolsuite, the MS Office needs to be of one version and not mixed versions. For example, if the user has Word/Excel 2007 but Visio/Project 2013, the plug-in or frames for Visio/Project 2013 is not installed. The installer automatically checks for the architecture of Word/Excel as each MS Office version needs different library files installed by Toolsuite. All other MS applications versions are disregarded if a different version to Word and Excel.
Upgrading or changing MS Office
If upgrading or changing your Office then you should always uninstall Toolsuite first. Once Office is upgraded or changed, Toolsuite can be reinstalled to allow the correct library files to be installed.
Uninstall Toolsuite not Cradle
The user doesn’t need to download a separate Toolsuite installer but can find the installer within the main Cradle install folder.
Shows the Toolsuite folder within the main Cradle install folder
During the install the InstallShield will automatically pick the version to install based on the version of Word and Excel that are installed.
Once Toolsuite is installed successfully, you can access the plug-ins by opening the relevant MS application and selecting the Cradle tab. Document Loader, Document Publisher and Spellchecker are opened through WorkBench, Project Manager or the start menu.
The ‘Word frame to RTF‘ frame converter is accessed via a command line utility. This will take Word frames and copy the data into an RTF frame. More information for using the converter can be found by entering c_word2rtf into the Search bar of our Help system or online at https://www.threesl.com/cradle/help.
Both Document Coverage and Compare are used inside WorkBench and are started by selecting one or more Source Documents and selecting the option in a context menu.
For information on binary and other frames types check our help section or search our blog.
Trouble Shooting Issues
If you are having issues with the install of Toolsuite, then try the following:
Ensure the installed MS Office is fully up to date and check compatibility with Toolsuitehere
Ensure your old office keys are no longer in the Registry especially if you are using Click-to-Run versions
Check the Compatibility tab in the Properties for the Toolsuite setup.exe. Select Change settings for all users and uncheck the Compatibility mode checkbox at the top of the dialog. Click the Apply button and OK to close Properties.
Make sure you perform the install with System Administrator privileges not just logged in as an Admin user
If you are having issues after install then try the following:
Make sure you have restarted your machine after the install
Check you have opened your Office and registered it if you need to
Check .Net framework and C++ redistributables are up to date
Make sure your Toolsuite version is the same as your server version
If none of the above trouble shooting works then send an email to support@threesl.com with any logs created, exports and screenshots if possible.
For more information either look for blogs about the individual applications or see our online Help.
A user wants to output bottom level items in Document Publisher. As bottom level items do not have anything linked below them, this can be set in a hierarchy table.
How this works for Bottom Level Items
All it takes is 3 rows in a hierarchy. The first row works as any item above the bottom level items. The second row will actually be for items on the bottom level. The third level is used as a check that the items are bottom level. It makes sure that no items are linked in a Downward direction using that Link Type for the 2nd row to be output.
If there are items linked below the item, using the Link Type set, then it is not a bottom level item and will not be output. Although this can be used with many different hierarchy levels, as long as the last row is always set as below.
Creating the hierarchy Table
So open the Hierarchy Details dialog and set the top item type to the type you require (here we are using Requirements). Leave level this as it is already set. Click the Add Row button and set the Follow Links to Downwards. The arrow next to the second level item show point towards it. Set the Link Type for this level, in this case it is RELATED TO. Next is the Publish Subject Items option which sets what will be published based on your links. Set Publish Subject Items to Only if link exists.
Select the second level item type and click the Copy Row button.
Adding and Copying rows in Hierarchy Details in Document Publisher
Select the last row and click the Indent button. The Publish Subject Items now needs to be set to Only if link does not exist.
Removing options set from the top and bottom nodes.
The nodes without any options set should be grey, click OK and repeat for each Field required. All item attribute nodes in the Tags sidebar now show as on (Row 2).
Showing all the item nodes are set to Row 2
Generating the template
When the template is generated, only the second row item will be output containing the bottom level items. For a short example to be output, the Key is set to 1.1*.
X-Rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation or “ray” for short.
When first discovered, these mysterious rays were nothing like anything that had been described before, hence the ‘X’ name has stuck.
X-rays have a wavelength less than 10 nanometres, that is, they are shorter than those of UV, and longer than those of gamma rays. It was aGerman scientist Wilhelm Röntgen often credited with their discovery.
Looking Inside Cradle
Thankfully there is no need to use X-Rays to look inside your Cradle project.
Information once stored can be recalled by Queries and presented in Views or Forms. Output can be directed to HTML or RTF tables, shown graphically as a Hierarchy diagram, explored by clicking links. Formal publishing to Microsoft® Word documents can be achieved through Document Publisher.
In short there is no mystery to your data once inside Cradle unlike our bones, welded joints or airport suitcases you can easily see your data.
Celebrate on X-Ray Day 2017
Celebrate the genius of a very useful tool in the x-ray machine. Whilst we don’t advise you have an x-ray for fun, you could download another useful tool here!
Parametrics can be very useful in Document Publisher. It uses a question mark ? as a marker to Document Publisher that this is an option and needs to be filled/selected by the user.
It can allow users to set the Identity/key of a single item or more to be output. This can be used in a hierarchy or with a single item type. Parametrics can also be used to set different properties and options in filters.
Single Parametrics
Using a single Parametric (?) allows a user to publish a template many times but use a different item Identity or Key each time. Note: Using a single parametric in several places in the template will always use the same item identity or key each time.
A parametric can be used at the database/top level or at the field level to set the items to be published. At the top level the parametric is entered for the Identity or Key.
Single Parametric set at Database levelA popup for a user to set the Key(s) at a database level item.
They can also be used in a filter for field to set or restrict the items to be output.
Using a category to detemine if a field tag is output.
In this case the Requirement attribute of Identity will only be output if its Item Status is set to Accepted.
This allows the user to set the Item Status Option.
As you can see below, only items with a status of Accepted have both the Identity and Key output for the Requirements.
Small excerpt of the items output
Named Parametrics
Using a Named Parametric(?named) means a user can have several different parametrics throughout the template and each can be set at time of publishing. So for example the user can set one named parametric for output based on one option of category (e.g. Agreed) and then later in the template use a different named parametric to output based on a different category option (e.g. Rejected).
Named Parameters for 2 different Paragraph Group Tags
During publishing a popup will allow the user to select Agreed for the first Paragraph Group popup:
Named Parametric for Status 1
They then can select Rejected for the second Paragraph Group popup:
The second popup to select a different Status
The published output will then show the 2 different outputs in the same document.
Output using the above options
These named parameters can even be used in several places within the template. The user may want to show the AgreedRequirements and System Requirements in one document. As both item types use the same category (Item Status in our Demo) then the same named parametric can be used for both item types.
Using Named parametrics for both Requirements and System RequirementsOutput using the same Named Parameters twice
In the above screenshot, the 2 named Parametrics have been used for Requirements and System Requirements and the output shows all the Agreed items but that there are no RejectedSystem Requirements.
