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Pragmatic Software Co., Inc. Software Planner User’s Guide This guide is used by users of Software Planner to understand the features and benefits of using Software Planner. ©Copyright, Pragmatic Software, 2008 - Present Software Planner - Version 9.1

Pragmatic Software Co., Inc. 7935 East Prentice Avenue, Suite 105

Greenwood Village, CO 80111 303.768.7480

www.PragmaticSW.com . www.SoftwarePlanner.com

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Table of Contents Overview ....................................................................................................................................................... 7

Helpful Resources ..................................................................................................................................... 7

Administrator’s Guide ................................................................................................................................... 8

Security Setup ........................................................................................................................................... 8

Setting up Security Groups ................................................................................................................... 8

Sharing Calendars for Security Group Users ....................................................................................... 10

Adding a New User .............................................................................................................................. 10

Assigning Projects Rights to the New User ......................................................................................... 11

Deleting a User (Revoking all Rights) .................................................................................................. 12

Restoring a Deleted User .................................................................................................................... 13

Active Directory Integration (Enterprise Only) ................................................................................... 14

Creating New Projects............................................................................................................................. 15

Creating a New Project ....................................................................................................................... 16

Securing a Project ............................................................................................................................... 17

Archiving a Project .............................................................................................................................. 18

Customizing Software Planner for Your Needs ....................................................................................... 19

Creating Custom Fields ....................................................................................................................... 19

Linking Fields from One Area of Software Planner to Another .......................................................... 21

Creating Custom Fields based on SQL Queries (Enterprise Only) ....................................................... 23

Managing Choice Lists ......................................................................................................................... 24

Managing Workflow and State Transitions......................................................................................... 25

Map out your Workflow.................................................................................................................. 26

Setup your Mapped Workflow using Software Planner ................................................................. 26

Setting up Temporal (Temporary) Transitions ................................................................................ 28

Setting up Automatic Assignment .................................................................................................. 29

Setting up Automatic Assignment based on Functional Areas (Defects Only) ............................... 29

Setting Screen Layouts ........................................................................................................................ 31




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Setting System Options ....................................................................................................................... 33

Personal Preferences ...................................................................................................................... 33

System Options ............................................................................................................................... 34

Creating Custom Lists (Knowledge Bases, etc) using the List Manager .............................................. 34

Creating Custom Email Alerts ............................................................................................................. 37

Customizing Email Alert Templates .................................................................................................... 38

Using the Enterprise Features ................................................................................................................. 40

Active Directory Integration ................................................................................................................ 41

Using the Data Dictionary ................................................................................................................... 41

Accessing the API ................................................................................................................................ 41

Integrating Crystal Reports ................................................................................................................. 42

Scheduling Reports to be distributed via Email .................................................................................. 45

Integration with Source Control Systems ........................................................................................... 46

Integration with Automated Testing Systems .................................................................................... 47

Integration with other In-house Software .......................................................................................... 47

Importing and Exporting Data................................................................................................................. 48

Importing Data .................................................................................................................................... 48

Exporting Data .................................................................................................................................... 51

User’s Guide ................................................................................................................................................ 52

Getting Familiar with the User Interface ................................................................................................ 52

Organizing your Data .......................................................................................................................... 52

Using Search Folders ....................................................................................................................... 52

Working with the Home Page ............................................................................................................. 55

Bulletins Tab .................................................................................................................................... 55

Project Mgt Tab ............................................................................................................................... 56

QA Tab ............................................................................................................................................. 57

My Assignments Tab ....................................................................................................................... 58

Burndown Tab ................................................................................................................................. 59




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Working with the Listing Screens ........................................................................................................ 60

Sorting the List ................................................................................................................................ 60

Quickly Searching the List ............................................................................................................... 61

Creating a Filter ............................................................................................................................... 61

Send Emails ..................................................................................................................................... 63

Working with the Edit Screens ............................................................................................................ 63

Adding, Editing and Deleting Records ............................................................................................. 63

Editing Records ............................................................................................................................... 64

Viewing History of Changes ............................................................................................................ 66

Attaching and Associating Notes .................................................................................................... 66

Attaching and Associating Files ....................................................................................................... 66

Attaching and Associating Tasks ..................................................................................................... 67

Managing the Software Lifecycle ............................................................................................................ 70

Managing Customer Requirements and Specifications ...................................................................... 70

Organizing your Requirements ....................................................................................................... 70

Using the Grouping Tab .................................................................................................................. 72

Integrating Requirements with Project Management .................................................................... 73

Creating Requirement Documents ................................................................................................. 75

Requirement Reporting and Dashboards ....................................................................................... 76

Providing Project Management for a Release, Iteration or Sprint ..................................................... 81

Advanced Project Management ..................................................................................................... 81

Project Management Reporting and Dashboards .......................................................................... 84

Simple Project Management .......................................................................................................... 89

Managing Manual Test Cases ............................................................................................................. 91

Organizing your Test Cases ............................................................................................................. 91

Using the Grouping Tab .................................................................................................................. 91

Organizing Regression Test Cases ................................................................................................... 92

Organizing Test Runs for Regression Testing .................................................................................. 93




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Maintaining Test Cases ................................................................................................................... 93

Test Case Traceability ..................................................................................................................... 94

Automatically Creating Defects from Failed Test Cases ................................................................. 97

Top 10 Negative Test Cases ............................................................................................................ 98

Test Case Reporting and Dashboards ............................................................................................. 99

Managing Automated Test Cases ..................................................................................................... 104

When to Automate Regression Test Cases ................................................................................... 104

Best Practices for Automation Analysis ........................................................................................ 105

Automatic Test Case Detection ..................................................................................................... 106

Test Sets ........................................................................................................................................ 107

Analyzing the Test Runs ................................................................................................................ 109

Automated Testing Return on Investment ................................................................................... 110

Managing Defects, Bugs and Issues .................................................................................................. 110

Organizing your Defects ................................................................................................................ 110

Using the Grouping Tab ................................................................................................................ 111

Creating Test Cases from a Defect ................................................................................................ 113

Tips for Creating Solid Defects ...................................................................................................... 113

Defect Reporting and Dashboards ................................................................................................ 114

Managing Support Tickets / Customer Portal ................................................................................... 119

Empowering Collaboration between Team Members .......................................................................... 123

Document Sharing............................................................................................................................. 123

Creating a Shared Document Folder ............................................................................................. 124

Securing a Shared Document Folder............................................................................................. 124

Uploading Documents................................................................................................................... 125

Downloading Documents .............................................................................................................. 127

Checking Out and Checking In Documents ................................................................................... 127

Discussion Forums ............................................................................................................................ 128

Creating a Discussion Forum ......................................................................................................... 129




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Securing a Discussion Forum ........................................................................................................ 129

Posting a Discussion Forum Thread .............................................................................................. 130

Calendar Management (Appointments, To Do List, Calendar Sharing, MS Outlook Sync)............... 132

Synching with MS Outlook ............................................................................................................ 132

Contact Management ....................................................................................................................... 133

Sending Bulk Emails ...................................................................................................................... 134

Getting the Most out of Reporting ....................................................................................................... 137

Using the Dashboards ....................................................................................................................... 137

Standard Reports .............................................................................................................................. 137

Ad-hoc Summary Reports ................................................................................................................. 139

Ad-hoc Detail Reports ....................................................................................................................... 139

Crystal Reports Integration ............................................................................................................... 141

Scheduling Reports to be distributed via Email ................................................................................ 141

Extending Software Planner for More Uses .......................................................................................... 142

Creating Custom Lists (Knowledge Bases, etc) ................................................................................. 142

Creating Custom Fields ..................................................................................................................... 142

Managing Choice Lists ....................................................................................................................... 142

Managing Workflow and State Transitions....................................................................................... 142

Changing Your Screen Layouts .......................................................................................................... 143

Creating Custom Email Alerts ........................................................................................................... 143

Importing and Exporting Data ........................................................................................................... 143

Tips for Different Project Management Methodologies ...................................................................... 144

Working with the Waterfall Methodology ........................................................................................ 144

Working with the Agile Methodologies ............................................................................................ 145




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Overview Software Planner is an award winning software lifecycle management (ALM) tool that helps Information

Technology (IT) departments manage all components of software development including managing

customer requirements, project deliverables, test cases, defects, and support tickets.

Coupled with collaborative tools like document sharing, team calendars, interactive dashboards,

knowledge bases and threaded discussions, teams begin communicating more effectively and begin

delivering solutions quickly and with high quality.

This User’s Guide provides information on using the features of Software Planner. Since the features of

Software Planner can be purchased ala-cart, if you do not have some of the features covered in this

document, you can easily add those features by contacting Pragmatic Software at +1 303.768.7480.

Helpful Resources Below are some resources you might find useful:

Software Planner – http://www.softwareplanner.com

Feature Movies - http://www.wicdirect.com/Features_SP.asp

Enterprise Portal – If you purchased the Enterprise Solution, you can be setup to log into our

Enterprise Portal. This portal contains the latest version of Software Planner, installation

instructions, documentation (data dictionary, documentation on the API, documentation on the

Synchronization API), and access to reports and other useful utilities. To access the Enterprise

Portal: http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Enterprise.

Support – http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Support

Training - http://www.pragmaticsw.com/training

http://www.softwareplanner.com/

http://www.wicdirect.com/Features_SP.asp

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Enterprise

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Support

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/training




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Administrator’s Guide If you are not an administrator and do not need to understand how to setup security, system options,

custom fields and other administrative functions, skip ahead in this document to the User’s Guide

section.

If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below:

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=ManagingUserSecurity

Security Setup The licensing model is a “concurrent user” model, which means that you can setup as many named

users as you like, but only a certain number of users can connect simultaneously to Software Planner,

depending on the number concurrent user licenses you purchased. This is very progressive licensing

model, allowing you the freedom to setup an unlimited number of users and only pay for the number of

users that wish to connect at the same time.

The first step in establishing security is to determine the roles the different users might assume. For

example, you may have different types of users in your organization (security administrators, project

managers, analysts, programmers, testers, sales people, marketing personnel, documentation specialists,

etc.). Each of these roles may have different security needs (for example, a project manager may need

full rights to Software Planner where a sales person may need very limited rights).

Setting up Security Groups

To establish roles for different types of users, you will use the Security Groups feature. A security group

is a set of security rights for that user role and you may have many individuals in your organizations that

all into a specific security group. For example, you may have a few security administrators, a few project

managers, many programmers and testers.

To establish a new security group, go to the Setup tab and choose Security / Security Groups. A list of

security groups appear. Note the existing security groups below (Channel Manager Consulting, etc).

The number of users in the group appears under # Users column. Click Add New to create a new

security group.

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=ManagingUserSecurity




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Once a security is created, you can set the security rights for that security group:

Once the Privs button is clicked, you can set the rights for this set of users:

Click Add New to create a

new security group.

Click Privs button to set the privileges

For each security entity, you

can choose read, add,

update and/or delete rights,

or choose Full Access for all.

Some areas have granular

level control rights.

Setup tab




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Once you have defined the rights for the security group, all users in this group will now have those rights.

Sharing Calendars for Security Group Users

If you would like to share calendars between team members, you can set up automatic rules for giving

specific groups of people rights to each other’s calendars. When a security group is setup, you will

notice a Calendar Delegation button. When this is clicked, it allows you to set the rules for allowing this

set of users in the security group to share their calendar with others.

For example, in the Channel Manger Consultants security group, we have decided to automatically give

read access to all users in all projects to the calendar of our Channel Manager Consultants:

Adding a New User

Once your security groups are established, you can begin adding users to use Software Planner. To add

a user, go to the Setup tab and choose Security / Users, then click Add New.

Click Calendar Delegation

button to share calendars




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Then fill in the details for the new user. Click the Security Admin checkbox provides additional security

and administrative rights for the user. Notice the Security privileges choice list shows all the security

groups you set up previously. If you want the user to change their password on the first login, check

User(s) must change password at next login. Upon pressing submit, the user will receive an email

letting them know how to log in.

Assigning Projects Rights to the New User

You can set up one or more projects and secure each project separately. Once projects have been setup

and users are added via the method above, you can give specific users different rights for each project

and can restrict a user from accessing specific projects. To do this, go to the Setup tab, click Security /

Users, and click the Security Privs button for the user.

Click Add New to add a user

Your security groups are here




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From here, you will see each project and choose the security group you wish to apply for each project

for this user. If you want to restrict them from accessing the project, choose (None – Can not access).

Deleting a User (Revoking all Rights)

If you wish to delete a user and remove all rights, go to the Setup tab and choose Security / Users, then

click Edit on the user you wish to delete, then scroll to the bottom of the page and check “Delete this

record (are you sure)?”, then press Submit.

When a user is deleted, it does a “soft delete”, which means it removes the user from the application

and all their rights but the user record is not physically deleted. The reason for this is that you may have

Click Security Privs button for the user

record.




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items (defects, test cases, requirements, etc. assigned or owned by the user and history of work from

the user), so we keep the user record intact for auditing purposes. The delete does a “soft delete”

which prevents the person from logging in and removes all their rights.

Restoring a Deleted User

If you deleted a user previously and wish to restore their rights, go to Setup, then click Security, then

click Users, then choose Actions / Show Deleted Users:

Once this is done, you can click on that user record (notice the Active flag is not checked) to edit it:




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Once you edit the user record, choose Restore this User:

Once this is done, the user is re-instated and can then log in. It is a good idea to check their security

rights again (click the Security button on the edit screen above).

Active Directory Integration (Enterprise Only)

Clients that are using our Enterprise solution have the option of using Active Directory (AD) for

passwords, allowing them to reduce the number of passwords each user needs to remember for each

system they access. If you are interested in hooking up AD for your Enterprise account, our support

team can help you. Our support team will need the following information from you:

1) Your system administrator will need to create a service account within the domain. This account

is used to look up a userId within AD based on the EMAIL address entered on the login screen.

You will want to disable Interactive Login for this account, but it should be an active account

with a password that does not expire.

2) We will need your LDAP connection string to connect from the web server to the Domain

Controller, such as LDAP://ServerName/DC=Domain, DC=com. (Make sure your network and

firewall settings will not block the communication from the web server to the domain controller).




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3) With AD, new users can be automatically setup by simply navigating to the login page of

Software Planner. Once they enter their email address and password, it will detect that the

user is not setup in our security system and will automatically add them. Before doing this, you

must decide what default project you wish new users to be added to within Software Planner.

4) As with the default project, we also need to know what default security group new users should

be placed in for the default project.

5) As with the default project and security group, we also need to know what default time zone

should be setup for new users.

Once you have provided our support team with this information, we will issue your DBA a SQL Script

inserts the preferences and settings into Software Planner. Once run, you will need to activate the User

Variables for the accounts that wish to use their AD passwords to access Software Planner. To do this

go to the Setup tab -> Security -> Users and click EDIT on a particular user. Go to the User Variables tab

and click the Add New link. From here you should see a drop down box that has a value

'IsActiveDirectoryAccount', select that value, and type Y in the text box. Press Submit to save the data.

Once this is activated for a user, they will be able to log in using their AD password. (NOTE: if the User

record in AD does not have an email address associated to it via Exchange or the properties of the user,

the lookup and login process for that user will fail).

NOTE: If the LDAP Connection string is not set up correctly, attempting to log in as a user with AD Sync

WILL result in that user being disabled. To re-enable the user log in with a Security Administrator

account and go to the Setup tab -> Security -> Users. Click the Actions button, then check the 'Show

Deleted Users' check box and find the user that was deleted by AD Sync. Edit the record and check the

‘Restore this User' check box and press Submit.

Creating New Projects A project is simply a workspace that contains your data. Your team should decide if it is best to keep all

your data in a single project, or if separating the data into multiple projects is best. There are pros and

cons to either approach.

Using a Single Project

The simplest way to store your data is in a single project, and you can use filters to return information

within the project based on specific criteria. A single project also reduces maintenance, as you can

setup your choice lists, custom fields, and screen layouts once without worrying about synchronizing

those in multiple projects. To subdivide the information within the project, refer to the Search Folders

section of this document: User's Guide Using Search Folders.




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Using Multiple Projects

You may prefer to use multiple projects if you have different departments within your organization and

each department would like to work with Software Planner differently (different custom fields, screen

layouts and/or choice list values).

You may also prefer to use multiple projects if you wish to secure the data so that some people can

access certain projects but not others. For example, if you have multiple departments and you do not

want one department to see another department’s information, you can accomplish this by using

multiple projects and setting security to prevent unauthorized project access. Likewise, you may want

your clients to log into Software Planner and would like to keep one client from seeing another client’s

information. This can be achieved by using multiple projects.

Finally, you may want to physically separate your data into multiple projects because of business

reasons (by software release, module, product line, etc).

Cross Project Reporting

Even if you decide to use multiple projects, you can still do cross-project reporting, allowing you to

summarize information across the projects you have security to view, as all of the reports can be run for

a single project or for all projects.

Creating a New Project


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=ManagingProjects

To create a new project, go to the Setup tab and click Projects (Open & Create). To add a new project,

click Add New.

Click Add New to create a new project

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=ManagingProjects




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Fill in the new Project Name. You can copy member security rights, folders, choice lists settings, custom

fields and Quick Tasks from an existing project. If you wish to do that, choose a Project to Copy and

check the items you wish to copy.

Securing a Project

To access an existing project, go to the Setup tab and click Projects (Open & Create). Notice the

Security Privs button; you can use this to specify what users have access to an established project.

Enter a unique project name

If you wish to clone settings from another

project, choose the project to clone from

Clone security rights? Clone shared

document and

search folders?

Clone choice lists?

Clone custom fields?




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From here you can choose what users have rights (and what level of rights) for each project. You can

use the Security Group filter to see just the users in a specific security group.

Archiving a Project

If your project has ended, you can easily archive the project without physically deleting the data. This

allows you to hide the data temporarily and then expose it again later. To do this, go to the Setup tab,

click Projects (Open and Create), then edit the project. Uncheck the Active Project checkbox and press

SUBMIT. This will archive the project; it will disappear from view in the Projects dropdown lists, reports,

etc. You can come back here later and check the Active Project checkbox to remove the archive flag.

Click Security Privs button to set

security rights for project.

You can filter the user list to

those in a specific security group.




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Customizing Software Planner for Your Needs Software Planner is very flexible and customizable. You can create custom fields for any screen, create a

field that links back to another section of Software Planner, create custom fields that pull it’s values

from a SQL query (Enterprise solution only), and specify the choice lists that are shown in combo boxes

within Software Planner.

You can setup customized workflow and specify how one workflow state can transition to another, set

rules for automatically assigning items to a specific person depending on the status the item goes to, set

rules for determining if each field on the screen is read only, updatable, hidden, required or optional –

depending on the status the item is in.

You can also setup each screen to have fields appear in a specific order, set the screen in 1 or 2 column

format, set default values for each field on the screen, create custom email alerts, and set system wide

options. The sections below explain these features in detail.

Creating Custom Fields

Each area of Software Planner allows you to create custom fields. This can be useful if you wish to track

new sets of information that is not currently setup in Software Planner. You can access the custom

fields feature in several ways. You can access it by going to the Setup tab / System Configuration /

Screen Layouts, then choosing a screen (e.g. Defects Screen), then clicking the Custom Fields link.

Another convenient way to setup custom fields is to access the Custom Fields area while adding or

editing a record. For example, if you wish to setup custom fields for the Defects screen, when adding or

editing a defect, you will see a Custom Fields button. Click that and you will see a screen similar to this:

Uncheck to archive the

project.




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The types of fields you can create are extensive, here is a list:

Choice List (Based on SQL) – Enterprise clients can enter a SQL statement that will return a list

of items based on a SQL query and put those into a combo box.

Choice List (List with Sublist based on SQL) - Enterprise clients can enter a SQL statement that

will return a list of items based on a SQL query and put those into a combo box. In Sublist mode,

multiple combo boxes appear allowing a relationship lookup between each level of the combo

box. For example, you may have a SQL choice list that allows you to choose a Product Model,

then all the Serial Numbers within that Product Model.

Choice List (Based on Another Field) – This allows you to create a custom field that derives the

items in the combo box from another area of Software Planner. For example, you can create a

custom field on the Defects screen that links back to the Requirement Title, allowing you to tie

those 2 areas together.

Choice List (List of all Project Users) – This allows you to create a custom field whose combo box

is filled with a list of all the users that have access to the project you are working in.

Choice List (List of all Users) – This allows you to create a custom field whose combo box is filled

with a list of all users, regardless if they have access to the project you are working in.

Date – This provides a date entry field with a clickable button to allow choosing the date from a

calendar popup.




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Date-Flag Overdue Items - This provides a date entry field with a clickable button to allow

choosing the date from a calendar popup. This field is special in that if the date entered is less

than the current date, the entire row on the listing screen turns RED to identify overdue items.

Numeric – This provides a custom field whose values must be numeric.

Phone – This provides a custom field whose values must be in phone format (xxx-xxx-xxxx).

SSN – This provides a custom field whose values must be in social security number format (xxx-

xx-xxxx).

Text – This provides a custom field that can be regular text entry. If the custom field size is set

to over 100 characters, the field data entry uses a rich text editor with rich formatting

capabilities.

Check Box – This provides a custom field that is shown as a checkbox (on or off).


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=CustomFields

Linking Fields from One Area of Software Planner to Another

Linking fields from section of Software Planner to another can be powerful. For example, let’s assume

you wanted to link a defect back to a Requirement. To do this, you create a custom field in the area you

wish link (defects in this example) and set the custom field type to Choice List (Based on Another Field).

Then you will link the new custom field to the other area of Software Planner (Requirements in this

example).

Below is an example of creating a new custom field on the Defects screen named Requirement and

having a list of Requirements appear in that new custom field. First, edit a defect, and then click the

Custom Fields button:

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=CustomFields




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Then enter the field name of Requirement and choose the type of Choice List (Based on Another Field):

Once you click Set choice list based on another field, it will allow you link the new field to the

Requirement title:

Click Custom Fields

Click Set choice list based

on another field




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Once you press Submit, the new field named Requirement will contain a list of all the Requirements you

have:


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=FieldBasedChoiceLists

Creating Custom Fields based on SQL Queries (Enterprise Only)

Enterprise clients may find the need to create a combo box that is filled with information from another

database. For example, you may have a database that contains customer information and you may

want to access your most current customer list. Let’s assume you wanted to create a custom field on

the Defects screen that contains a list of your customers. To do this, go to the Custom Fields screen for

Defects and enter a field name of Customers and choose the SQL Look Up type. Then enter your SQL to

pull the list of customers:

Choose Requirement to

link there

Choose Requirement Title, this will put all the

Requirement titles into the combo box.

New Requirement field appears

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=FieldBasedChoiceLists




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Once this is done, the Defects screen now has a combo box that lists your customers:

Managing Choice Lists

Choice lists are the items that appear in combo boxes throughout Software Planner. You can change the

list of items in any combo box. For example, if you wish to update a combo box on the Contacts screen,

go to the Contacts screen, add or edit a record, then click the Choice List button:

From here you can add/remove items from the choice list:

Choose Choice List (Based on SQL)

Enter a valid SQL

statement that returns 1

column of data (Contact

name in this case)

Click Choice List




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http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=ChoiceLists

Managing Workflow and State Transitions

With workflow, you can set rules about how items can move from one status to another, what data

items are collected along the way, and set rules for automatically assigning items to specific team

members depending on what status they transition to.

Simply overtype your

changes and press

Submit Changes.

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=ChoiceLists




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Map out your Workflow

Before setting up your workflow, it is a good idea to first map out how your workflow will work. This will

allow you to meet with your team to flesh out the workflow. For example, let’s assume you wanted to

have a custom workflow for tracking Defects. You have decided to implement this workflow model:

Status of New: A new defect is reported, you will require that the title and description of the

defect is entered. If the defect is reviewed and it is not really a defect, it can be closed.

Status of Assigned: Once the new defect has been reviewed, it is assigned to a developer to be

fixed. At this point, you want the title to be locked, the description, priority and severity to be

required.

Status of Resolved: Once the developer fixes the defect, the status is set to Resolved and the

resolution code and description is required.

Status of Closed: Once the defect is checked to ensure it was truly fixed, it can be set to Closed

status.

Here is how the workflow looks graphically:

Setup your Mapped Workflow using Software Planner

To set this workflow up in Software Planner for the example above, go to the Defects Add/Edit screen

and click Choice List. Then click Workflow and State Transitions:

New

Required fields: Title, Description

Assigned

Locked fields: Title

Required fields: Description, Priority, Severity

Closed

No longer a defect

Resolved

Locked fields: Title

Required fields: Description, Priority, Severity,

Resolution Code, Resolution Description

Is a defect

Is NOT a defect




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From here you can set the options to match your workflow you defined graphically:

Edit the list of choice list items.

Once done, the new items will

appear in this combo box.

Click Workflow and

State Transitions.

Click here to toggle

between statuses

In our example, we uncheck

Resolved because we do not want

a New defect to transition to

Resolved until it is Assigned. You can choose field-by-field

which ones are locked,

required, optional or hidden.

If you wish to automatically

assign this item to someone

based on the status being set,

set that here




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Setting up Temporal (Temporary) Transitions

In some cases, you may want to clear the screen and only have the user enter in a selected set of

information. For example, in our example above, when a developer resolves a defect, we may want to

clear the screen of everything but the defect id, title, resolution code and description, so that it is clear

about what needs to be entered and all extraneous information is temporarily hidden. To create this

type of workflow, you will use a temporal transition. Temporal simply means “temporary”, so it will use

a temporary status to collect the information needed at the time, and then it will save that information

and automatically set the status to the next logical state. In this case, it would be the Resolved status.

So to set this up:

Create a new status called Resolve Now

Choose that status and set the “Upon saving, automatically transition to this status:” to

Resolved.

Set the “Can Transition To” to Resolved

In the list of fields, set all fields to hidden except Title, Id, Resolution Code and Description

(make these required).

Here is how it might look:

Then once a programmer sets a status to Resolve Now, it will prompt them for only the Resolution

Code and Description. Once they enter that and press Submit, it will save the record and automatically

set the status to Resolved.




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Setting up Automatic Assignment

If you wish to have an item automatically assigned to a specific person once it reaches a specific status,

you can update your workflow rules for this. To do that, choose the status, and then choose the person

to assign it to. For example, notice below that you can choose any team member to automatically

assign to when a defect enters the New status:

Notice that you can also set the “automatically assign to” to [Remove Assignment]. If this is set, it will

automatically remove the assignment when it enters that status. This can be helpful for removing

assignment when items are closed, etc.

Setting up Automatic Assignment based on Functional Areas (Defects Only)

The Defects workflow has a special type of auto-assignment feature that allows you to automatically

assign defects based on the functional area of the defect. To use this feature, you must first setup your

Defect Functional Areas from the Choice Lists area. Once that is done, you can setup the assignment

rules for each functional area:

If you wish to automatically assign

this item to someone based on the

status being set, set that here.




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Once clicked, you will see a list of each Functional Area and can associate each with an assignee:

Once this is done, set the “automatically assign to” to [Functional Area Assignee]:

Here is where you

manage Functional

Area Assignments

Associate each Functional Area

with an Assignee.




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Setting Screen Layouts

If you wish to set the position in which fields appear on the screen, change the screen layout to 1 or 2

columns, you can do this via Screen Layouts. To access this, go to the Setup tab and click System

Configuration Screen Layouts (then choose the screen you wish to adjust the screen layout). Below

is the screen layouts screen for the Contact Manger. Make your desired changes and press SUBMIT.

Set automatic assignment to

[Functional Area Assignee]

The Listing Screen tab is used to set

the order you wish the column to

appear on the listing screen

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Choose 1 or 2

Columns for the

layout. Individual

users can change

this preference.

The Add/Edit Screen tab is used to

set the order you wish the column to

appear on the add and edit screen

The Required Fields tab is used to

set the fields you wish to require data

entry from the user.




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Setting System Options

System Options allows you to set personal and system wide preferences. System Options can be

accessed from the Setup tab. The screen is divided into 2 sections (Personal Preferences and System

Options).

Personal Preferences

These preferences only affect your screens; it does not affect other team members.

Choose your desired date format.

Choose your time zone;

all date/times are

adjusted based on this. Manage your email

alert preferences

The Default Values tab is used to set the

default values. If a Default Value is

entered, when adding a new record, the

default value will be filled in.

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System Options

These preferences all team members and can only be set by administrators.


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Creating Custom Lists (Knowledge Bases, etc) using the List Manager

The List Manager is a powerful feature that allows you to track information that Software Planner was

not originally designed to track. For example, you may want to track employee birthdays, a list of

hardware in your office (along with the expiration date of their warranty), knowledge base articles, etc.

To create a new list, go to the Lists tab and click Manage Lists, then click Add New:

Let’s assume you would like to create a custom list to track employee vacation requests. As employees

ask for vacation, they can use the list to enter their request, and then their manager can either approve

Click Add New

Choose which screens can use the

rich text editor.

Change your

company name

Your company

name appears here

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or reject them. Once you click Add New, enter the name of the list (e.g. Employee Vacations) and make

it Company Wide (this means that the same vacation list will be seen in all projects). If you make it

Project Specific, only items created in a specific project would be seen there, this will be useful for other

types of lists. Once the list is created, you can then define the fields (or columns) of information to

track:

Once the Fields link is clicked, you can define each field of information you wish track. Below you can

see that we have setup 5 fields to track regarding employee vacations:

1. Employee – This becomes a combo box based on a list of project users.

2. Vacation Date - Date the employee is requesting time off.

3. Status – A choice list to show the status of the request (Awaiting Approval, Approved or

Rejected)

4. Is Sick Day – A checkbox that identifies if the day off is a sick day or vacation day.

5. Comments – Large free form text.

You will notice that the field types are identical to the types offered when setting up custom fields,

providing you with an array of different field type variations. To learn how to create custom fields for

any screen, please refer to this section of this document: Administrator’s Guide Customizing

Software Planner for Your Needs Creating Custom Fields.

Once the new List has been created, you can secure the list so that only specific people have rights to

the list. To learn more about setting security rights, please refer to this section of this document:

Administrator’s Guide Security Setup Setting up Security Groups

To define a field, click Edit and give the field

a name and associate it with a field type.




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Once you have given the correct level of rights, you will notice that the new list will appear in the table

of contents under the Lists section, allowing you to view, add, update and delete items from the list,

below is an example. Ad-hoc reports are automatically created for the list.


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Creating Custom Email Alerts

Software Planner comes with 3 types of standard email alerts:

Assignment Alerts – Notifies you when things are assigned to you.

Ownership Alerts – Notifies you when people change records that you are the owner of.

All Changes – Notifies you when anything changes.

In addition to the standard email alerts, you can create custom email alerts. For example, if you wish to

trigger an email alert when an item’s priority changes to Urgent, you can do that. To create a custom

alert, go to the Home tab, click Email Alerts, then click Add New:

Once here, you can choose the area to set the alert for (Defects, Contact Manager, Quick Tasks, etc),

then you can choose what field will trigger the alert (Quick Task Priority in our example), the value of the

field that triggers the alert (Urgent in our example), then the Body of the email you wish to send when

the alert is triggered. Note that it will automatically place the details of the item into the alert (like the

details of the Quick Task that was changed in our example), so the email message is just the header text

that is shown at the top of the email alert.

Click Add New button




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Customizing Email Alert Templates

Software Planner email alerts are formatted using a default template layout. Using the Email Alert

Templates, you can customize email alerts for each entity within Software Planner.

In the screen shot below you can see the default template layout for the Standard Email Alert for the

Bugs/Defects Entity.

Choose the area that triggers the alert

Choose the field that

triggers the alert

Choose the field value

that triggers the alert

Enter a custom email

message

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To setup Email Alert Templates that can be customized, a set of preferences need to be created for your

department. For Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) clients, contact Pragmatic Support at

www.pragmaticsw.com/support to do this for you. For Enterprise Clients, contact Pragmatic Software

and we will provide SQL to be run on your Pragmatic database to create a set of preferences for each

entity (only select the entities that are needed for customization).

Once the System Preferences have been created with initial default data, you will be able to alter the

default email alert template by following these steps:

1. Go to the Setup tab

2. Go to System Configuration/System Preferences

3. Quick Search on EmailAlerts to find the existing preferences to modify

4. Replace or modify the Subject text in the Value field to customize the subject for the

corresponding email alert. Replace or modify the HTML in the Value field to customize the

email alert in any of the HTML fields. The HTML value can be modified up to 2000 characters.

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We use tokens as place holders which will be replaced based on the data of the record being sent for the

Email Alert. For example, if the Email Alert Subject looks like this:

Defect {Id} – {Title}, when the email alert is sent the {Id} and {Title} will be replaced with the actual

values for that defect and may look like this: Defect 12345 – This is a test defect. The following generic

tokens are available:

{Id} – Unique Id for the record (this is the built in auto incremented field)

{Title} – Title of the record

{AppCode} – Your AppCode (for example, agSP)

{AppName} – Your Application Name (for example, Software Planner)

{ProjId} – Current Project Unique Id

{ProjName} – Current Project Name

{ProjectName} – Current Project Name

{ProjectId} – Current Project Unique Id

You can also use a token based on the name of any existing field. So for Defects you could use a token

of {IssueCode} which would then be replaced with the value of the IssueCode field for that alert. This

works for Email Subject or Body.

We also have tokens setup for specific sections of the default template layout. These tokens are:

{TakeMeThereURL} – Embeds a Take Me There link into the alert so the recipient can click to go directly to the record within Software Planner.

{MostRecentHistory} – Embeds a recent history table in our standard table format.

{Details} – Embeds an HTML table of details of the record using our standard format.

Using the Enterprise Features If you purchased the Enterprise solution, you have additional features that our software-as-as-service

(SaaS) clients do not have access to. Below are the differences:

The Enterprise solution can be hosted on your own server

The Enterprise solution contains only your data in its database (not shared)

The Enterprise solution provides the ability for you to upload your own Crystal Reports and

secure them so that only certain people can access them.

The Enterprise solution provides the ability for you to schedule reports to be run automatically

and distributed via email.

The Enterprise solution allows your team to access a well documented API and Data Dictionary.




41

The Enterprise solution allows you to integrate security with Active Directory.

The Enterprise solution provides a synchronization API for synching data within this software

with software in databases throughout your organization.

The documentation for the Enterprise features is stored in Pragmatic’s Enterprise Portal. This portal

contains the latest version of Software Planner, installation instructions, documentation (data dictionary,

documentation on the API, documentation on the Synchronization API), and access to reports and other

useful utilities. Enterprise clients can be setup to log into the Enterprise Portal. To request a login or to

access the Enterprise Portal, go to http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Enterprise.

Active Directory Integration

To learn about Active Directory Integration, please refer to this section of this document:

Administrator’s Guide Security Setup Active Directory Integration

Using the Data Dictionary

The Data Dictionary identifies the tables and fields for each major area of Software Planner, along with

how each area is related. The data dictionary is available from the Enterprise Portal (Shared Documents

/ Enterprise Documentation / Data Dictionary):

Accessing the API

The API enables you to access the data areas of Software Planner and write code that reads, adds,

updates and deletes information from the database. It includes coding examples of using the API to

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42

access the data. The API is available from the Enterprise Portal (Shared Documents / Enterprise

Documentation / Enterprise API):

Integrating Crystal Reports

The Enterprise solution allows your team to create custom Crystal Reports, change existing ones, or

make derivative reports from existing ones. The Crystal Reports integration engine is very full-featured.

The first step is to create a new Crystal Report (see the Data Dictionary for table and field names). If you

wish to create a Crystal Report from an existing one, you can easily download an existing one from

Software Planner. To do this, go to the Setup tab, Report Setup, and then Report Maintenance. Once

here, you can search for a specific type of report (for example, do a Quick Search on Defect, it will return

a listing of all Defect reports):




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Click the green arrow next to the report name and it will download the Crystal Report to your local PC.

From here, you can change the report and create a new one from it. Once your report is ready for

distribution, you can upload it. If you are replacing an existing report, come back to the screen above,

click Edit, and then click Re-upload (bottom of screen). Once it is re-uploaded, it is ready for use.

If you are uploading a new report, click the Add New button from the screen above, then:

Choose a Report Type of Crystal Report

Choose the Crystal Report RPT file from your hard drive

Once that is done, it uploads the report, automatically sets up the report parameters from the

information stored in Crystal Reports and allows you to save the report in a specific reporting group.

You can also secure the report by choosing a security group:

Search for reports

Click the green arrow to

download a report locally




44

Once your report is uploaded, you will also notice that it automatically setup the Crystal Reports

parameters if any were found in the report. You can use the Report Parameters screen to change the

parameters to combo boxes, default the values, auto-fill values from the session, etc:

Clicking the report parameters link allows you to enter a choice list that the client can choose from, pull

a list of values from a SQL Query, automatically default fields, etc.

Choose what report group to store the report

Choose a security entity (if desired)

If connecting to the Pragmatic

database, leave the connection string

as LOCAL. If creating a report that

accesses another database, enter your

connection string here.

Report Parameters are automatically discovered




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Scheduling Reports to be distributed via Email

Enterprise clients can automatically schedule Crystal Reports to be run at specific intervals (daily, weekly,

monthly, a specific day of the month, etc). Each report can also be set to automatically filter the data by

passing in parameters. This allows you to use a single report for multiple uses. To schedule a report, go

to the Setup tab, Report Setup area and choose Report Scheduler.

Schedule a new report by

clicking Add New

Setup Choice Lists or use

SQL to pull the values

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From here you can schedule the report, pass in parameters, specific the emails for the report to be sent

to, and customize the email subject and body.

Integration with Source Control Systems

For Enterprise clients, Software Planner can integrate with Visual Source Safe, allowing you to check

in/out code from within Software Planner and to associate defects with source code. To learn more

above this feature, see the movie below.


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=VSS

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=VSS




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Integration with Automated Testing Systems

Software Planner integrates with all the major automated testing tools, for more information, see this

topic: . Users Guide -> Managing Automated Test Cases

Integration with other In-house Software

Enterprise clients can integrate data from any ODBC compliant database with Software Planner. To

accomplish this, Pragmatic Software provides a synchronization API that allows you to synchronize data

from Software Planner from/ to any database within your organization. Clients have used this in the

past to synchronize defects from Bugzilla to Software Planner to allow them to migrate to Software

Planner in a staged rollout. Other clients use it to synchronize CRM information from their customer

databases to Pragmatic’s databases.

The synchronization API comes complete with an ODCB synchronization agent that can be up and

running in a matter of hours with no programming. If you wish to add custom rules for your

synchronizations, full source code is available, allowing you to customize the synchronization operation.

Complete documentation for the synchronization API is available from the Enterprise Portal; go to

Shared Documents, Enterprise Documentation, then psSyncDLL API.




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Importing and Exporting Data The following sections discuss importing and exporting data.


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Importing Data

Importing data is easy, simply save your data in comma-separated (CSV) format using any spreadsheet

system and use the import wizard to import the data.

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To access the import wizard, you can access it a couple of ways:

1. You can go to the area you wish to import into, for example, click the Test Cases tab, then click

Actions, then Import.

2. Or you can go to the Setup tab and click Import, then Import Wizard. The following screen

appears:

Choose the area to import into.

Choose the CSV file from your hard drive




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Once Submit is pressed, it imports the items. If you wish to delete an imported batch (in case of an

error), you can go to the Setup tab, choose Import, then choose Import Deleted Batches. From here,

choose the area you imported into (Test Cases for example), it will show you the batches you have

imported. Select the batch and choose Delete Import.

A preview of the records in your CSV file appear

Map each field from the CSV file. If the first

line in your CSV file contains field names

that are the same name as a field in

Pragmatic, it will automatically map the

fields for you, saving time.




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Exporting Data

To export data, go to the listing screen and click Actions / Export. For example, to export your defects,

go to the Defects Listing screen and click Actions/ Export:

If you wish to get an automatic backup of your exported data daily, weekly or monthly, you can sign up

for the Automatic Backup service by going to the Setup tab, then choose Automatic Backup Service.

That service is available for $20 per month.

Click Actions / Export

Filter your data

if you desire

Automatic backup

service




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User’s Guide The User’s Guide is designed to provide information to users that will be using Software Planner on a

day-to-day basis. If you are an administrator and want to learn more about setting up Software Planner,

you can go directly to the Administrator’s Guide section.

Getting Familiar with the User Interface Most screens within the user interface work identically. Once you learn the basic layout and how the

screens work, you will have learned how all screens work. The sections below discuss how the screens

work, how to navigate the user interface, etc.

Organizing your Data

Software Planner allows you to keep all your data in a single project or allows you to separate

information into separate project areas. Within each project, each area of the software also allows you

to organize the information in folders. To see instructions for setting up projects, refer to this section of

the document: Administrator’s Guide Creating New Projects.

Using Search Folders

Search folders allow you to separate information into logical areas. For example, if you are managing

contacts, you may have different types of contacts (opportunities, potential, etc), so you may want to

put them into separate folders:

If you are managing defects, requirements, or test cases, you may want to manage those by release and

iteration (or sprint). Here is an example:

Search folders




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In the folder structure above, if you click on Release 9.0, all items that have a folder name of Release 9.0,

Release 9.0 / Sprint 1, Release 9.0 / Sprint 2 or Release 9.0 / Sprint 3, etc. will appear. If you click on

Release 9.0 / Sprint 1, only the items within that folder will appear because it has no subfolders.

To create a new Search Folder, click Folders and click Add:

Create a new

search folder

For subfolders,

choose a parent




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If you wish to create a subfolder of an existing folder, choose the parent folder name. Enter a folder

name and description (optional) and press Submit. The folder will appear in Software Planner under

the area it was created (Contacts, Defects, etc).

Archiving a Folder

If you wish to archive (hide) the folder, simply edit the Folder by going to the Folders, highlighting the

folder and pressing Edit, then uncheck the Is Active flag. This will hide the search folder but does not

delete any of the data associated with the folder. You can come back and check the Is Active checkbox

to make the folder active again.


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Working with the Home Page

The home page is displayed when you first log in and provides valuable dashboards that allow you to

quickly spot trends and inspect the status of items. The Home Page is separated into a set of tabs.

Bulletins Tab

Your appointments and bulletins are shown in this tab.

Bulletins are shown

Today’s appointments are shown

Switch between sets of

dashboards to obtain

valuable trending and

status information.




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Project Mgt Tab

The Project Management dashboard shows status of Requirements and Project Plans:




57

QA Tab

The QA dashboard shows status of Requirements, Test Cases and Defects. Graphs include trending and

drillable status graphs.




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My Assignments Tab

The My Assignments dashboard shows status of all your assigned items, these graphs are drillable.




59

Burndown Tab

The Burndown dashboard shows how you are progressing in your Release (or Agile sprint). It shows the

baseline estimates (Est Hrs), actual hours, and estimated hours remaining.




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Working with the Listing Screens

Software Planner shows information in a “listing” format. This simply means that you can see a listing,

similar to a spreadsheet. Below is an example:

Items that are overdue show as red, items due today are shown as green, other items are shown as

black.

Sorting the List

If you wish to sort the list, you can click on any column header (like the Company Name above) and it

will sort by that column. Click it again and it will resort in descending order. If you wish to sort by more

than one column, click Actions, then Sort grid, and then choose from up to 5 levels of sorted in

Sort




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ascending or descending order:

Quickly Searching the List

If you wish to quickly search the list, click Quick Search, enter a search phrase, and choose a field to

search (or search all fields), then press Submit:

Creating a Filter

If you wish to filter the list with specific sets of criteria, click the Filters button at the top of the screen.

Enter a search phrase

Quick Search




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If you wish to save the filter for later, enter Save Filter As name.

Choose an existing filter

Choose a field to search

by (e.g. Assigned To)

Choose a condition (e.g.

Exactly Matches = )

Click ellipse (…) to get a list of possible

values. For example, if you are

creating a filter for items assigned to a

specific person, this allows you to

select the specific assignee.




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Saved filters can be accessed directly from the listing screen by simply toggling between filters. Saved

filters are grouped by private (My Filters) and Public filters (Filters everyone can use). The most recently

used filters also appear allowing you to quick toggle between recent filters.


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Send Emails

If you wish to send an email to the list of people, filter the list then click the Send Email link.

Working with the Edit Screens

Depending on your security level, the listing screen might contain an ADD NEW button for adding new

items and/or an Edit button for editing existing items.

Adding, Editing and Deleting Records

To add a new item, click the ADD NEW button:

Toggle between

saved filters. Send Email to the list

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To edit an existing item, click the Edit button or simply click on the row:

To delete an existing item, Edit the item then click the DELETE THIS RECORD checkbox, then press

submit (this is at the bottom of the edit page), if you have security rights that allow you to delete items.

Editing Records

Once you click the Edit button to edit an item, over type your changes and press Submit to change the

item:

Edit

Add New

Delete




65

Tip! If you are editing a date field, place your cursor inside the date field and press the + on your

keyboard to increment the date by one day or – on your keyboard to decrement the date by one day.

Notice that large fields can use a rich text editor, similar to using a word processor. You can control the

position of the items appear on the screen by using the Screen Layouts feature. You can control the list

of values that appear in the combo boxes on the screen by using the Choice Lists feature. You can

manage workflow by using the Workflow and State Transitions feature.

You can also specify if wish to see the screen layout in 1 or 2 column mode by clicking Actions:

Navigate between items

View all the notes and files

associated with this item

Send this person an email

Word processing style data entry

Specify 1 or 2 column mode




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Viewing History of Changes

All changes made to a record are audited and a complete history appears:

Attaching and Associating Notes

You can make notes and keep a history of all notes for the item. When editing an item, a special field

named Latest Notes shows the latest note that was associated with the item.

Attaching and Associating Files

You can attach any type of file to the item (contracts, proposals, screen shots, etc) and they can be in

any format (MS Word, MS Excel, PDF, text file, gif file, etc).

History

Notes




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If you replace an existing file, it gives you the option of versioning the file so that you can keep the new

as well as the old version.

Attaching and Associating Tasks

You can link requirements, test cases and defects to a project plan for tracking time against detailed

tasks that are associated for them. For example, once a requirement is approved, you will want to

create tasks on a project plan for your team members to work on so that you can track their time and

progress. To add tasks to a project plan from within a requirement, edit the requirement and click the

TASKS tab:

Files

Tasks

Add New Task




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To add tasks for this specification to an existing project plan, click the Add New Task link. Note that you

can also add tasks from an existing Task Template if you have tasks that are commonly used in project

plans.

Note: As an alternative to the above method, you can also link requirements, test cases and defects to

an existing project plan from the hierarchical project plan screen. Once the items appear on the project

plan, you can decompose your requirement into tasks that must be completed and assign them to the

appropriate people, and then link each of the tasks to the requirement:

Once tasks are added to the project plan, the project manager can level resources, set assignment

information, set predecessors, etc. As team members work on items associated with the requirement,

Choose the project

plan to add this task to

Choose where to place the

task on the plan

Click Link to item… to associate it with a

requirement, test case or defect.




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they can edit the specification, go to the Tasks tab and click MY HOURS to enter the hours they worked

on the item:

Project Managers can run a timesheet report to see what each team member worked on day-by-day:

Choose the task worked on Enter hours worked and hours

remaining (or pct complete)




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Managing the Software Lifecycle Software Planner manages the entire application lifecycle, including requirements, project management,

test case and defect management. These areas can be linked together to ensure maximum

collaboration and cohesion. For teams that do not need to manage the entire lifecycle, features can be

purchased ala-cart and it also works well independently.

Managing Customer Requirements and Specifications

Before a software project can begin, you must first know what features (or requirements) are necessary

for the software project, which could include new features or enhancements to existing features.


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Software Planner can track the workflow of your requirements, allowing you to analyze the number of

requirements that are new, awaiting approval, awaiting estimate, approved, rejected, closed, etc. These

workflow states are fully configurable. To see instructions for setting up workflow, refer to this section

of the document: Administrator’s Guide Managing Workflow and State Transitions.

To access Requirements, click the Requirements tab. Once here, you will see a list of requirements. For

information on working with the listing screen, refer to this section of the document: User’s Guide

Working with the Listing Screens.

Organizing your Requirements

Software Planner allows you to organize your Requirements any way you wish. For example, you may

consider organizing Requirements by software release, agile sprint, etc. Or you may decide to do it by

product line, software release, etc. For more information on organizing your data, refer to this section

of the document: User’s Guide Organizing Your Data.

When adding new requirements, it is a good idea to use a numbering scheme that will make sets of

requirements easy to identify. A common way to do this is to come up with a standard naming

convention. A popular one is to use a 3 letter identifier to identify the client or team you are working

with, followed by a 4 digit number that identifies the number of Requirements you have done for that

client or team. For example, let’s say you have a client named Desperado Systems and another named

Paris Solutions. Let’s assume you have never done any work for Desperado Systems but have done 5

requirements for Paris Solutions and you are developing a new Requirement for each. The requirement

identifiers would be:


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DES-0001

PAR-0006

When creating requirements, use the identifier in the Title of the Requirement. For example:

DES-0001 Create a Newsletter Opt-In screen

PAR-0006 Create a printer friendly travel itinerary

Tip! To make this easier, Software Planner can automatically generate the sequential number above, if

you put the identifier in this format: AAA-XXXX where AAA is any alphanumeric value. XXXX is replaced

by the next sequential number once saved. For example, in the example above, if you entered

PAR-XXXX My New Requirement in the title of the requirement, once the item is saved, it would change

it to PAR-0007 My New Requirement since 0007 is the next available number to use.

Below is an example of an organized set of requirements that also have good naming conventions:

In the example above, Requirements are organized in this manner:

Product Backlog – This is a list of enhancement requests provided by the client for things that

affect your base product architecture. These items are prioritized when planning new releases

and stay in this folder until they are approved for work in a software release.

Prof Services – Many software organizations also provide professional services and custom

programming. By separating your professional services into different folders, you can easily

analyze those differently than your base product architecture items.

Release 9.0 / Sprint 1 – The release folders indicate the requirements that will be worked on for

a specific release. If you are using Waterfall methodology, you might have a separate release

Organized by Release

Naming conventions

enhance usability




72

folder for each release. If you are using Agile Scrum, you might have subfolders that identify the

sprint within each release.

The organization above is just an example; feel free to organize your requirements in a way that works

well for your organization.

Using the Grouping Tab

In addition to organizing your requirements, you can also use the grouping feature to quick find

requirements based on up to 3 levels of grouping. To do this in the table of contents, choose the

Groups tab then click the Group By button and choose the level 1, level 2 and/or level 3 grouping.

Below is an example of requirements grouped by status and functional area:

To add a new requirement, click the Requirements tab and click the ADD NEW button at the top of the

screen. To update an item, click the EDIT button for the desired item, make your changes and press

SUBMIT. To delete an item, click the EDIT button for the desired item, scroll to the bottom of the page

and check the DELETE THIS RECORD checkbox, press SUBMIT. If you do not have security rights to

update or delete items, those buttons will be hidden. To learn more about securing this area, refer to

this topic of the document: Administrator’s Guide Security Setup.

Tip! If you wish to add a new item that is similar to an existing item you recently added, notice you can

choose a recently entry to auto-fill the data on the screen:

Grouped by Status

and Functional Area




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You can reorganize the edit screen by adding custom fields, change the position in which fields appears

on the edit screen, and you can arrange the edit screen in 1 or 2 column formats. You also specify

which fields are shown, required or optional. To learn more about creating custom fields, refer to this

topic of the document: Administrator’s Guide Creating Custom Fields. To learn more about laying out

your screens, refer to this topic: Administrator’s Guide Setting Screen Layouts.

You can attach files (like requirement documents, contracts, etc) by editing an item, then clicking the

FILES tab, then clicking Add New. You can keep a running set of notes on an item by editing an item,

then clicking the NOTES tab, then clicking Add New.

Integrating Requirements with Project Management

If you plan to use the project management features of Software Planner, you can easily integrate the

requirements area with the project management area. A good approach is to define your requirements

for your software release, then create a project plan for the software release. To create a project plan,

click the Project Management tab, Manage Plans, then Add New. It displays a wizard that allows you to

pull existing requirements onto a project plan. Once the items appear on the project plan, you can

decompose your requirement into tasks that must be completed and assign them to the appropriate

people, and then link each of the tasks to the requirement:

Once they are linked, you are also able to see this linkage from the requirement itself by editing the

requirement and clicking the Tasks tab. Below is an example of a requirement that has 5 associated

tasks:

Click Link to item… to associate

it with a requirement.




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As team members log hours to each task (by clicking the My Hours from the Project Management tab),

the team member will enter the hours worked and either the estimated hours remaining or the

percentage complete (the other field will be automatically be calculated). Once this is done, it will

update both the project plan and the requirement with the estimated hours, actual hours, estimated

start and finish dates, actual start and finish dates and percentage complete at the requirement level

(the numbers are rolled up). This allows your team to quickly identify the progress of each requirement

and determine variances. Below is how the item looks on the project plan that is associated with the

requirement:

Team members can apply time daily

Requirement tied to the project

plan




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Creating Requirement Documents

It is a good idea to create a requirement document that describes the feature being developed and

contains prototypes that can be used by the team to fully understand how the feature is to be

implemented. Doing this has many benefits:

The file can be emailed to your client for approval. Since the file contains screen shots and

prototypes, it will be clear as to exactly how the feature will work.

The file can be used by your quality assurance team to create test cases from and to ensure

traceability and test coverage for the Requirement.

The file can be used by your programming staff so that they understand fully how the feature

should work.

Below is an example of a requirement document (or work order document if you prefer that

terminology). Notice it is broken into sections and has screen shot prototypes. You can obtain a copy

of this and other document templates at http://www.PragmaticSW.com/Templates.

Once you develop the requirement document, you should attach it as a file to the requirement (edit the

requirement, click Files, ADD NEW).

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Templates




76

Requirement Reporting and Dashboards

Once your requirements are entered, you can analyze them with our built-in reports and dashboards.

To view requirement dashboards, click the Requirements tab, then click the Dashboards button:

Below are some standard requirement dashboards. Most of the dashboards can be filtered, run for a

specific folder (release/etc), and drilled into to see details.

Requirements by Status

Dashboards




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Requirements Assigned to Me

Requirements by Assignee




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Requirements by Owner

Requirements Trending




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You can drill into the dashboard details by clicking the graph:

To run reports, go to the Reports tab and choose Requirement Reports. You will find the following

reports:

Requirements Missing Test Cases Traceability – This shows you how many requirements you

have that have no test cases.

Requirements Missing Test Cases Traceability by Folder – This shows you how many

requirements you have that have no test cases and separates this by folder.




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Requirements Trending by Status Last 30 days – This shows you how many requirements you

have, by status, over the past 30 days. This is used for determining how quickly items are being

approved, estimated, etc.

Requirements by Assignee, Project, Status – This graphs the requirements by assignee,

identifying how many items are assigned to each team member. You can drill down on the

charts and summarized information to view the details of each Requirement. This can be run for

a single project or all projects and can hide closed items if desired.

Requirements by Assignee, Status, Project – Similar to the prior report, this one sorts the data

by assignee, status then project and is drillable.

Requirements by Project, Folder, Status – Similar to the prior report, this one sorts the data by

project, folder and status. If your folders represent releases, this is an easy way to analyze

requirements by software release.

Requirements by Project, Status – Similar to the prior report, this one sorts by project and

status and is drillable. When run for all projects, it allows you to compare the number and

status of requirements across all your projects.

Requirements by Project, Status, Group, Subgroup – If you elect to use groups and subgroups,

this report can analyze your requirements by those groups and subgroups within project and

status. For example, you could use group to signify your product line name and subgroup as

modules within the product line. By linking these to each requirement, you can analyze the

information at that level.

Requirements by Status, Group, Subgroup – Similar to the prior report, this report aggregates

the information by status, rolling up multiple projects into one report when run for all projects.

Requirements by Status, Projects – Similar to the prior report, this ignores grouping and

subgrouping and analyzes the requirements by status then project.

Requirements with Detail – Shows detailed information in printable format for each

requirement.

In addition to the standard reports above, you can also run ad-hoc reports. We offer 2 types of ad-hoc

reports, ad-hoc summary and ad-hoc detail reports.

An ad-hoc detail report can be accessed by clicking the Reports tab / Ad-hoc Detail. From here, choose

Requirements Report. From here, you can choose a filter to restrict the items shown on the report, the

fields to show on the report, and the sort order. You can also choose to send the report to others via

email by entering a list of email addresses, separated by semicolons.

An ad-hoc summary report can be accessed by clicking the Reports tab / Ad-hoc Summary. From here,

choose Requirement Summary. This report analyzes the number of requirements you have, grouped

by any fields you desire. This report is excellent for preparing for meetings where you are discussing the




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progress of your release. Below is an example:

In the example above, we can see that we have 16 requirements in the Release 9.0 Sprint 2 release, all

are approved and we can see who they are assigned to. Notice that you can show this information

across projects, you can filter the data, and you can group it by any major and minor grouping you desire.

Providing Project Management for a Release, Iteration or Sprint

Software Planner provides 2 types of project management features, advanced project management and

simple project management. Advanced project management is a resource based project management

tool that allows you to create projects, set up task dependencies, establish working hours, holidays,

vacations and hourly rates for each employee, so that the employees are not scheduled to work on days

they are off. For teams that do not need the power of advanced project management, we offer simple

project management. This feature allows teams to track tasks without the need to automatically

schedule start/end dates or do resource allocation. Most teams will choose either the project

management method that works best for them; it would be rare to use both methods simultaneously.

Advanced Project Management

Software Planner provides hierarchical project management features that allow you to manage all

software projects across all teams and obtain visibility and metrics across all your projects. You can use

this to track the status, hours logged, variances and percentage complete of all projects and individual

tasks within each project. You can quickly identify slipping tasks and who is causing the slippage – so

that you can give them help before it impacts others.




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If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates these topics, use the link below:


To create a new project plan, click the Project Management tab, then choose Manage Plans. From here

you can create a project plan from scratch or you can use the wizard to create a project plan from a list

of existing requirements , test cases and/or defects. For more information on integrating requirements

with projects plans, see the topic in this document: User’s Guide Managing Customer Requirements

and Specifications.

Below is an example of a project plan:

Use the green + icon to add new tasks under existing ones or the red X icon to delete tasks. Use the left

and right orange arrows to indent or un-indent tasks. Once a task is entered with an associated

estimated hours and assignee, the estimated finish date is automatically calculated based on

dependencies, and resource availability.

If assigning an item will over-allocate a resource, you will notice a red exclamation icon next to the

assignment. When clicked, this will show an over-allocation report that shows what items conflicted

and cause the resource to be over-allocated. To set the working hours, billing rates, holidays and

vacations for a resource, click the WORK TIME button at the top of the screen. To move items from this

project plan to another, click the FAST EDIT button at the top of the screen. To add additional

Requirements, Test Cases or defects to the project plan, click the ADD WIZARD button from the top of

the screen. You can also use this to create additional tasks based on task template. Below is how the

over-allocation icon looks:





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If you click the over-allocation icon, you will see an over-allocation report:

You can also link requirements, test cases and defects to an existing project plan from the hierarchical

project plan screen. Once the items appear on the project plan, you can decompose your requirement

into tasks that must be completed and assign them to the appropriate people, and then link each of the

tasks to the requirement:

Click Link to item… to associate it with a

requirement, test case or defect.

Resource was over-

allocated




84

Once tasks are added to the project plan, the project manager can level resources, set assignment

information, set predecessors, etc.

Project Management Reporting and Dashboards

When you open the Project Management tab, you will notice a dashboard button that shows a number

of dashboards related to the project management area:

Below are some standard Project Management dashboards. Most of the dashboards can be filtered, run

for a specific folder (release/etc), and drilled into to see details.

Dashboards




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Project Plan Status

Slipping Tasks

Analyze all projects at a glance,

including professional services.

Analyze tasks that are

slipping and who is causing

the slippage




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Project Burndown

This chart shows how you are progressing in your release; it shows the trend line for expected hours

remaining and the actual hours remaining during your project timeline. Any plots above the red line

indicate that you might not get completed on time. Plots below the red line show that you’re on track

to complete on time.

Additionally, you can access the following reports by going to the Reports tab / Advanced Project Plans:

Assignee Allocation Report – This report shows all tasks assigned to an assignee during a

specific time period. Overdue items are shown in red.

Gantt Chart – This report shows the tasks in a graphical format to allow you to determine the

dependency between tasks and the progression towards completion. The Gantt chart can be

run across projects, for specific project plans and/or assignees and by date range.

Project Profitability Report by Project Plan Assignee (Project Manager) – Run for a specific time

period, this report analyzes all completed project plans (percentage complete of 100%) and

shows the profitability of each task on the project plan. The profitability is calculated as the




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external costs minus the internal costs (what you sold it for vs. what it cost you). This specific

report is grouped by project manager, allowing you to compare one project manager’s

profitability to another’s.

Project Profitability Report by Project Plan Owner – Run for a specific time period, this report

analyzes all completed project plans (percentage complete of 100%) and shows the profitability

of each task on the project plan. The profitability is calculated as the external costs minus the

internal costs (what you sold it for vs. what it cost you). This specific report is grouped by owner,

allowing you to compare one owner’s profitability to another’s.

Release Report – This report shows everything that went into a specific release (shows project

plan tasks, Requirements and defects. This can be used for release management and can be run

by folder (software release if that is the way you are using folders).

Resource Allocations by Assignee – This report shows all tasks assigned to each employee

beginning on a specific date.

Resource Allocations by Project, Project Plan, Assignee – This report shows all tasks assigned to

each employee beginning on a specific date for a specific project and project plan.

Timesheets by Project Plan, Week – This report shows all timesheets entered for each project

plan and separates them by week. It can be run to begin showing timesheets at any week

desired.

Timesheets by Week – This report shows all timesheets entered for each week, regardless of

what project plan they were applied to. It can be run to begin showing timesheets at any week

desired. This can be used to determine what each individual has worked on for each week.

Variance by Project, Project Plan, Assignee – This report shows estimates vs. actual for each

project, project plan and assignee. This can be used to determine what project plans were

delivered below, on or over their estimates and what individuals on the team came in below, on

or above their estimates. This can be used to help team members improve their estimating

skills.

Variance by Project, Project Plan, Owner – This report shows estimates vs. actual for each

project, project plan and owner. This can be used to determine what project plans were

delivered below, on or over their estimates and what owners (this is normally the product

manager or supervisor) on the team came in below, on or above their estimates. This can be

used to help team members improve their estimating skills.

Below are some example reports, there are many others available:




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Timesheets by Week

Variance Reports

Timesheet reports show who

worked on what

Variance Reports show estimated

vs. actual hours and costs




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Simple Project Management

For teams that do not require advance project management features like resource allocation,

automatically calculated dates and predecessor management, simple project management can be used

to track tasks and the status of their completion. This feature is called Quick Tasks.


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=QuickTasks

Software Planner can track the workflow of your Quick Tasks, allowing you to analyze the number of

tasks that are new, awaiting approval, awaiting estimate, approved, rejected, closed, etc. These

workflow states are fully configurable. To see instructions for setting up workflow, refer to this section

of the document: Administrator’s Guide Managing Workflow and State Transitions.

To access the simple project management feature, click Project Management / Quick Tasks.

Once here, you will see a list of Quick Tasks. For information on working with the listing screen, refer to

this section of the document: User’s Guide Working with the Listing Screens.

Organizing your Quick Tasks

Software Planner allows you to organize your Quick Tasks any way you wish. For example, you may

consider organizing them by software release, agile sprint, etc. Or you may decide to do it by product

line, software release, etc. For more information on organizing your data, refer to this section of the

document: User’s Guide Organizing Your Data.

Quick Task Reports

Once your Quick Tasks are entered, you can analyze them with our built-in reports and dashboards. To

run reports, go to the Reports tab and choose Quick Task Reports. You will find the following reports:

Quick Task Entry by Person Worked – This report shows all hours logged to each Quick Tasks for

a specific time period and is broken out by week.

Quick Task folders

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=QuickTasks




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Quick Task Trending Last 30 Days – This reports shows a trending graph of all Quick Tasks by

status over the past 30 days.

Quick Task Variance by Project – This report identifies each task for each project and shows the

estimated vs. actual hours and costs. This report can be used to aid your employees in

improving their estimating skills.

Quick Task Variance by Project, Assignee – This report identifies each task for each project and

shows the estimated vs. actual hours and costs, but is it broken down by assignee. This report

can be used to aid your employees in improving their estimating skills, as it shows how each

employee compares to another by analyzing their estimate vs. actual.

Quick Task Variance by Project, Folder – This report identifies each task for each project and

shows the estimated vs. actual hours and costs, but is it broken down by folder. If you are using

folders to separate projects by software release, this can identify the variances of each software

release.

Quick Task Variance by Project, Owner – This report identifies each task for each project and

shows the estimated vs. actual hours and costs, but is it broken down by owner (which is

normally the project manager). This report can be used to aid your employees in improving

their estimating skills, as it shows how each employee compares to another by analyzing their

estimate vs. actual.




Quick Tasks Report. From here, you can choose a filter to restrict the items shown on the report, the




choose Quick Task Summary. This report analyzes the number of Quick Tasks you have, grouped by

any fields you desire. This report is excellent for preparing for meetings where you are discussing the

progress of the tasks in your release.




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Managing Manual Test Cases

Once a requirement has been defined, it is wise to create test cases to ensure that the requirement is

fully tested. When creating test cases, you can link each test case back to the requirement to ensure

you have good test coverage for each area of the requirement.


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=TestCases

Once test cases are written for a requirement (and before coding begins), publish those test cases to the

programmer that is developing the code. Ensure that your project manager adds a task for the

programmer to run each test case prior to delivering it to the test team for testing. This approach may

add a few hours (or a few days) to the programmer's task list but will pay dividends by reducing the

number of defects found and improving the quality of the release. By following this approach, you can

expect 70% - 80% less defects and can reduce the quality assurance time by 75% or more.

To access test cases, click the Test Cases tab. Once here, you will see a list of test cases. For information

on working with the listing screen, refer to this section of the document: User’s Guide Working with

the Listing Screens.

Software Planner can track the workflow of your test cases, allowing you to analyze the number of test

cases that are awaiting run, passed or failed. These workflow states are fully configurable. To see

instructions for setting up workflow, refer to this section of the document: Administrator’s Guide

Managing Workflow and State Transitions.

Organizing your Test Cases

Software Planner allows you to organize your test cases any way you wish. For example, you may

consider organizing test cases by software release, agile sprint, etc. Or you may decide to do it by

product line, component or functional area, etc. For more information on organizing your data, refer to

this section of the document: User’s Guide Organizing Your Data.


In addition to organizing your test cases, you can also use the grouping feature to quick find test cases

based on up to 3 levels of grouping. To do this, in the table of contents, choose the Groups tab then

click the Group By button and choose the level 1, level 2 and/or level 3 grouping. Below is an example

of test cases grouped by status and assignee:

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=TestCases




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Organizing Regression Test Cases

If your team is using manual test cases for regression, it is good practice to house a set of regression test

cases that can be used from release to release. To do this, simply create a folder named Regression

Template and store your regression test cases there. At the end of each release, it is good practice to

review test cases for new features that were added in the subsequent release and convert test cases

from that to your regression set.

Below is how your Regression Template might look:

Regression template

Grouped by Status and Assigned To




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Organizing Test Runs for Regression Testing

As you embark in testing for a new release, you can use the FAST EDIT feature to copy the regression

test cases into the Release folder. For example, in the example above, here is how you would copy all

the regression test cases into the Release 9.0 folder:

1. Click the Test Cases tab

2. Click the Regression Template folder

3. Click the FAST EDIT at the top of the page

4. Choose Copy items from one folder to another

5. Click Select All to select all test cases (or you choose them individually)

6. Expand the list of folders on the right panel of the screen until you find the folder you wish to

copy them to (Release 9.0 in this example)

7. Drag and drop the items into the Release 9.0 folder.

8. Navigate to the Release 9.0 folder; notice all the regression test cases have been copied here.

Maintaining Test Cases

To add a new Test Case, go to the Test Case tab and click the ADD NEW button at the top of the screen.

To update an item, click the EDIT button for the desired item, make your changes and press SUBMIT. To

delete an item, click the EDIT button for the desired item, scroll to the bottom of the page and check the

DELETE THIS RECORD checkbox, press SUBMIT. If you do not have security rights to update or delete

items, those buttons will be hidden. To learn more about securing this area, refer to this topic of the

document: Administrator’s Guide Security Setup.











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You can attach files (like test plans, etc) by editing an item, then clicking the FILES tab, then clicking Add

New. You can keep a running set of notes on an item by editing an item, then clicking the NOTES tab,

then clicking Add New.

Test Case Traceability

When developing test cases, it is important to ensure that you are prepared to fully test all features of a

specific requirement. The act of linking test cases to a Requirement with the goal of ensuring adequate

test coverage is called Test Case Traceability. Software Planner has several ways to ensure your test

cases have traceability.


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=Traceability

The first step is to link the test cases back to a requirement(s). To do this, click Requirements /

Traceability.

From here, you can see how many test cases are already linked (if any). To link test cases, click Link

Items…

It shows how many

test cases are linked.

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=Traceability




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An alternative way to link test cases to a requirement is to edit the requirement and click Link to Items…

Step 1 - Find the test

cases to link

Step 2 – Drag /Drop

desired test cases to left

panel to link

Step 3 – Linked test

cases displayed here

Link while editing a

requirement.




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To run a traceability report for a specific requirement, edit the requirement and click the Traceability

Report.




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Another way to see traceability is to run a Test Case to Requirement Traceability report. Do this by

clicking the Reports tab / Test Case Reports / choose Test Case to Requirement Traceability report.

This report lists each requirement and all the associated test cases (with their current status):

Test Case to Requirement Traceability Report

Other reports that aid in traceability are in the Requirements Reports section of the Reports tab:

Requirements Missing Test Cases Traceability – Shows each requirement that has no associated

test cases.

Requirements Missing Test Cases Traceability by Folder - Shows each requirement that has no

associated test cases, grouping this by folder.

Automatically Creating Defects from Failed Test Cases

Software Planner can save your QA staff time by automatically generating defects when test cases fail.

To do this, edit a test case and change the status to Failed. At the bottom of the screen is a checkbox

named “Automatically Generate Defect upon Failed Test Case?” If this is clicked, it will create a defect,

automatically filling in all the details from the test case (like steps to reproduce, expected results, etc).




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It will also create a linkage between the failed test case and the associated defect. You can quickly see

which defects were linked from test cases by clicking Defects / Traceability. Once this is done, it shows

the test case(s) linked to the defect and you can drill into the list of test cases by clicking the link:

You can also manually link a test case to a defect by editing a test case and clicking the NEW DEFECT

button at the top of the screen. Conversely, you can automatically create a test case from an existing

defect by editing a defect and clicking the NEW TEST CASE button at the top of the screen.

Top 10 Negative Test Cases

When developing test cases, it is important to create positive and negative test cases. Positive test

cases test the feature as it was designed to work. Negative test cases test the feature in ways the

designer or programmer may not have thought of. To help with this, we have identified 10 types of

negative test cases you should consider when testing a feature.

1. Embedded Single Quote - Most SQL based database systems have issues when users store information that contains a single quote (e.g. John's car). For each screen that accepts alphanumeric data entry, try entering text that contains one or more single quotes.

2. Required Data Entry - Your Requirement should clearly indicate fields that require data entry on screens. Test each field on the screen that has been indicated as being required to ensure it forces you to enter data in the field.

3. Field Type Test - Your requirement should clearly indicate fields that require specific data entry requirements (date fields, numeric fields, phone numbers, zip codes, etc). Test each field on the screen that has been indicated as having special types to ensure it forces you to enter data in the correct format based on the field type (numeric fields should not allow alphabetic or special characters, date fields should require a valid date, etc).

Test Case linked

to a defect




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4. Field Size Test - Your requirement should clearly indicate the number of characters you can enter into a field (for example, the first name must be 50 or less characters). Write test cases to ensure that you can only enter the specified number of characters. Preventing the user from entering more characters than is allowed is more elegant than giving an error message after they have already entered too many characters.

5. Numeric Bounds Test - For numeric fields, it is important to test for lower and upper bounds. For example, if you are calculating interest charged to an account, you would never have a negative interest amount applied to an account that earns interest, therefore, you should try testing it with a negative number. Likewise, if your requirement requires that a field be in a specific range (e.g. from 10 to 50), you should try entering 9 or 51; it should fail with a graceful message.

6. Numeric Limits Test - Most database systems and programming languages allow numeric items to be identified as integers or long integers. Normally, an integer has a range of -32,767 to 32,767 and long integers can range from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. For numeric data entry that do not have specified bounds limits, work with these limits to ensure that it does not get a numeric overflow error.

7. Date Bounds Test - For date fields, it is important to test for lower and upper bounds. For example, if you are checking a birth date field, it is probably a good bet that the person's birth date is no older than 150 years ago. Likewise, their birth date should not be a date in the future.

8. Date Validity - For date fields, it is important to ensure that invalid dates are not allowed (04/31/2007 is an invalid date). Your test cases should also check for leap years (every 4th and 400th year is a leap year).

9. Web Session Testing - Many web applications rely on the browser session to keep track of the person logged in, settings for the application, etc. Most screens in a web application are not designed to be launched without first logging in. Create test cases to launch web pages within the application without first logging in. The web application should ensure it has a valid logged in session before rendering pages within the application.

10. Performance Changes - As you release new versions of your product, you should have a set of performance tests that you run that identify the speed of your screens (screens that list information, screens that add/update/delete data, etc). Your test suite should include test cases that compare the prior release performance statistics to the current release. This can aid in identifying potential performance problems that will be manifested with code changes to the current release.

Test Case Reporting and Dashboards

Once your test cases are entered, you can analyze them with our built-in reports and dashboards. To

view Requirement dashboards, click the Test Case tab, then click the Dashboards button:




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Below are some standard test case dashboards. Most of the dashboards can be filtered, run for a

specific folder (release/etc), and drilled into to see details.

Test Case Trending

Dashboards




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My Assigned Test Cases

Test Cases by Assignee




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Test Cases by Owner (QA Manager)

You can also drill into any dashboard to get the details:




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To run reports, go to the Reports tab and choose Test Case Reports. You will find the following reports:

Test Case Run History – Beginning at any date, this report shows all test cases that have been

run since that date. If a specific test case has been run multiple times, it shows the date/time it

was run, who ran it, and the result of the run. The report is organized by project and

requirement and can be run for a single project or all projects.

Test Case to Requirement Traceability – This report shows all requirements and their associated

test cases. It also includes defects that are linked to test cases, providing you with the ability to

quickly determine if you have adequate test coverage for each requirement. It can be run for a

single project or all projects.

Test Case to Requirement Traceability by Folder – This report is identical to the Test Case to

Requirement Traceability report but is separated by Project and Folder. If you are using folders

to identify your software release, this provides the ability to see traceability for each software

release.

Test Case Trending by Status Last 30 days – This shows you how many test cases you have, by

status, over the past 30 days. This is used for determining how the testing effort is progressing,

as it shows how many test cases were awaiting run, passed and failed over time.

Test Cases by Assignee, Project, Status – This graphs the test cases by assignee, identifying how

many items are assigned to each team member. You can drill down on the charts and

summarized information to view the details of each test case. This can be run for a single

project or all projects and can hide closed items if desired.

Test Cases by Assignee, Status, Project – Similar to the prior report, this one sorts the data by

assignee, status then project and is drillable.

Test Cases by Project, Folder, Status – Similar to the prior report, this one sorts the data by

project, folder and status. If your folders represent releases, this is an easy way to analyze test

cases by software release.

Test Case by Project, Status – Similar to the prior report, this one sorts by project and status and

is drillable. When run for all projects, it allows you to compare the number and status of test

cases across all your projects.

Test Cases by Status, Project – Similar to the prior report, this analyzes the test cases by status

then project.

Test Cases with Detail – Before launching this report, you can choose the current project or all

projects and one or more statuses to view the test detail. This printable report can be used for

QA triage and meetings to see the details of each test case.




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Test Cases Report. From here, you can choose a filter to restrict the items shown on the report, the




choose Test Case Summary. This report analyzes the number of test cases you have, grouped by any

fields you desire. This report is excellent for preparing for meetings where you are discussing the

progress of your release. Below is an example:

In the example above, we can see the number of test cases we have for each Requirement in the

release named Release 9.1/Sprint 1. Notice that you can show this information across projects; you

can filter the data, group it, save it as a spreadsheet and print it.

Managing Automated Test Cases

Software Planner integrates with all the major automated testing tools, including HP Quick Test Pro,

Mercury Win Runner, Automated QA Test Complete, Silk, Rational Robot, and Rational Functional Tester,

and we are adding new integrations each month.

When to Automate Regression Test Cases

Many companies run their regression test cases manually, so when does it make sense to begin

automating your regression test cases? It makes sense to automate your test cases when you can no




105

longer run the regression test cases on each build created. For example, if you are doing daily or weekly

builds of your code to quality assurance and you cannot quickly run your regression test cases with each

build, it is time to consider automating them.

To automate test cases, you must purchase an automated testing tool. There are many great tools on

the market, including Automated QA Test Complete, HP Quick Test Pro, Mercury Win Runner, Silk,

Rational Robot and Rational Functional Tester, just to name a few. We normally recommend

Automated QA Test Complete (http://www.TestComplete.com), as it is competitively priced and has

similar features as the others.

Once you have purchased an automated tool, you can use the tool to create your regression test cases.

Each test case becomes a script. Many tools have record and playback features where you can turn the

recorder on, open your software and perform the actions for a test scenario, then save the recording.

This is a great way to learn the scripting engine, but it is not usually adequate to create well designed

automated test scripts.

Normally, you will want to have a technically minded software quality engineer in your organization that

creates and maintains the automated scripts, as using these tools require knowledge of the tool,

programming skills and great trouble shooting skills.

If you are initially creating your automation strategy, it is wise to consult with an automation expert to

ensure best practices for your automation design. There are many companies that specialize in this; we

have worked extensively with STAR (http://www.star-qa.com) with great results. Contracting with an

automation expert can save effort and costs in the long term, as they will normally work with you to

provide an automation framework that will be reusable and can provide training to your software

quality engineer(s), allowing them to make great strides with their automation skill set in very little time.

If you would like to see how Software Planner integrates with the major automated testing tools, watch

a narrated movie at http://www.pragmaticsoftware.com/guidedtours/automatedtesting.htm.

Best Practices for Automation Analysis

Once your regression test cases are automated, they should be automatically run upon new builds of

your software. If you can do daily builds of your software into your quality assurance environment, this

is ideal. Once the automation is running daily, you will need a way to quickly determine how many

automation test cases were run, how many passed and how many failed. For failed tests, you will want

to drill into the detailed logs to determine what caused the failure.

http://www.testcomplete.com/

http://www.star-qa.com/

http://www.pragmaticsoftware.com/guidedtours/automatedtesting.htm




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By integrating automated testing into Software Planner, you can launch the tests from within Software

Planner, create test sets, analyze the results (which tests passed or failed), and automatically send

emails upon test completion. You can also trend these results using graphical dashboards.

Automatic Test Case Detection

Software Planner can automatically scan a directory containing your automation test scripts and create

test cases within Software Planner without any intervention from a human. Below is a screen that

shows test cases that were automatically found and created by Software Planner. Notice it can scan for

any of the major automated tools.




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Test Sets

Once automated test cases have been detected, you can create test sets. Test sets are simply a way to

group a set of automated test cases together to test specific areas of your software. Below is an

example of test sets in Software Planner:

Kicking off the test set is a simple as clicking the Execute link. Below is an example of one of the test

sets above with the associated test cases:




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Analyzing the Test Runs

Software Planner provides reports and dashboards that show the results of each automation run. Below

is a trending report that shows the daily runs:




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Automated Testing Return on Investment

You should see a return on investment within one release of your software after implementing an

automation test strategy. This will be achieved by:

Quicker Releases – By having your regression test cases run automatically, your software quality

team can concentrate on testing new features of your software and less time regressing existing

features.

Higher quality releases – Your software releases will have fewer bugs and require less customer

support because they will be of higher quality.

Happier Customers – Your customers will be happier and more willing to serve as testimonials

for future prospects.

Managing Defects, Bugs and Issues

Software Planner allows you to track defects that are found by your team members and clients and

manage the resolution of those defects. If you subscribe to the support management feature, support

tickets can also be tracked and will flow into the defect section of Software Planner. As defects are

logged, team members can be alerted via email as items are assigned to them or as items they own are

changed.


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=Defects

Software Planner can track the workflow of your defects, allowing you to analyze the number of defects

that are assigned, resolved, on hold, closed, etc. These workflow states are fully configurable. To see

instructions for setting up workflow, refer to this section of the document: Administrator’s Guide

Managing Workflow and State Transitions.

To access defects, click the Defects tab. Once here, you will see a list of defects. For information on

working with the listing screen, refer to this section of the document: User’s Guide Working with the

Listing Screens.

Organizing your Defects

Software Planner allows you to organize your defects any way you wish. For example, you may consider

organizing defects by software release, agile sprint, etc. Or you may decide to do it by product line,

software release, etc. You may also consider having all your support tickets flow into a folder named

Support Tickets. For more information on organizing your data, refer to this section of the document:

User’s Guide Organizing Your Data.

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=Defects




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Below is an example of an organized set of defects:

In the example above, defects are organized in this manner:

Defect Backlog – For defects that are not very important (rarely noticed), you can put those into

a folder named Defect Backlog and work on those as time allows.

Prof Services – Many software organizations also provide professional services and custom

programming. By separating your professional services into different folders, you can easily

analyze those differently than your base product architecture items.

Release 9.0 / Sprint 1 / etc. – The release folders indicate the requirements that will be worked

on for a specific release. If you are using Waterfall methodology, you might have a separate

release folder for each release. If you are using Agile Scrum, you might have subfolders that

identify the sprint within each release.

Support Tickets – If using the Support Management feature, you can separate support tickets

from other defects.

The organization above is just an example; feel free to organize your defects in a way that works well for

your organization.


In addition to organizing your defects, you can also use the grouping feature to quick find defects based

on up to 3 levels of grouping. To do this, in the table of contents, choose the Groups tab then click the

Organized by Release

Support Tickets




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Group By button and choose the level 1, level 2 and/or level 3 grouping. Below is an example of defects

grouped by status, severity and assignee:

To add a new defect, go to the defect listing screen and click the ADD NEW button at the top of the

screen. To update an item, click the EDIT button for the desired item, make your changes and press

SUBMIT. To delete an item, click the EDIT button for the desired item, scroll to the bottom of the page

and check the DELETE THIS RECORD checkbox, press SUBMIT. If you do not have security rights to

update or delete items, those buttons will be hidden. To learn more about securing this area, refer to

this topic of the document: Administrator’s Guide Security Setup.






Grouped by Status, Severity and Assigned To




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You can attach files (like screen shots, etc) by editing an item, then clicking the FILES tab, then clicking

Add New. You can keep a running set of notes on an item by editing an item, then clicking the NOTES

tab, then clicking Add New.

Creating Test Cases from a Defect

If you have a defect that would make a great test case (to ensure it is tested in subsequent releases),

you can edit a defect then click the NEW TEST CASE button at the top of the screen. This will create a

new test case from the details of the defect and create a linkage between the two.

Tips for Creating Solid Defects

Tip 1 - Create a descriptive Title

Include a descriptive title with each defect. The title is the short description of a defect. Notice in the

2nd example below, the defect titles contain error numbers and better describes the issue.

Poor defect titles:

Screen crashes

Issue found when adding an invoice

Better defect titles:

Error -214123556 when printing an invoice using HP 6210 printer

Invalid Use of Null error when adding an invoice in Customer Portal

Tip 2 - Create detailed Steps to Reproduce

Steps to Reproduce are the most critical part of your defect report; it should describe how to reproduce

the error. It is easiest to follow if the Steps to Reproduce are numbered and begin with information

about the person logging in and what project or workspace they were working in. Notice in the 2nd

example below, we first told the programmer what software we were logging into, along with the User

Id we used. Next, we identified the workspace we were working in. Next, we described the exact invoice

number we were working on and explained the exact steps to produce the issue, along with our

expected results.

Poor Steps to Reproduce:

Once italic font style been applied to the text it cannot be undone clicking the "i' or Remove formatting

icons.

Better Steps to Reproduce:

1. Log into Widgets Invoicing program (version 4.1) using User Id abc00012




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2. Select workspace named "My Sandbox"

3. Click Search, enter Invoice number 18738766, press Go

4. Once invoice is displayed, click EDIT

5. Once in edit mode, highlight the invoice address

6. Press the italics button on the editor toolbar to change the entire address to italics font.

7. Once italics is pressed, press CTRL+Z to undo the italics

8. It keeps the address in italics; it should revert back to no italics

Tip 3 - Attach Screen Shots

When describing a defect, many times a picture is worth a thousand words. In most cases, you should

attach a screen shot that describes the error you received or what is not correct. Learn to use a basic

paint program to draw on the screen shot to give more details. Below is an example:

Defect Reporting and Dashboards

Once your Defects are entered, you can analyze them with our built-in reports and dashboards. To view

defect dashboards, click the Defects tab, then click the Dashboards button.




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Below are some standard defect dashboards. Most of the dashboards can be filtered, run for a specific

folder (release/etc), and drilled into to see details.

Defects Trended Over Time

Defects by Status and Severity

Dashboards




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Defects by Priority

You can also drill into the details by clicking the graph:

To run reports, go to the Reports tab and choose Defect Reports. You will find the following reports:




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Age of Outstanding Defects – This analyzes how long defects have been in a specific status,

measured in the number of days (based on a 5 day work week). By using this report, you can

analyze this software release by release (if you are using folders this way) to determine if your

defects are being resolved more quickly or not. This report can be filtered and run for all

projects or specific projects. It can also be limited to specific folders or can be run to analyze all

folders.

Defect Duration by Project, Status – This analyzes how long defects have been in a specific

status, measured in days, hours and 8 hour days and is run for any status changes based on a

beginning date. This report can be run for all projects or a specific project. Unlike the Age of

Outstanding Defects report, this report shows the individual detail records that make up the

numbers.

Defect Duration by Status – This report is similar to the Defect Duration by Project Status

report, but it aggregates the information by status instead of status within project. This report

can be run for any set of projects.

Defect as a Percentage of Test Cases – This report shows the number of Test Cases and defects

for each project and/or folder and calculates the percentage of defects to Test Cases. This can

be used to determine if adding additional Test Cases increase or reduce the number of defects

found. By utilizing folders, you can then compare one software release to another. This report

can be filtered and run for all projects or a specific folder.

Defects Trending by Status Last 30 days – This shows you how many defects you have, by status,

over the past 30 days. This is used for determining how quickly items are being resolved and

closed.

Defects by Assignee, Project, Status – This graphs the defects by assignee, identifying how

many items are assigned to each team member. You can drill down on the charts and

summarized information to view the details of each defect. This can be run for a single project

or all projects and can hide closed items if desired.

Defects by Project, Folder, Status – Similar to the prior report, this one sorts the data by project,

folder and status. If your folders represent releases, this is an easy way to analyze defects by

software release.

Defects by Status, Projects – Similar to the prior report, this report analyzes the defects by

status then project.

Defects by Project, Status, Priority, Severity – This report allows you to determine the number

of defects by their current status and how high the priority and severity is. The report can be

run for all projects or a single project and is drillable.

Defects by Status, Priority, Severity, Project – This report is similar to the prior one but

aggregates defect at the status level. The report can be run for all projects or a single project

and is drillable.




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Defects with Detail - Before launching this report, you can choose the current project or all

projects and one or more statuses to view the defect detail. This printable report can be used

for QA triage and meetings to see the details of each defect.

Daily Summary Report – This report analyzes the defects in a variety of ways (by assignee,

owner, status, priority, severity, etc.). This report can be scheduled via the Email Alerts screen,

you can receive it via email daily or weekly.




Defects Report. From here, you can choose a filter to restrict the items shown on the report, the fields

to show on the report, and the sort order. You can also choose to send the report to others via email by

entering a list of email addresses, separated by semicolons.


choose Defect Summary. This report analyzes the number of defects you have, grouped by any fields

you desire. This report is excellent for preparing for meetings where you are discussing the progress of

your testing effort. Below is an example:

Notice that you can show this information across projects, you can filter the data, and you can group it

by any major and minor grouping you desire.




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Managing Support Tickets / Customer Portal

Software Planner provides a support ticket management tool that allows clients and internal staff to log

support issues and enhancement requests. It allows them to track the status of each ticket online and

can be used to send surveys so that you can track how well your support team is providing customer

support. You can trend support tickets over time to see if you are getting more or less support tickets

over time.


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=SupportManager

Once you subscribe to the Support Ticket feature, you can add a support link from your website,

allowing clients to enter support tickets. You can either force them to log in (for extended support) or

not require a login. Below is an example of how it was implemented for a power company (First Choice

Power):

Clients go to the First Choice Power website and click the Support link, and then they log in:

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=SupportManager




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Once logged in, they see a branded support page (it will be branded to your company):




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Once the ticket is added, it shows the client the ticket number:

The client and our support team are notified via email of the ticket:




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The client can check the status of their ticket online at any time:

The ticket flows inside of Software Planner, allowing you to analyze and track the tickets:




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You will also be able to analyze tickets over time:

Empowering Collaboration between Team Members Software Planner offers several collaborative features designed to boost collaboration between team

members. The document sharing features allows you to create folders and subfolders and upload

documents (brochures, marketing materials, detail designs, etc), replacing the need for FTP. The

discussion forums allow teams to create forums and post messages, automatically alerting the recipients

via email. This can greatly increase team communication. The calendar feature allows teams to share

calendars and keep all their appointments and to-do list items online. Synching with Microsoft Outlook

allows team members to sync their calendar with MS Outlook and PDAs. The contact management

feature allows sales teams to track prospects and other teams to track vendors and other contacts.

Document Sharing

Shared Documents allows you to create folders and subfolders and upload documents (brochures,

marketing materials, detail designs, etc), replacing the need for FTP. You can secure folders so that only

certain people have security to certain folders. Folders can be private or public and Enterprise clients




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can automatically version documents as documents are replaced with new versions. Teams can check

out and check in documents to ensure documents are not accidentally overwritten.


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=SharedDocuments

Creating a Shared Document Folder

To create a new folder, click Shared Documents / Manage Folders, and then click Add New.

Securing a Shared Document Folder

When a folder is created, it can be created as public or private. If public, it automatically grants security

to all users that have rights to the shared documents area. For example, if you create a new folder and

make it public and you have 2 security groups, one with full rights to shared documents and the other

with read-only rights to shared documents, it will grant full rights to all users in the security group with

full rights and read-only to those in the group with read-only rights. As new users are added to

Software Planner, they are automatically given rights to existing PUBLIC shared document folders, if

they participate in a security group that has rights to the shared documents feature.

If a folder is created as private, it provides full rights to the creator of the folder but does not give

security access to any other users for the folder. As new users are added to Software Planner, they are

not given any security rights to private folders, but the creator of the folder can grant rights to

individuals manually.

Create folders

and/or subfolders

Create subfolders

Make the folder visible in all

projects or just this project. Make the folder public or

private. If public, automatic

security is given. Private

folders allow you to

individually set security rights. Enterprise clients can

turn file versioning on.

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=SharedDocuments




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Once a folder is created, the creator of the folder can adjust security rights by clicking Shared

Documents / Manage Folders then clicking the Security Privs button for the folder they wish to secure.

Once here, they can choose to give any individual read, upload, replace and/or delete rights:

Uploading Documents

To upload documents, click Shared Documents, choose a folder, and then click the Upload Wizard

button at the top of the screen. Windows Internet Explorer users can upload using drag and drop by

clicking Actions / Turn Drag and Drop Upload On.

Once the Upload Wizard is clicked, the upload screen appears:

Update rights for multiple

folders at once

Set individual rights

for each person.

Upload wizard




126

Select people you wish to send an email to

alerting them of the new file upload.

Click Add to choose files

from your hard drive

Or drag and drop files from

Windows Explorer to here.




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Downloading Documents

To download one or more documents, click the Download Wizard button from the Shared Documents

screen, then choose the files to download:

Checking Out and Checking In Documents

Checking out a file allows you to prevent others from overwriting the file while you have it checked out.

It still allows others to download and view the file; it just does not allow overwriting of the file until it is

checked out. To check out a file, click the Lock button from the Shared Documents screen.

Select the files you

wish to download.

Choose the location on your

hard drive to store them.

Lock (check out) the file




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Once you are ready to check in the file, click the Unlock button.

Discussion Forums

Discussion forums allow teams to create forums and post messages, automatically alerting the

recipients via email. This can greatly increase team communication. Many software development

teams will create a discussion forum for each release of the software they are working on. Then each

day, team members post questions in the forum. Everyone enrolled in the forum receive an email

regarding the forum posting (assuming their email alerts are setup) and the person knowing the

question will answer the forum and everyone sees this collaboration in action. It is also beneficial to

post daily updates to the forum so that team members know what code modules were changed, what

specifications they related to, and the status of how the coding in that area is progressing.


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=DiscussionBoard

Shows who checked it out.

Click to unlock

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=DiscussionBoard




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Creating a Discussion Forum

To create a new discussion forum, click Discussions / Manage Forums then click Add New.

Securing a Discussion Forum

When a forum is created, it can be created as public or private. If public, it automatically grants security

to all users that have rights to the discussion forums area. For example, if you create a new forum and

make it public and you have 2 security groups, one with full rights to discussion forums and the other

with read-only rights to discussion forums, it will grant full rights to all users in the security group with

full rights and read-only to those in the group with read-only rights. As new users are added to

Software Planner, they are automatically given rights to existing PUBLIC discussion forums, if they

participate in a security group that has rights to the discussion forums feature.

If a forum is created as private, it provides full rights to the creator of the forum but does not give

security access to any other users for the forum. As new users are added to Software Planner, they are

not given any security rights to private forums, but the creator of the forum can grant rights to

individuals manually.

Once a forum is created, the creator of the folder can adjust security rights by clicking Discussions /

Manage Forums then clicking the Security Privs link for the folder they wish to secure. Once here, they

can choose to give any individual read, upload, replace and/or delete rights:

Create forums

Make the forum public or

private. If public, automatic

security is given. Private

forums allow you to

individually set security

rights.

Make the forum visible in all

projects or just this project.




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Posting a Discussion Forum Thread

To post a forum thread, click Discussions, choose a forum, and then click the Add New button at the top

of the screen.

Once the posting is sent, it emails everyone in the forum (if they have their messages email alert set).

Below is how it looks in email:

Set individual rights for

each person.

Enter the thread name (this becomes the email subject).

Use the rich text editing features for creative and colorful

postings.




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If you view the thread within Software Planner, it shows the entire thread:

Here is the posting…

You can reply to the forum without logging into

Software Planner, just enter your reply and press

Send Reply Now.




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Calendar Management (Appointments, To Do List, Calendar Sharing, MS Outlook Sync)

The calendar feature allows teams to share calendars and keep all their appointments and to-do list

items online. Synching with Microsoft Outlook allows team members to sync their calendar with MS

Outlook and PDAs.


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=Calendar

To view your calendar, click Collaboration, and then click Calendar. Click Add New Appointment to add

a new appointment.

Synching with MS Outlook

If you wish to synchronize your calendar with MS Outlook, download the MS Outlook Sync program

from http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Downloads_SP.asp. Once downloaded, install it and you can then

choose to sync your calendar and/or contacts between Software Planner and MS Outlook.


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=psOutlooksyncdemo

To share your calendar,

click Delegates

Click to view an appointment Click to invite others

to a meeting

Click to set a recurring event

Daily View

To Do list items

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=Calendar

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Downloads_SP.asp

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Contact Management

The contact management feature allows sales teams to track prospects and other teams to track

vendors and other contacts.


http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Movies.asp?Topic=Contacts

Choose what to sync The setting types (Calendar, Contact, To Do

List and Quick Tasks settings) specify if you

wish to sync both ways or one way.

Set how often to sync.

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To track contacts, click the Contacts tab.

To add new contacts, click the Add New button at the top of the page.

Sending Bulk Emails

If you wish to send bulk emails (newsletters, marketing promotions, etc), you can do that via the contact

manager. You can create email templates so that your team can re-use emails that have been well

thought out and can be sent out frequently. You can send bulk emails immediately or you can schedule

them to be sent at a later date. If you enter URLs inside the email, it will track who clicked on each link

within the email, providing excellent marketing information – you can determine exactly what email

recipients were interested in.

To send a bulk email, click the Contacts tab, and then filter for the list of people to send to. Once this is

done, click the Send Email link:

From here, you can create a template or type your email then send it:

Create folders (opportunities, etc)

Attach files (contracts, etc)

Keep historical notes.

Filter the list first Then click Send Email




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The campaign reports shows who clicked on each link within the email campaign:

Create

templates

View who clicked on links within

the email from prior runs.

Use colorful style templates.

Schedule emails for a later date

Shows # clicks for each URL




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You can also see the campaign clicks from the dashboard (click Contacts / Dashboard):

If you click the graph, you can see the click activity:




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Getting the Most out of Reporting Software Planner provides an array of report options including dashboards, ad-hoc reports and standard

reports (driven by Crystal Reports). Enterprise clients can create their own dashboards and create new

Crystal Reports.

Using the Dashboards

The dashboards allow you to view information in graphical form. On the home page, you will notice a

set of dashboards for various areas of the software (project management, quality assurance, burn down

charts, and a separate chart section to show your assignments).

Standard Reports

Software Planner comes bundled with a number of existing standard reports. These reports are

separated by section (Defect Reports, Requirement Reports, Test Case Reports, etc). Most of these

reports were created via Crystal Reports, and Enterprise clients can create and post new Crystal Reports.

Most of these reports are also drillable, allowing you to drill into the data that makes up the report. To

access reports, click the Reports tab. Below is an example of a traceability report that identifies all

Requirements, Test Cases for each Requirement and defects linked to Test Cases:

Tabs separate different

sets of dashboards charts.

Clicking a graph drills

into the details.




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Below is an example of a more graphical report that has drill down capabilities:

Requirements

(Requirements)

Test Cases

Defects




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Ad-hoc Summary Reports

Ad-hoc Summary reports are great for identifying distribution of data for status meetings. Each area of

the software comes with ad-hoc summary reports (Requirements, Test Cases, Defects, etc). To run an

ad-hoc Summary report, click the Reports tab / Ad-hoc Summary Reports. Below is an example of

showing the number of Test Cases for each Test Case Type, showing the status:

Ad-hoc Detail Reports

Ad-hoc Detail reports are great for creating custom reports that pull back specific fields of data based on

selected filter criteria. Each area of the software comes with ad-hoc detail reports (Requirements, Test

Cases, Defects, etc). To run an ad-hoc Detail report, click the Reports tab / Ad-hoc Detail Reports.

Below is an example of an ad-hoc Defect report, notice you can specify what fields to show on the

report, the position of the fields, the sort order, and the filter criteria. You can also email the report to

others.


Apply Filters

Group by any major

and minor grouping




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Here is an example of how the report might look once generated:

Email the report

to others


Apply Filters

Choose the fields to show

and the position




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Crystal Reports Integration

To learn how to integrate your own Crystal Reports, please refer to this section of this document:

Administrator’s Guide Using the Enterprise Features Integrating Crystal Reports

Scheduling Reports to be distributed via Email

To learn how to schedule reports to be run periodically and distributed via email, please refer to this

section of this document:

Administrator’s Guide Using the Enterprise Features Scheduling Reports to be distributed via Email




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Extending Software Planner for More Uses Software Planner is very extensible, allowing you to create custom areas of the software quickly and

easily. The List Manager feature allows you to create custom lists (knowledge bases, track hardware

assets, track warranty expirations, track risks, etc). The List Manager is similar to setting up a database

where you can define the field to appear in the list, their behavior (choice lists, date fields, text fields,

etc). Once a list is defined, Software Planner automatically creates a listing screen, add/edit screen and

ad-hoc summary and detail reports. You can also import data into lists you create. For example,

Pragmatic Software exposes its Knowledge Base to its clients from the support web site. The

information in the knowledge base is simply a List Manager list within Software Planner and is exposed

to the public via a public support web site. If you wish to see this, go to

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/support and click Knowledge Base.

Many of our clients have used the List Manager in interesting ways. For example, Brookfield Homes

uses it to allow their marketing team to update content on their public web site. To power this, they

created lists to track their home communities, the available homes for sale, their sales procedures, their

teams, etc. They then created dynamic web pages that read information contained in the list –

powering their public web site. When their marketing team needs to update information on the public

web site, they simply edit the list in Software Planner and it becomes live on their web site immediately.

If you wish to see their site, go to http://www.BrookfieldSouthland.com – all areas of this web site is

driven from Software Planner lists.

Creating Custom Lists (Knowledge Bases, etc)

To learn how to create custom lists (like Knowledge bases, etc), please refer to this section of this

document:

Administrator’s Guide Customizing Software Planner for Your Needs Creating Custom Lists

Creating Custom Fields

To learn how to create custom fields for any screen, please refer to this section of this document:

Administrator’s Guide Customizing Software Planner for Your Needs Creating Custom Fields

Managing Choice Lists

To learn how to create choice lists for the combo boxes that appear within Software Planner, please

refer to this section of this document:

Administrator’s Guide Customizing Software Planner for Your Needs Managing Choice Lists

Managing Workflow and State Transitions

To learn how to manage workflow and to place rules for having statuses transition from one state to

another, please refer to this section of this document:

Administrator’s Guide Customizing Software Planner for Your Needs Managing Workflow

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/support

http://www.brookfieldsouthland.com/




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Changing Your Screen Layouts

To learn how to change the layout of your screen, set the fields that appear on the screen (and their

position), set default values, and specify 1 or 2 column edit screen layouts, please refer to this section of

this document:

Administrator’s Guide Customizing Software Planner for Your Needs Setting Screen Layouts

Creating Custom Email Alerts

To learn how to create custom email alerts, please refer to this section of this document:

Administrator’s Guide Customizing Software Planner for Your Needs Creating Custom Email Alerts

Importing and Exporting Data

To learn how to import and export data, please refer to this section of this document:

Administrator’s Guide Importing and Exporting Data




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Tips for Different Project Management Methodologies Software Planner works with any and all project management methodologies, it is designed for

maximum flexibility – allowing you to use it with whatever methodology your company has embraced.

The two most popular project management methodologies are Waterfall and Agile. This section

describes those methodologies and provides hints on how to setup your Software Planner account to

foster best practices of the methodology your team is using.

Working with the Waterfall Methodology

The Waterfall methodology has been used for years to deliver software projects. With Waterfall, you

work the project in sequential order, first collecting requirements, doing designs, coding, testing, and

then move to production. Graphically, it looks like this:

Normally Waterfall projects are shipped in Releases (e.g. Release 1.0, Release 2.0, Release 3.0) and

these releases are normally between 6 months to 2 years in duration.

If your team is using the Waterfall method, it is wise to create folders under each area (requirements,

test cCases, and defects) for each release and to create a separate project plan for each release. You

will also need to keep track of future requirements (or requirements), we suggest creating a Product

Backlog folder under the requirements area to keep track of future enhancement requirements. Below

is an example of setting up Software Planner in a Waterfall environment:




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You should also consider creating a Discussion Forum for each release, allowing your teams to more

closely collaborate by posting questions/answers in the forums (like design questions, etc). Another

great use for forums is to post daily updates to the forum so that team members know what code

modules were changed, what specifications they related to, and the status of how the coding in that

area is progressing. For more information regarding this, see:

User’s Guide Empowering Collaboration between Team Members Discussion Forums

Also, if you need templates for the Waterfall methodology (like Project Management guidelines,

Requirement documents, Risk Assessment and other templates), go to

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Templates.asp.

Working with the Agile Methodologies

Agile is quickly replacing Waterfall as the preferred project management methodology for software

development. The reason for this is that it allows teams to more quickly deliver releases, obtain faster

return on investment, and involves the customer more closely in the development of the software.

With Agile, software development is done in “iterations” or “sprints” which normally last about 30 days

(depending on what Agile methodology you are using). Unlike Waterfall, Agile defines the

requirements for a smaller set of functionality and implements it quickly so that critical functionality is

delivered quickly and it allows the client to work out issues with the design without waiting long periods

before they are able to actually use the software to ensure their design assumptions were correct.

Graphically, it looks like this, where each sprint is a version of the software that could be moved to

production, if you elect to do that:

Product Backlog

Each Release is

separated

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Templates.asp




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Release 1.0

Sprint 1 (30 days)

Sprint 2 (30 days)

Sprint [x] (30 days each)

Release 2.0

Sprint 1 (30 days)

Sprint 2 (30 days)

Sprint [x] (30 days each)




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Notice that Release 1.0 above is not achieved until several iterations (or sprints) is performed. If your

team is using the Agile methodology, it is wise to create folders under each area (requirements, test

cases, and defects) for each sprint within each release and to create a separate project plan for each

sprint. You will also need to keep track of future requirements; we suggest creating a Product Backlog

folder under the requirements area to keep track of future enhancement requirements. Below is an

example of setting up Software Planner in an Agile environment:

Burn down charts allow you to view velocity (how much effort is estimated and actually spent) and

estimated hours remaining. These can be helpful in determining how close you are to completing the

sprint. Below are some helpful dashboards:

Product Backlog

Releases are

separated by sprints

Dashboard burn down charts show

velocity and remaining effort




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Burndown Chart:

Burndown charts show how many hours should be remaining vs. how many are actually remaining. This

indicates whether you will make the completion date on time.

Velocity Charts:

Velocity Charts show how many hours have been logged and baseline estimates so that you can see

changes in scope clearly:




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You should also consider creating a Discussion Forum for each sprint, allowing your teams to more

closely collaborate by posting questions/answers in the forums (like design questions, etc). Another

great use for forums is to post daily updates to the forum so that team members know what code

modules were changed, what specifications they related to, and the status of how the coding in that

area is progressing. For more information regarding this, see:

User’s Guide Empowering Collaboration between Team Members Discussion Forums

Also, if you need templates for the Agile methodology (like Work Orders, etc), go to

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Templates.asp.

As a final note, Pragmatic Software teaches classes on Pragmatic Agile Development (PAD), a

methodology that uses an Agile-Scrum like approach to project management. You can learn more about

PAD by going to http://www.pragmaticsw.com/pad and you can learn about our training classes at

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/training.

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/Templates.asp

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/pad

http://www.pragmaticsw.com/training