Pragmatic Software Co., Inc. Software Planner User s Guide

Transcription

1 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, Present Software Planner - Version 9.1

2 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 Adding a New User Assigning Projects Rights to the New User Deleting a User (Revoking all Rights) Restoring a Deleted User Active Directory Integration (Enterprise Only) Creating New Projects Creating a New Project Securing a Project Archiving a Project Customizing Software Planner for Your Needs Creating Custom Fields Linking Fields from One Area of Software Planner to Another Creating Custom Fields based on SQL Queries (Enterprise Only) Managing Choice Lists Managing Workflow and State Transitions Map out your Workflow Setup your Mapped Workflow using Software Planner Setting up Temporal (Temporary) Transitions Setting up Automatic Assignment Setting up Automatic Assignment based on Functional Areas (Defects Only) Setting Screen Layouts

3 Setting System Options Personal Preferences System Options Creating Custom Lists (Knowledge Bases, etc) using the List Manager Creating Custom Alerts Customizing Alert Templates Using the Enterprise Features Active Directory Integration Using the Data Dictionary Accessing the API Integrating Crystal Reports Scheduling Reports to be distributed via Integration with Source Control Systems Integration with Automated Testing Systems Integration with other In-house Software Importing and Exporting Data Importing Data Exporting Data User s Guide Getting Familiar with the User Interface Organizing your Data Using Search Folders Working with the Home Page Bulletins Tab Project Mgt Tab QA Tab My Assignments Tab Burndown Tab

4 Working with the Listing Screens Sorting the List Quickly Searching the List Creating a Filter Send s Working with the Edit Screens Adding, Editing and Deleting Records Editing Records Viewing History of Changes Attaching and Associating Notes Attaching and Associating Files Attaching and Associating Tasks Managing the Software Lifecycle Managing Customer Requirements and Specifications Organizing your Requirements Using the Grouping Tab Integrating Requirements with Project Management Creating Requirement Documents Requirement Reporting and Dashboards Providing Project Management for a Release, Iteration or Sprint Advanced Project Management Project Management Reporting and Dashboards Simple Project Management Managing Manual Test Cases Organizing your Test Cases Using the Grouping Tab Organizing Regression Test Cases Organizing Test Runs for Regression Testing

5 Maintaining Test Cases Test Case Traceability Automatically Creating Defects from Failed Test Cases Top 10 Negative Test Cases Test Case Reporting and Dashboards Managing Automated Test Cases When to Automate Regression Test Cases Best Practices for Automation Analysis Automatic Test Case Detection Test Sets Analyzing the Test Runs Automated Testing Return on Investment Managing Defects, Bugs and Issues Organizing your Defects Using the Grouping Tab Creating Test Cases from a Defect Tips for Creating Solid Defects Defect Reporting and Dashboards Managing Support Tickets / Customer Portal Empowering Collaboration between Team Members Document Sharing Creating a Shared Document Folder Securing a Shared Document Folder Uploading Documents Downloading Documents Checking Out and Checking In Documents Discussion Forums Creating a Discussion Forum

6 Securing a Discussion Forum Posting a Discussion Forum Thread Calendar Management (Appointments, To Do List, Calendar Sharing, MS Outlook Sync) Synching with MS Outlook Contact Management Sending Bulk s Getting the Most out of Reporting Using the Dashboards Standard Reports Ad-hoc Summary Reports Ad-hoc Detail Reports Crystal Reports Integration Scheduling Reports to be distributed via Extending Software Planner for More Uses Creating Custom Lists (Knowledge Bases, etc) Creating Custom Fields Managing Choice Lists Managing Workflow and State Transitions Changing Your Screen Layouts Creating Custom Alerts Importing and Exporting Data Tips for Different Project Management Methodologies Working with the Waterfall Methodology Working with the Agile Methodologies

7 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. Helpful Resources Below are some resources you might find useful: Software Planner Feature Movies - 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: Support Training - 7

8 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: 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. 8

9 Setup tab Click Add New to create a new security group. Once a security is created, you can set the security rights for that security group: Click Privs button to set the privileges Once the Privs button is clicked, you can set the rights for this set of users: 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. 9

10 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. Click Calendar Delegation button to share calendars 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. 10

11 Click Add New to add a user 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 letting them know how to log in. Your security groups are here 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. 11

12 Click Security Privs button for the user record. 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 12

13 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: 13

14 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 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). 14

15 3) With AD, new users can be automatically setup by simply navigating to the login page of Software Planner. Once they enter their 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 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. 15

16 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 If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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 16

17 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. Enter a unique project name If you wish to clone settings from another project, choose the project to clone from Clone shared document and search folders? Clone security rights? Clone choice lists? Clone custom fields? 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. 17

18 Click Security Privs button to set security rights for project. 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. You can filter the user list to those 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. 18

19 Uncheck to archive the project. 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 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: 19

20 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. 20

21 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 (xxxxx-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). If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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: 21

22 Click Custom Fields Then enter the field name of Requirement and choose the type of Choice List (Based on Another Field): Click Set 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: 22

23 Choose Requirement to link there Choose Requirement Title, this will put all the Requirement titles into the combo box. Once you press Submit, the new field named Requirement will contain a list of all the Requirements you have: New Requirement field appears If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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: 23

24 Choose Choice List (Based on SQL) Enter a valid SQL statement that returns 1 column of data (Contact name in this case) 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: Click Choice List From here you can add/remove items from the choice list: 24

25 Simply overtype your changes and press Submit Changes. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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. 25

26 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: New Required fields: Title, Description Is NOT a defect Is a defect 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 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: 26

27 Click Workflow and State Transitions. Edit the list of choice list items. Once done, the new items will appear in this combo box. From here you can set the options to match your workflow you defined graphically: Click here to toggle between statuses If you wish to automatically assign this item to someone based on the status being set, set that here 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. 27

28 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. 28

29 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: If you wish to automatically assign this item to someone based on the status being set, set that here. 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: 29

30 Here is where you manage Functional Area Assignments Once clicked, you will see a list of each Functional Area and can associate each with an assignee: Associate each Functional Area with an Assignee. Once this is done, set the automatically assign to to [Functional Area Assignee]: 30

31 Set automatic assignment to [Functional Area Assignee] If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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. The Listing Screen tab is used to set the order you wish the column to appear on the listing screen 31

32 The Add/Edit Screen tab is used to set the order you wish the column to appear on the add and edit screen Choose 1 or 2 Columns for the layout. Individual users can change this preference. The Required Fields tab is used to set the fields you wish to require data entry from the user. 32

33 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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. Manage your alert preferences Choose your time zone; all date/times are adjusted based on this. 33

34 System Options These preferences all team members and can only be set by administrators. Change your company name Your company name appears here Choose which screens can use the rich text editor. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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: 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 34

35 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. To define a field, click Edit and give the field a name and associate it with a field type. 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 35

36 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 36

37 Creating Custom Alerts Software Planner comes with 3 types of standard 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 alerts, you can create custom alerts. For example, if you wish to trigger an alert when an item s priority changes to Urgent, you can do that. To create a custom alert, go to the Home tab, click Alerts, then click Add New: Click Add New button 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 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 message is just the header text that is shown at the top of the alert. 37

38 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 message If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: Customizing Alert Templates Software Planner alerts are formatted using a default template layout. Using the Alert Templates, you can customize alerts for each entity within Software Planner. In the screen shot below you can see the default template layout for the Standard Alert for the Bugs/Defects Entity. 38

39 To setup 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 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 alert template by following these steps: 1. Go to the Setup tab 2. Go to System Configuration/System Preferences 3. Quick Search on Alerts 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 alert. Replace or modify the HTML in the Value field to customize the alert in any of the HTML fields. The HTML value can be modified up to 2000 characters. 39

40 We use tokens as place holders which will be replaced based on the data of the record being sent for the Alert. For example, if the Alert Subject looks like this: Defect {Id} {Title}, when the alert is sent the {Id} and {Title} will be replaced with the actual values for that defect and may look like this: Defect 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 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 . The Enterprise solution allows your team to access a well documented API and Data Dictionary. 40

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 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 41

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): 42

43 Search for reports Click the green arrow to download a report locally 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: 43

44 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. 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: Report Parameters are automatically discovered 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. 44

45 Setup Choice Lists or use SQL to pull the values If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: Scheduling Reports to be distributed via 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 45

46 From here you can schedule the report, pass in parameters, specific the s for the report to be sent to, and customize the 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 46

47 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. 47

48 Importing and Exporting Data The following sections discuss importing and exporting data. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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. 48

49 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 49

50 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. 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. 50

51 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: Filter your data if you desire 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. Automatic backup service 51

52 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: Search 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: 52

53 Create a new search folder 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: For subfolders, choose a parent 53

54 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 54

55 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. 55

56 Project Mgt Tab The Project Management dashboard shows status of Requirements and Project Plans: 56

57 QA Tab The QA dashboard shows status of Requirements, Test Cases and Defects. Graphs include trending and drillable status graphs. 57

58 My Assignments Tab The My Assignments dashboard shows status of all your assigned items, these graphs are drillable. 58

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. 59

60 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: Sort 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 60

61 ascending or descending order: Pragmatic Software Co., Inc. 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: Quick Search Enter a search phrase 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. 61

62 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. If you wish to save the filter for later, enter Save Filter As name. 62

63 Toggle between saved filters. Send to the list 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: Send s If you wish to send an to the list of people, filter the list then click the Send 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: 63

64 Add New To edit an existing item, click the Edit button or simply click on the row: Edit 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. Delete Editing Records Once you click the Edit button to edit an item, over type your changes and press Submit to change the item: 64

65 View all the notes and files associated with this item Pragmatic Software Co., Inc. Navigate between items Send this person an Word processing style data entry 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: Specify 1 or 2 column mode 65

66 Viewing History of Changes All changes made to a record are audited and a complete history appears: History 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. Notes 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). 66

67 Files 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: Tasks Add New Task 67

68 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. Choose the project plan to add this task to Choose where to place the task on the plan 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: Click Link to item to associate it with a requirement, test case or defect. 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, 68

69 they can edit the specification, go to the Tasks tab and click MY HOURS to enter the hours they worked on the item: Choose the task worked on Enter hours worked and hours remaining (or pct complete) Project Managers can run a timesheet report to see what each team member worked on day-by-day: 69

70 If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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: 70

71 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: Organized by Release Naming conventions enhance usability 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 71

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: 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: 72

73 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: Click Link to item to associate it with a 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: 73

74 Team members can apply time daily 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: Requirement tied to the project plan 74

75 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 ed 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 Once you develop the requirement document, you should attach it as a file to the requirement (edit the requirement, click Files, ADD NEW). 75

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: Dashboards 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 76

77 Requirements Assigned to Me Pragmatic Software Co., Inc. Requirements by Assignee 77

78 Requirements by Owner Requirements Trending 78

79 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. 79

80 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 by entering a list of 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 80

81 progress of your release. Below is an example: Pragmatic Software Co., Inc. 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. 81

82 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: 82

83 Resource was overallocated 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. 83

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: Dashboards 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. 84

85 Project Plan Status Analyze all projects at a glance, including professional services. Slipping Tasks Analyze tasks that are slipping and who is causing the slippage 85

86 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 86

87 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: 87

88 Timesheets by Week Timesheet reports show who worked on what Variance Reports Variance Reports show estimated vs. actual hours and costs 88

89 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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. Quick Task folders 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. 89

90 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. 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 Quick Tasks 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 by entering a list of addresses, separated by semicolons. An ad-hoc summary report can be accessed by clicking the Reports tab / Ad-hoc Summary. From here, 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. 90

91 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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. Using the Grouping Tab 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: 91

92 Grouped by Status and Assigned To 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 92

93 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. 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: 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. 93

94 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: The first step is to link the test cases back to a requirement(s). To do this, click Requirements / Traceability. It shows how many test cases are linked. From here, you can see how many test cases are already linked (if any). To link test cases, click Link Items 94

95 Step 1 - Find the test cases to link Step 3 Linked test cases displayed here Step 2 Drag /Drop desired test cases to left panel to link An alternative way to link test cases to a requirement is to edit the requirement and click Link to Items Link while editing a requirement. 95

96 To run a traceability report for a specific requirement, edit the requirement and click the Traceability Report. 96

97 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). 97

98 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: Test Case linked to a defect 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). 98

99 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: 99

100 Dashboards 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 100

101 My Assigned Test Cases Test Cases by Assignee 101

102 Test Cases by Owner (QA Manager) Pragmatic Software Co., Inc. You can also drill into any dashboard to get the details: 102

103 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. 103

104 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 Test Cases 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 by entering a list of addresses, separated by semicolons. An ad-hoc summary report can be accessed by clicking the Reports tab / Ad-hoc Summary. From here, 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 104

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 ( 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 ( 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 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. 105

106 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 s 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. 106

107 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: 107

108 108

109 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: 109

110 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 as items are assigned to them or as items they own are changed. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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. 110

111 Below is an example of an organized set of defects: Organized by Release Support Tickets 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. Using the Grouping Tab 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 111

112 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: Grouped by Status, Severity and Assigned To 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. 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: 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 112

113 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 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 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 abc

114 2. Select workspace named "My Sandbox" 3. Click Search, enter Invoice number , 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. 114

115 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 Dashboards Defects by Status and Severity 115

116 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: 116

117 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. 117

118 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 Alerts screen, you can receive it via daily or weekly. 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 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 by entering a list of addresses, separated by semicolons. An ad-hoc summary report can be accessed by clicking the Reports tab / Ad-hoc Summary. From here, 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. 118

119 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 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: 119

120 Once logged in, they see a branded support page (it will be branded to your company): 120

121 Once the ticket is added, it shows the client the ticket number: The client and our support team are notified via of the ticket: 121

122 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: 122

123 You will also be able to analyze tickets over time: Pragmatic Software Co., Inc. 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 . 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 123

124 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: Creating a Shared Document Folder To create a new folder, click Shared Documents / Manage Folders, and then click Add New. Create folders and/or subfolders Create subfolders Make the folder public or private. If public, automatic security is given. Private folders allow you to individually set security rights. Make the folder visible in all projects or just this project. Enterprise clients can turn file versioning on. 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. 124

125 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: Update rights for multiple folders at once Set individual rights for each person. 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. Upload wizard Once the Upload Wizard is clicked, the upload screen appears: 125

126 Select people you wish to send an 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. 126

127 Downloading Documents To download one or more documents, click the Download Wizard button from the Shared Documents screen, then choose the files to download: Choose the location on your hard drive to store them. Select the files you wish 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. Lock (check out) the file 127

128 Once you are ready to check in the file, click the Unlock button. Click to unlock Shows who checked it out. Discussion Forums Discussion forums allow teams to create forums and post messages, automatically alerting the recipients via . 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 regarding the forum posting (assuming their 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 128

129 Creating a Discussion Forum To create a new discussion forum, click Discussions / Manage Forums then click Add New. 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. 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: 129

130 Set individual rights for each person. 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. Enter the thread name (this becomes the subject). Use the rich text editing features for creative and colorful postings. Once the posting is sent, it s everyone in the forum (if they have their messages alert set). Below is how it looks in 130

131 Here is the posting You can reply to the forum without logging into Software Planner, just enter your reply and press Send Reply Now. If you view the thread within Software Planner, it shows the entire thread: 131

132 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. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: To view your calendar, click Collaboration, and then click Calendar. Click Add New Appointment to add a new appointment. Daily View To Do list items To share your calendar, click Delegates Click to invite others to a meeting Click to view an appointment Click to set a recurring event Synching with MS Outlook If you wish to synchronize your calendar with MS Outlook, download the MS Outlook Sync program from Once downloaded, install it and you can then choose to sync your calendar and/or contacts between Software Planner and MS Outlook. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 132

133 Set how often to sync. 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. Contact Management The contact management feature allows sales teams to track prospects and other teams to track vendors and other contacts. If you wish to watch a narrated movie that illustrates this topic, use the link below: 133

134 To track contacts, click the Contacts tab. Pragmatic Software Co., Inc. Attach files (contracts, etc) Keep historical notes. Create folders (opportunities, etc) To add new contacts, click the Add New button at the top of the page. Sending Bulk s If you wish to send bulk s (newsletters, marketing promotions, etc), you can do that via the contact manager. You can create templates so that your team can re-use s that have been well thought out and can be sent out frequently. You can send bulk s immediately or you can schedule them to be sent at a later date. If you enter URLs inside the , it will track who clicked on each link within the , providing excellent marketing information you can determine exactly what recipients were interested in. To send a bulk , click the Contacts tab, and then filter for the list of people to send to. Once this is done, click the Send link: Filter the list first Then click Send From here, you can create a template or type your then send it: 134

135 Create templates View who clicked on links within the from prior runs. Use colorful style templates. Schedule s for a later date The campaign reports shows who clicked on each link within the campaign: Shows # clicks for each URL 135

136 You can also see the campaign clicks from the dashboard (click Contacts / Dashboard): If you click the graph, you can see the click activity: 136

137 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). Tabs separate different sets of dashboards charts. Clicking a graph drills into the details. 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: 137

138 Requirements Test Cases Defects Below is an example of a more graphical report that has drill down capabilities: 138

139 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: Cross Project Reporting Apply Filters Group by any major and minor grouping 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 the report to others. 139

140 Cross Project Reporting Apply Filters the report to others Choose the fields to show and the position Here is an example of how the report might look once generated: 140

141 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 To learn how to schedule reports to be run periodically and distributed via , please refer to this section of this document: Administrator s Guide Using the Enterprise Features Scheduling Reports to be distributed via 141

142 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 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 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 142

143 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 Alerts To learn how to create custom alerts, please refer to this section of this document: Administrator s Guide Customizing Software Planner for Your Needs Creating Custom 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 143

144 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: 144

145 Product Backlog Each Release is separated 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 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: 145

146 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) 146

147 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: Dashboard burn down charts show velocity and remaining effort Product Backlog Releases are separated by sprints 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: 147

148 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: 148