The second scheduled introduction course of 2024. Overview of the many capabilities in Cradle including best practices, demonstrating the Cradle tool and its features – Introduction July 2024 course.
“A great opportunity for new users to familiarise themselves with Cradle”
Online User Course
Businesses that have chosen Cradle can benefit from this general Cradle overview and how to apply Cradle to their projects.
Introduction Course 23rd to 24th July 2024
“The Introduction course is designed for both new users or users requiring a refresher course.
The Cradle Introduction Course helps you to understand the benefits of Cradle and see examples of where Cradle is used. We provide explanations of the various Cradle modules as well as providing the basic concepts of Cradle, including items, cross references and the Cradle schema. There is a tutor led example of some of the WorkBench features and the Toolsuite tools.
Please note this course is provided through demonstration only, there are no “hands-on” exercises.
PC/Laptop – internet browser & Cradle installed **
Soft copy course materials, and printed certificate
If you would like to be kept in touch with the details for this Training Course – Introduction July 23rd to 24th 2024 please send an email to salesdetails@threesl.com.
Buy Now
All courses are available for direct purchase online. Buy Now!
The second RM training this year is – Requirements Management August 2024 course.
“A great opportunity for small teams, or a couple of new team members to get started with RM and Cradle”
Online Course
Businesses that are introducing Cradle and full Requirements Management processes into their operations, can book training for all aspects of the roll-out, from the basics through to specialist administration courses. These courses are tailored and held at your premises / virtually depending on restrictions and requirements and are ideal for getting a team up and running.
Public Requirements Management August 19th to 22nd 2024
If, however, you have one or two people new to a project or only have a very small team, this may not be a viable solution. With 3SL’s public online courses, you’ll benefit from all the normal learning, but will have the chance to network and share with other virtual attendees from other industries. This can be a cost effective solution to get you up to speed with Cradle and Requirements Management.
PC/Laptop – internet browser & Cradle installed **
Soft copy course materials, and printed certificate
If you would like to be kept in touch with the details for this Training Course – Requirements Management August 2024 please send an email to salesdetails@threesl.com.
Buy Now
All courses are available for direct purchase online. Buy Now!
The second scheduled publishing course of 2024. Cradle report creation training – Document Publisher September 2024 course.
“Once you have managed your requirements and development, producing a comprehensive report based directly on the project data, provides an essential deliverable”
Online Course
Businesses that have Cradle for their Requirements Management or Systems Engineering process can benefit from additional Cradle tools.
Document Publisher is a Windows® based publishing tool that allows professional documentation to be produced directly from the data within your project’s database. Fully understanding how to configure templates and data manipulation will offer the best output for you to provide to your stakeholders and customers, regulators and other interested parties.
Public Document Publisher Course September 16th to 19th 2024
Often the document production task is run by an individual or a very small team. Therefore, this public online course will offer a cost effective way of providing training. You’ll benefit from all the normal learning, but will have the chance to network and share with other virtual attendees from other industries. However, if you have a larger team courses can be tailored and held at your premises / virtually depending on restrictions and requirements at a date and time to suit. This will be conducted over four ½ days.
PC/Laptop – internet browser & Cradle installed **
Soft copy course materials, and printed certificate
If you would like to be kept in touch with the details for this Training Course – Document Publisher September 2024 please send an email to salesdetails@threesl.com.
Buy Now
All courses are available for direct purchase online. Buy Now!
The second scheduled risk management course of 2024. Learn how to identify, analyse, evaluate, treat and monitor the risks associated with activities or events within your business with this year’s – Risk Management October 2024 course.
“A great opportunity for managers to understand and mitigate risks”
Online Risk Management Course
Businesses that have selected Cradle for their Risk management process can benefit from an in depth understanding on how Cradle can manage your risk process.
Risk Management Course 22nd to 23rd October 2024
“The Risk Management course is designed for project team leaders or managers who administer and manage Risks.
The Cradle Risk Course focuses on providing an introduction to Risk Management in Cradle. We will start by setting up the schema for a small example and use this to manage the risks and provide some example reports. In the final module, we provide a worked example.
However, if you have a larger team or wish to cover multiple topics, courses can be tailored and held at your premises / virtually depending on restrictions and requirements or online at a date and time to suit”.
PC/Laptop – internet browser & Cradle installed **
Soft copy course materials, and printed certificate
If you would like to be kept in touch with the details for this Training Course – Risk Management October 22nd – 23rd 2024 please send an email to salesdetails@threesl.com.
Buy Now
All courses are available for direct purchase online. Buy Now!
The second test training this year is – Test Execution November 2024 course.
“A great opportunity for small teams, or a couple of new team members to get started with automated test execution and Cradle”
Online Course
Businesses that are introducing Cradle and full Requirements Management processes into their operations, can book training for all aspects of the roll-out, from the basics through to specialist administration courses. These courses are tailored and held at your premises / virtually depending on restrictions and requirements and are ideal for getting a team up and running.
Public Test Execution November 19thto 20th 2024
If, however, you have one or two people new to a project or only have a very small team, this may not be a viable solution. With 3SL’s public online courses, you’ll benefit from all the normal learning, but will have the chance to network and share with other virtual attendees from other industries. This can be a cost effective solution to get you up to speed with Cradle and Requirements Management.
PC/Laptop – internet browser & Cradle installed **
Soft copy course materials, and printed certificate
If you would like to be kept in touch with the details for this Training Course – Test Execution November 2024 please send an email to salesdetails@threesl.com
Buy Now
All courses are available for direct purchase online. Buy Now!
Configuration Management December 10th to 11th 2024
The second CM training this year is – Configuration Management December 2024 course.
“A great opportunity for small teams, or a couple of new team members to get started with Configuration Management and Cradle”
Online Course
Businesses that are introducing Cradle and full Requirements Management processes into their operations, can book training for all aspects of the roll-out, from the basics through to specialist administration courses. These courses are tailored and held at your premises / virtually depending on restrictions and requirements and are ideal for getting a team up and running.
Public Configuration Management December 10th to 11th 2024
If, however, you have one or two people new to a project or only have a very small team, this may not be a viable solution. With 3SL’s public online courses, you’ll benefit from all the normal learning, but will have the chance to network and share with other virtual attendees from other industries. This can be a cost effective solution to get you up to speed with Cradle and Requirements Management.
PC/Laptop – internet browser & Cradle installed **
Soft copy course materials, and printed certificate
If you would like to be kept in touch with the details for this Training Course – Configuration Management December 2024 please send an email to salesdetails@threesl.com
Buy Now
All courses are available for direct purchase online. Buy Now!
This blog follows on from our previous blog about project integrity checks. Here we discuss a second project integrity tool which concerns the validity of cross references. This can be found in the Project ribbon:
Cross Reference Integrity Check option
As with the Item Integrity Checker, the user MUST have ACCESS_BYPASS privilege to instigate any changes to the data. It is highly recommended that there are no other active users in the database.
In fact, we would recommend locking a project using Project Manager prior to using these utilities if you cannot be certain that other users would not try to log on during the process of running the utilities.
Also, it is highly recommended to back up your database and/or create a snapshot prior to instigating any changes using these utilities.
For details about snapshots, refer to the following help page.
Cross Reference Integrity Checker
The Cross Reference Integrity Checker consists of several checks that compare the links found in the database with the rules specified in Project Setup. Some of the issues found can be repaired with a single click.
There are some checks that would not be required in normal Cradle usage but could appear as a result of an import. An example of this could be due to the fact that Cradle has the ability to import cross references independently of any item types and specify the from item and the to item. These items referred to in the cross references by their identity attribute, might not exist in the database so this is an example of a dangling cross reference.
Cross Reference Integrity Checks
Other checks are:
Duplicate cross references
Reversed hierarchical cross references – where the from item has an identity that suggests it to be the child of the to item. For example, a cross reference that is from item 1.2.3 to item 1.2. The usual action is to fix the cross references which will reverse them.
Cross references to be reversed – where the link rules specified in Project Setup state that the link between the checked items should be in the opposite direction in order to be valid.
Cross references needing a new link type – where it detects cross references that are invalid according to the current link rules but which become valid if their link type is changed
Invalid cross references
Cross reference cardinality – detects cross references whose cardinality does not match the current link rules
Cross reference attributes – checks the cross reference attributes, e.g., if there was information in a cross reference attribute (e.g. Reason) and was removed in a way other than through the UI, this check will flag the cross reference.
Cross Reference Integrity dialog
These checks will provide both a report and a summary in the dialog.
Example Cross Reference Integrity ReportExample Cross Reference Integrity dialog
In this example, 154 of the cross references that exist in the database would be valid if they were reversed. So clicking the Fix button would repair those links with a single click.
Summary
We have addressed some of the checks that can be run on items to confirm the validity of cross references.
Please remember that the user MUSThave ACCESS_BYPASS privilege to instigate any changes to the data. It is highly recommended that there are no other active users in the database.
This newsletter contains a mixture of news and technical information about us, and our requirements management and systems engineering tool “Cradle”. We would especially like to welcome everyone who has purchased Cradle in the past month and those who are currently evaluating Cradle for their projects and processes.
We hope that 3SL and Cradle can deliver real and measurable benefits that help you to improve the information flow within, the quality and timeliness of, and the traceability, compliance and governance for, all of your current and future projects.
If you have any questions about your use of Cradle, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL Support.
Cradle Public Training Courses 2024
3SL have provided a number of Cradle public training courses in 2023. We are currently working on our 2024 training course calendar. Once this is available we will share this with you.
We still have courses available in 2023, please see our website for further information.
Critical Software and Software Bill of Material (SBOM)
The contract opportunities issued by the US Government and many US companies now include a requirement that suppliers provide a Software Bill of Material (SBOM) for all critical software – as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) – that would be delivered as part of any contract fulfilment of that opportunity. This requirement is pursuant to executive order 14028 issued by the Biden administration in the US.
3SL can advise that Cradle does not fall within the definition of critical software as defined by NIST. The NIST definition and guidance can be found here.
Remember, Remember
Firework
There’s quite a bit to remember this month whether it’s the failed plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, or the war fallen.
“Remember, remember, the fifth of November, Gunpowder Treason and Plot!” Might be a good way to cement a date in your mind we humans tend to like rhymes, songs, and mnemonics to help our brains ‘visualise’ an otherwise abstract date or fact. However, trying to remember what’s needed and when on a large project is really quite difficult. Especially when dates are not fixed.
Relative Date Query
Cradle provides several ways to track changes in your project. One of these is to query on relative dates.
For example an item representing a ‘test’ that needs to be run could be set with a category of type date. You could thenqueryon ‘tests‘ that are due to occur (or should have occurred) before the end of next week. It is also possible to query on a range, say beginning of this month and end of next week.
For items that are part of a work breakdown structure linked to a plan, there are some built-in ranges which can be accessed in the Progress tab in the Query Details dialog. For example, you can find all activities / tasks that are underway, those that are due to complete soon, or those that should have already completed. These provide a planning view of where your project stands.
Celebrations
We hope all our customers, suppliers and staff that celebrate Dewali, All Hallows Eve and All Saints day or remembered the defeating of the Gunpowder plot have a happy and safe celebration.
3SL join with our customers, friends and suppliers, on this armistice day, to take a moment to remember those who have fallen fighting for their countries.
Source Document Analyses
Cradle’s Document Loader tool can be used to parse source documents and capture them into a hierarchy of items, each corresponding to one of the sections, subsections, paragraphs, tables, table rows, table cells in the document. The structure of this hierarchy mirrors the structure of the document. Each item in the hierarchy is linked to its origin in a copy of the source document that is cached in the database. This allows Cradle to perform a variety of operations on source documents:
Capture their contents into items that are typically the needs or user requirements to which other items are linked
Coverage analysis, to show which parts of the document have been captured
Use analysis, to show how parts of the document have been used in the database
Integrity analysis, to confirm that the document has been parsed into multiple items each of which is identical to the original document, or (depending on the process) has been modified only as agreed
Compare versions of source documents to find differences and see which database items were impacted by these differences
Compare a potential new version of a source document against the latest version that has previously been loaded to find the changes and assess the impact of such changes on the database as a means to decide if the new document version will be accepted
Mapping Tables When Capturing Documents
Some source documents use tables for each piece of information. For example, each requirement or test case is contained in its own table and, therefore, a document with 500 requirements will have 500 tables.
When loading such documents, you define a mapping for the first of these tables. In this mapping you specify which cells (each a row and column) will have its contents loaded, and the attribute of the Cradle item that will receive that data. You can then apply this mapping to all other tables in the document with the same structure, and then proceed to capture the document using all of these table mappings.
We have seen a problem whereby Document Loader would fail to map multiple tables. This problem only occurred with one specific document, and only when that document was being processed on a Windows Server 2019 + Office 2016 platform. Any other combination of O/S and Office worked as expected.
We are pleased to advise that a recent Microsoft Update to Office has corrected this problem. Therefore, please ensure that if you are using Office 2016 that you use Version 2310 Build 16924.20124.
For more information about How to Set Table Mappings click here.
Latest Updates
The latest technical and related topics in our blog are:
Follow these links to see the latest blog updates and then use the blog’s search to find other topics of interest! With over 500 posts in the blog, we are sure that you will find lots to interest you in the details of Cradle and 3SL!
We would also like to thank all attendees on our Risk Management course which we provided in October.
This newsletter contains a mixture of news and technical information about us, and our requirements management and systems engineering tool “Cradle”. We would especially like to welcome everyone who has purchased Cradle in the past month and those who are currently evaluating Cradle for their projects and processes.
We hope that 3SL and Cradle can deliver real and measurable benefits that help you to improve the information flow within, the quality and timeliness of, and the traceability, compliance and governance for, all of your current and future projects.
If you have any questions about your use of Cradle, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL Support.
Controlling PDUIDs in Import and Export
The primary method of moving data into or out of Cradle databases is import/export. Regardless of the form of the data files used, there are some basic characteristics of import operations that affect the handling of PDUIDs and which can be controlled by the user when importing. These choices can be saved with other import options in an import format file. Such formats can be used for later imports, and specified for command-line based imports using the c_io utility. Using import format files is recommended as it ensures consistency between imports.
Further Details
For further details on this part 4 of a description of PDUIDs, please see the full blog entry here.
Latest Updates
The latest technical and related topics in our blog are:
Follow these links to see the latest blog updates and then use the blog’s search to find other topics of interest! With over 500 posts in the blog, we are sure that you will find lots to interest you in the details of Cradle and 3SL!
We would also like to thank all attendees on our Document Publisher course which we provided in September.
Halloween
Halloween is a celebration observed in many countries on 31st October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints’ Day. It begins the observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.
Spirits, Cauldrons, Witches and Jack-O-Lanterns
Cauldron
The masses were hungry, they needed a solution. The Requirements Master toiled over her cauldron. Into the mix she added a freshly cut bunch of requirements, a handful of ideas and a sackful of luck. The brew steamed for day and night, and as members of her family walked by they threw in their ha’p’orth of comments.
The requirements soon stewed and disintegrated, but all could see the ideas floating to the top.
The swirling liquor produced a heady vapour, caught by the nostrils of the management team. They liked what they smelled and believed the Requirements Master was doing just fine.
When the soup was dished up to the masses, the flavour was odd, and it didn’t satisfy their hunger. They felt weakened and sad, some even passed over to another project. “A curse has been placed upon this town”, they cried, “the Requirements Master is a Witch!” The town’s folk lit lanterns to guide the lost souls home to the land of abandoned engineering.
Well, that’s certainly one way to do design and engineering! Whilst it is often the case that many ideas are ‘thrown into the melting pot’, it should be used as a tool elicit idea, and not to ‘hopefully solve’ the problem. A more complex mix isn’t necessarily successful. As the tale told, losing sight of the requirements is a dangerous thing. Managing the project by a whiff of success is unlikely to be accurate.
So, don’t fall under the spell of those that don’t know how to engineer, and let Cradle light your way!
Social Media
Congratulated @hensoldt on donating €6,000 to the children’s intensive #care program #Bärenfamilie.
We also congratulated @WeAreHII after the first Flight III Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer Jack H Lucas departed HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding division
This is the fourth and last in a short series of posts that explain Project Database Unique IDs (PDUIDs). This post explains how PDUIDs can be controlled when importing information into Cradle.
Exchanging Information
The primary method of moving data into or out of Cradle databases is import/export. Regardless of the form of the data files used, there are some basic characteristics of import operations that affect the handling of PDUIDs and which can be controlled by the user when importing. These choices can be saved with other import options in an import format file. Such formats can be used for later imports, and specified for command-line based imports using the c_io utility. Using import format files is recommended as it ensures consistency between imports.
Default Behaviour
When importing information:
Every item imported will have a PDUID when it is saved, even if the import data does not contain a PDUID
The DID in the PDUID of all imported items will be set to the DID of the current Cradle system. For data that is being loaded from other Cradle systems, this means that the PDUIDs of the items in the original and imported databases will always be different. Even if their PUIDs are the same, their DIDs will be different.
If an item being imported does not exist in the PDUID lookup table, then a new entry will be created in the table for the item. This new entry will have a PDUID. This PDUID will either be newly generated (the default), or if the import data contains a PDUID and the user has chosen to force the import of PDUIDs, then the PDUID from the import data will be used.
If an item being imported exists in the PDUID lookup table and its table entry is marked deleted, then this table entry will be reinstated. If the user has specified to use the PDUID from the import file, the PDUID in the table entry will be replaced with the PDUID from the import file, else the table entry will be reinstated and the imported item will have the original PDUID from the lookup table.
If an item being imported has a PDUID that is already used for a different item in the database, then the PDUID in the import file will not be used and the imported item’s PDUID will be replaced, regardless of any import options to the contrary
All instances of an item have the same PDUID. Therefore, the PDUID of an item in the database will only be changed if all instances of the item can be changed. If there is any reason why all instances of an item cannot have their PDUIDs changed, then none of the instances will have their PDUIDs changed. As an example, if a user tries to import items with Overwrite set On and wants the PDUIDs in the import file to be used in the database, then the user must have RW access to all instances of the item in the database and the import data must update all of these instances.
Force Use of Existing PDUIDs
When importing data, you can choose to ignore any PDUIDs in the import/export file and instead keep the PDUIDs already in the database. To do this, de-select the checkbox Import PDUIDs from file (do not generate them)
This means that:
If an item in the import data does not contain a PDUID, a PDUID will be generated for it as it is imported
If an item in the import data does not exist in the database, then PDUIDs will be generated for them
If the item in the import data does exist in the database, then the items will still have their original PDUIDs after the import and any PDUIDs in the import data will be ignored
Force Use of Import File PDUIDs
When importing data, you can choose to use PDUIDs in the import/export file and replace the PDUIDs already in the database. To do this, select the checkbox Import PDUIDs from file (do not generate them)
This means that:
If the item in the import data does not contain PDUIDs, then PDUIDs will be generated for items as they are imported
If the item in the import data does not exist in the database, then the PDUID in the import data will be used provided that it does not already exist in the PDUID lookup table and if it does exist in the table then if that table entry is active then a PDUID will be generated and if the table entry is not active then the PDUID in the import data will be used and the table entry will be replaced
If the item in the import data does exist in the database, then:
If the PDUID in the import data does not already exist in the PDUID lookup table then:
The PDUID in the import data will be used
Else if the lookup table entry is active then:
If the lookup table entry is for a different item then:
A PDUID will be generated and the PDUID in the import data will not be used
Else if the user has RW access to all instances of the item and all instances of the item are to be updated by the import then:
The PDUID in the import data will be used
Else
The PDUID already in the lookup table entry and the database items will not be changed
Else the lookup table entry is inactive so:
The PDUID in the import data will be used
Force PID Change
Whenever an item in an import file is to be imported as a new item in a database (not overwriting an existing item) then the PDUID for that new item will either come from the import data (if it contains PDUIDs) or a new PDUID will be generated. The PID in such PDUIDs will be either PID of the current database, or you can force a specific PID.
This can be useful if, you want to distinguish the data being imported with a specific PID, but the import data does not have that PID. For example, if you are importing into a single database data from multiple other databases then you might want to force the PIDs in the PDUIDs of items imported from database “A” to have one value and for the PIDs in the PDUIDs of items imported from database “B” to have a different value.
If you did this then, for instance, the PDUID facilities in queries could be used to distinguish between these sets of imported data.
