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Cradle Database Server – CDS Status to 3SL Support

How do I provide CDS status to 3SL support?

If you need to provide information about your Cradle Database Server CDS status to 3SL support you can generate a report from within WorkBench.

If asked to provide information about your current client or server installation, this can be obtained through the The Cradle 'about' or extra information icon ‘About’ button. The resulting screen gives a lot of information about the running system. Additional information for the current ‘Resources’ being consumed by the client or ‘CDS status’ are produced with the buttons at the bottom of the dialog.

Triggering the cds status report
CDS status report

Cradle the Requirements Management and Systems Engineering tool of choice provides full support* to all our Enterprise customers under their maintenance agreement.

Other support options include a large collection of online resources or search the blog’s hints and tips or faq sections.

To contact support, find your local distributor or contact 3SL UK

*Installation support is provided for all our single user configurations. Out of maintenance support must be discussed with our sales team.

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Create a Document Output

Produce Documents From Your Cradle Data

Produce documents from your Cradle data, launched straight from WorkBench.

Document Publisher is an automated document output tool that interacts with Microsoft® Word. It is used to produce professional high-quality reports from the information held in a Cradle project database (PDB).

Document Publisher works by combining a user-defined template with information held in your project to generate dynamic content including, hierarchical headings, paragraphs of body text, tables, diagrams, figures and embedded data.

Full control is provided for paragraph styles, section numbering and captions.

Powerful data filters and parametrics can be defined to supplement database querying. Conditions under which particular attributes are to appear in the output can also be specified.

Document Publisher can be launched directly from start menu, or from within Cradle WorkBench.

Whist the video above shows a draft document being produced, formal document versions can be produced as described in How to publish formal project documents.

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New MBSE Reference in Improved 3SL Website

We recently released an update to our website in which all pages have a new navigation bar that contains shortcut icons to move directly to the most popular areas in the site. We also improved the speed with which the website loads, so the main page should now load in one third the time that it used to take.

Most significantly, we have added a ‘Reference’ section that wil contain a range of background systems engineering information, not necessarily related to Cradle. We have begun the reference section with a large volume of basic MBSE (model based systems engineering) information, see here:

https://www.threesl.com/pages/reference

in which you will find detailed descriptions of all of the diagram types for the three groups of modelling notations supported by Cradle:

– SysML
– Functional, Architecture, Data, which includes ADARTS, eFFBD, IDEF, SASD (DFD, STD, ERD and so on), architecture (PAD and AID), and many others
– UML

Please tell us what you think of the information in this section, and also try our website from your smartphone! We value your feedback!

New MBSE Reference in Improved 3SL Website
New MBSE Reference in Improved 3SL Website
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WorkBench Screen Panes and Tabs

UI Layout

The Cradle WorkBench UI screen is divided into panes, tabs. Tabs can hold a variety of data, items in forms, queries as views, diagrams and so on. When you subsequently create more data (say opening an item from the project sidebar) WorkBench will heuristically attempt to find the most appropriate pane to place the item in. For example if there is a query in one pane and an item in another, opening another item should place it with the other item.

Panes

The main sub division of the screen is a pane. Each pane is a region that can contain one or more tabs.

Tabs

Each pane is a region that can contain one or more tabs. A tab is a container with a selectable name and a rectangular area that contains the results of running a query, report, metric or graph, or a single item that is being edited.

Tabs behind Tabs?

If you’ve run a couple of queries and opened a couple of items they will each be in a separate tab. Arranging the screen panes and tabs is the answer. If you want to see those tabs side by side you can split the screen horizontally or vertically to arrange the screen panes.  You can then drag and drop the tabs into these new panes.

Menu showing how to split a pane top and bottom
Split Pane Top / Bottom

There are other UI (User Interface ) commands that allow you to Maximize and Restore the tab from the same menu.

Sessions

Select a session upon login
Sessions option in Login dialog

You can design your Cradle UI with a set of panes grouped in nested rows and columns in your preferred layout. This layout is called a session. Using sessions is the easiest way to maximise your productivity with Cradle.

Article Updated 17-23/07/2018 – Working with panes, Working With Tabs, Using Sessions
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Can I customise UI to show my most used commands?

Easy Customisation Using Cradle Start-Pages

Yes you can customise the front end UI shown to users.  The simplest way to  customise most used commands, is add them to a Start Page. The example below places a company logo, and the three most used queries on the start page. These are considered the most used actions by the company and therefore, they want them easily accessible when the tool starts. The links are customised to run the specific queries needed most.

Additionally an “Admin” section has been added to get at the User Preferences and Project Schema Setup. This could normally be shown collapsed or ‘rolled up’ as this is less frequently used.

Screen shot of a Cradle-RM Desktop edition with customised start page
Customised Start Page

This is the most basic of examples, set so everyone in the project sees the same page when they start up. However, in large teams, start pages can be customised to the Cradle user, personal, team or user type. The selection of page is set in the User Preferences.

Project Phases

In an enterprise environment the company process may be more tightly defined. Customisation of the flow through the project lifecycle would be better represented as groups of actions in the Phase sidebar.

Cradle 7.4 Start Page Enhancement

It is now possible to copy panels and entries and to refresh your list of queries.

When you insert an entry into a start page, the newly created entry is created beneath the selected one, rather than at the bottom of the list. You also have the option to copy start page panels and start page entries.

When creating start pages, it is possible to add queries. If you found there was a query missing that you needed, and you or a colleague created it, it is not automatically added to the cached list in the start page setup. Clicking the  Refresh icon will now relist all the available queries.

Start Page query refresh
Query list refresh button

For more information on Start Pages click here

Updated 09/08/2018 – Cradle 7.4 Enhancement
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Can I See, Who is Using What and Where?

Report on Who and Where.

It is easy to see who, using what, where from the Users report in Project Manager.  This details the host system user name, their Cradle login name and the project they are connected to.

Why is there an Executing Client and Display Client shown?

These would show different values if your system is set to have the executable running on one machine with the UI redirected to another. For example a Windows® user may remotely log on to a Linux® machine, and start WorkBench, viewing the output on a Windows X terminal emulation.  The machine running the Cradle Database Server may be a third machine.

User report from Project Manager showing users and licences
User Report

Additional brief information detailing which module licences they currently have in use is also given. For full details on the licence usage users would run the Licence Usage report.

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URL to Launch WorkBench/Web Access Open Item/Query

Can You Specify a URL For a Cradle Item?

If you need to create a text ‘link’ or ‘URL’ to enable directly starting Cradle WorkBench or WebAccess and opening a particular item you can. The link shared, say by being pasted into an email or a Microsoft® Word document.

Creating the Uniform Resource Locator

This can be done from the item itself within WorkBench. Use the ‘Cradle URL’ button on the Tools menu on the ribbon, or on the command line with the c_url utility.

Dialog for Cradle URL creation
Cradle URL

You have an option to create a URL to open in WorkBench or Web Access.  You can optionally include the username that you want to use to connect.

A URI scheme defines the structure of  your Uniform Resource Locator.

cradle:[username][:password][;AUTH=authentication]@project[:access][?action&params…]

This gives a few more options on how the link will behave. For an item you can specify the ‘Form’ for a Query you can specify the ‘View’

Open your URL

Copying and pasting the created link into a browser, will launch the appropriate application. If opening a WorkBench URL you may need to ‘Allow’ your browser to open it. If given the option you may need to select the file ? rather than the search ? option. Then enter your login details.

Et Voilà!

Cradle WorkBench or WebAccess will be displaying your query or item.

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Running a Spell Checker

Nott Shoor of the Spelling?!

Items in a database can have many different fields, some or all of which may need their spelling checked. On Cradle installations with Tool Suite the Spellchecker tool can check items that are returned by a query.

  1. Launch Spellchecker, and login. (This can be done by launching the standalone application or selecting it from the Tools menu in WorkBench)
  2. Choose the query you want to run
  3. Check which attributes are required to be checked
  4. Run the checks and correct any errors.

Note: Locked items can not be checked.

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What can you get for 249* New Pound Coins?

Starting from £249* for Cradle‐RM Desktop

There are a number of versions of the Cradle single user licence. All the same great product suite, just with different parts enabled. If you have 249* new pound coins you could get your requirements into shape. The new pound coin  was introduced on 28th March 2017. Follow information about it, and other money facts, with the Royal Mint. (#NewPoundCoin) 3SL are quite happy to accept the old coins up until the 15th October 2017. With a little more, your requirements and end to end processing with the Pro version.  Add on further and get the system engineering version, which includes modelling.

New pound coins and vopy or Cradle-RM Desktop
Cradle-RM Desktop Version 7.2

Where Cradle really comes into its own is with the Enterprise version. Licences are tailored depending on the number of users and which functions they need to access. Contact us to discuss your requirements. * Price  March 2017 for up to date prices visit the shop.  

Update:

Sept 2017 – Only a month left

Countdown with a month to go – The legal tender status of the round £1 coin will be withdrawn at midnight on Sunday 15th October 2017.

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Multiple Data Cells – Preserve Line Breaks

Lots of Data in a Small Space

The purpose of Multiple Data Cells in a view is to allow more data to be consolidated in one place. It might me that a reference number is made up from categories storing ‘Part‘, ‘Sub-Part‘ and ‘Version‘. This may need to be formatted in a cell as part:sub-part/version. This can be achieved by setting the format of a multiple data cell in the Cradle view.

This image shows the TEST STATUS:TEST TYPE and Text from the test being combined in one cell.

Showing the difference between preserved and non preserved line breaks
Multiple Cell – Preserve Line Breaks

New Cradle-7.2 View Feature

Initially the cell string was formed by combining the text from single line entries from categories, the group, description and possibly piece of text from a frame. Customers have found the multiple data cell useful and have been combining data from frames with multiple lines.  Whilst the drive is still to show as much data in a combined block, those using, say lists as in the example shown, found that the removal of line breaks in the display altered what was being conveyed. It is now, therefore, possible to select the ‘Preserve line breaks’ option in the ‘Multiple Data Cell Setup’, ‘Edit Attribute’ dialog.