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Cradle Modules – DOC

Cradle DOC Module

The Cradle DOC module generates documents by combining user-defined templates with items in the database. A document register and a correlation between documents and database items provides full traceability.

Document Generation
Cradle DOC Module

Projects use documents:

  • As sources of information (such as user requirements or regulations, codes and standards)
  • As confirmation of agreement (such as a CONOPS or RTM or SRD)
  • To define interfaces between project teams or organisations (such as a SDS or SSDS).

Often, a project’s progress can be expressed as the issue states of its key documents.

User Defined Reports

Cradle can generate user-defined reports that will satisfy all internal project needs for information, including:

  • Simple lists
  • Compliance tables
  • Change logs
  • Traceability
  • Coverage matrices

These outputs are produced from the report, view, query and matrix facilities of the Cradle-PDM module.

The Cradle Document Generation module exists to produce complete, high quality, documents directly from the database. It can publish documents that include cover pages, Table of Contents, List of Figures, sections with mixtures of hierarchical paragraphs, bullet lists, figures and tables.

Defining Documents

Any number of documents can be defined. Each starts as a Microsoft Word document that has all of the internal structure, page layouts, styles and formats required. The Document Publisher tool is used to insert tags into this template everywhere that data is to be reported from the database. Each tag defines both the information to be published, and the high-level formatting to be used for this information, for example if it is to be published as a hierarchy of sections, a bullet list, or as rows in a table. The tags can follow cross references in any manner required, so complex relationships can easily be included in the document. The tags are defined through a UI, so that complex scripts are not needed.

Arbitrarily complex tables, hierarchies of sections and subsections, embedded diagrams, paragraph and section numbering and self-referencing within the document are supported, all specified within these tags and their associated descriptions.

At runtime, the Document Publisher uses the tags to query the database for information that is to be loaded into Word and formatted according to the styles, contents lists and indexes of that Word template. Embedded binary data can be loaded into the document, including any other Word documents and other binary content, including figures, spreadsheet and drawings.

Document templates can include user-defined variables that are specified at runtime so that a single template can be used to produce many different documents.

Any number of these templates can be defined and each used to generate many documents. Each document publishing operation will report either the current work-in-progress information or the contents of project baselines created with Cradle’s built-in Configuration Management System.

Publishing Documents

Documents can be published from the Document Publisher tool’s UI, Start Page drop downs, from nodes in a user-defined phase hierarchy UI, or the command line. This allows Document Publisher to be run in batch mode, for example to publish standard project documents overnight.

When Document Publisher is used to publish a document from a template and the database, the resulting document can be marked as a formal document by specifying an issue, issue date and reference. In this case:

  • A copy of the published document is held in the database so it can be provided in the future
  • A record of the document is added into a formal document register, and
  • Cradle records which instances of database items were used to produce the document

This means that when anything changes in the database, you know which formal documents contain the items that have changed, so you know which formal documents need to be re-issued. The new version of these formal documents are also recorded in the register.

Comparison of the contents of different issues of project documentation and the items published within them, are fully supported.

Published documents can be provided to customers and suppliers. They can also be captured using the Document Loader tool, after an external group has made change. So cyclical processing of external documents is supported. When combined with the register of the issue states of project documents, this facility means that all document-orientated processes are supported. The tools therefore fully support all customer-supplier and supply chain management contexts.

Feature Summary

Feature Summary - DOC
Feature Summary – DOC

Please contact 3SL for further information about adding a Cradle DOC module to your existing system.

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Cradle Modules – REQ

Cradle-REQ Module

The Cradle REQ module provides a complete requirements capture and engineering solution with built-in CM. It can manage needs, risks, products, features, tests, validations and any other data. It is easily applied to both agile and phase-based processes.

REQ Requirements Management Module
REQ Requirements Management Module

Requirements management is part of every agile and phase process. Stakeholder needs are captured, analysed and engineered. Changes are tracked in a CM system. All needs will be linked to design, build, test and acceptance information. In agile, this is in every sprint. In phase-based processes, it is less frequent. But the techniques are the same, and the same tool needs apply that only Cradle provides:

Requirement types can be defined (user, business, system, product, functional or non-functional), user stories and use cases. Link to codes, standards, regulations, knowledge or assumptions. You define other item types to be managed, such as functions, issues, tests, risks, SBS, PBS, WBS or defects. Attributes in these items are controlled, how they will be linked to each other, and their workflows.

Item Attributes

Items have user-definable attributes, each storing or linking to up to 1 TByte of data. Attribute types are user-defined, including dates, numbers, plain and rich text, single or multi-value lists, Office and other documents, and calculations.

The text in requirements, tests, verifications and other items can be quality checked against project-specific rules.

Items can be in hierarchies, groups and many:many relationships. You can create projects using a common library. Product ranges, models, variants and builds are supported. Items can be shared and reused in any of these structures.

Capturing Items

Items can be captured from external documents by Document Loader. It reproduces the document structure in a hierarchy of items. Each item is linked to its origin in the document. Figures are loaded automatically. Tables can be captured into items, images, Word objects or rich text.

Document Loader finds differences in new versions of documents. Loading the new version will update items and their links. Coverage analysis between documents and database items are provided.

Full version management of source documents is provided. Regression to previous versions is supported, with reversal of all changes.

Requirements and other items can be loaded from Word, Excel or other tools using plug-ins, data exchange or direct interfaces.

Analyses

Coverage, traceability and impact analyses are easily run, then viewed as trees, lists, tables, matrices, or in dynamic Hierarchy Diagrams with user-defined attributes. Items can be filtered, sorted, split and merged. All changes to items can be logged. Users can be alerted to changes by Cradle, email or both.

Discussions

Users collaborate by adding discussions to items and adding threads to items and adding threads of comments to these discussions.

Reviews

Once stable, items can be progressed through a series of formal reviews that log comments from all reviewers. You define the workflows. Once in a baseline, items can be subject to formal change control using change request (proposals) and change tasks (actions). You can view the database as it was in any previous baseline.

Multiple generations of requirements can be maintained and compared. Multiple sets of variants can be managed to reflect different products in a common family.

Items can be progressed within their lifecycles. The lifecycle of an item represents the series of stages that it can pass through between being created and reaching a final, rest, condition.

User-defined tree, table and matrix views can be defined from a point-and-click UI to show traceability, coverage and compliance. This includes RTMs, VCRMs and PVMs.

Linking Items

Cradle provides transitive cross referencing, in which it follows chains of multiple links between indirectly linked items, so you can see cross-lifecycle traceability in one step. For example, you can view user requirements to tests, where Cradle transparently follows intermediate links via system requirements, functions, architecture components and so on.

Requirements can be linked to test data, safety and other critical issues, risks or any project data. When used with the Cradle-SYS module, user stories and requirements can be linked to functional, behavioural, UML, analysis, architecture and design models organised into any number of model hierarchies in both analysis and design domains.

Publish Information

All information can be published in user-defined reports and formal documents.

Feature Summary

Feature Summary - REQ
Feature Summary – REQ

Please contact 3SL for further information about adding a Cradle REQ module to your existing system.

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Cradle Modules – PDM

The Cradle PDM module provides the infrastructure for all other Cradle modules. Its scalability and flexibility create an industrial strength, proven, shared data environment for even the largest projects:

Cradle PDM Module
Cradle PDM Module

Databases

Cradle supports any number of databases, each with its own schema, CM system and users. Each database supports many projects. Use the Project Manager tool to organise this environment by user-defined criteria, for example as hierarchies.

Each database stores any number of items, of any number of types (requirements, risks, classes, user stories, functions) defined by a UI. Items have any number of attributes, each of a user-defined type, that manage up to 1 TByte of any type of data, held in Cradle, or referenced in external files, URLs or another tool or environment.

Calculations

User-defined calculations are supported in all parts of Cradle and can be displayed as graphs, in views and user-defined reports. User-defined rules can be applied to automatically set attribute values or perform calculations, to maintain the integrity within and between items.

Cross References

Items can be cross referenced, with optional user-defined link types and groups. Links have user-defined attributes to justify, parametrise, explain or characterise them. You control which links are used to navigate or report traceability, based on link type or group, direction and link attribute values. Links are both direct and indirect, for full lifecycle traceability, impact and coverage analyses.

Process Tailored Environment

You use start pages and a phase hierarchy to build an environment tailored to your process. End users only need to be trained in your interface, reducing training time and costs:

  • Start pages are text and graphics controls that perform your choice of operations simply and easily
  • The phase hierarchy shows the process as a hierarchy in which an agile or phase activity, task, sprint, report or document is run by a mouse click. Different parts of the phase hierarchy can be shown to each user or stakeholder group.

Traceability and coverage views are available as trees, nested and pivot tables, matrices and Hierarchy Diagrams. Unique transitive links give traceability across the full system lifecycle.

Configuration Management

Items evolve through versions that are managed in baselines and controlled by a built-in CM system, with mechanisms for review, baseline and version control, full change control, and audit trails.

Cradle can track all changes. Edits can be reversed selectively or by group. Items can be compared across edits and in baselines. Edits can raise alerts to users, and mark related items as suspect. All edits are permanently available, for change logs.

Adaptations

Cradle provides adaptations to allow variants of items. This mechanism is ideal for databases that contain a library of standard items and projects that use the library, and contribute to it.

Access Controls

Access controls apply to all items based on user roles, privileges, security clearances and skills. Users can be grouped in a hierarchy of teams, to create any access control scheme, such as for customers, subcontractors and IV&V. The creation and manipulation of links can be controlled, by item or user.

Cradle is multi-user. It locks information at item level, with automatic database commit after an edit. This maximises users’ interaction with the database and guarantees all data s up-to-date.

Alerts

Cradle’s alert mechanism sends messages by email (SMTP or IMAP), Cradle or both. Alerts can be selectively enabled and disabled. Alerts track events on items, including edit, review and formal change.

Discussions

The Cradle discussion mechanism allows even read-only users to add comments to items. Four other commenting mechanisms are provided.

Project Planning

Cradle can manage project plans and WBS. User task lists are maintained. WBS structures and progress data can be exchanged bidirectionally with external PM tools. Cradle can generate burn-down and earned-value graphs on any user-defined criterion to monitor progress.

API

Cradle is open and extensible. It provides multiple import/export formats, an API, a user-definable event-driven command interface, interfaces with other tools and bidirectional interfaces to Microsoft Office.

Query and Report Data

Cradle provides uniquely powerful data query and visualisation facilities. Each user’s environment can be tailored by defining custom queries, views, forms, navigations, matrices, reports and other facilities. All customisations have a scope, to be specific to the end user, or shared with other users of the same type (such as all customers or all managers), the user’s team, the entire project, or all projects.

Any desired compliance, coverage or traceability report can be created quickly/easily using Cradle’s queries, multi-row views/nested table view, and saved for later use.

Licensing

Cradle has floating, dynamic licensing and low cost read-only users. Open and named user licences are available. Everything described here is free of charge.

Licences, databases and schemas are interchangeable across Linux and Windows 8.1, 10, 11, Server 2012 R2, 2016 and 2019.

Optional support for Oracle and MySQL.

Feature Summary

Feature Summary - PDM
Feature Summary – PDM

Please contact 3SL for further information about Cradle PDM licences.

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August Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the August 2023 newsletter from 3SL!

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.

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 both our Project Administration course and Cradle Introduction course which we provided in July.

Displaying PDUIDs and their Components

Here we explain how to view PDUIDs and their components.

Viewing PDUIDs

You can show PDUIDs and their parts anywhere that you can show any other item attributes, especially in views and forms. Use views to control how the results of queries will be shown. You use forms to show single items. In both cases, you decide which of the items’ attributes to show. You can show either PDUIDs or any of their parts. All of these values will be displayed read-only.

Views

A view specifies which of an item’s attributes will be shown, and the order and position of the values of these attributes.

Display Styles

You can display a view in one of four display styles:

List:Lists show each item in a row of read-only text. Lists cannot contain colour, images or linked items. You use a list to show the maximum number of items on screen at the same time.
Table:Each item is shown in one or more rows, each of one or more columns, which creates a grid of display cells. Each of these cells can contain text or graphics. You can specify colour and text styles for the cells. The cells also allow linked items to be shown. Some cells are editable. You can also create display menus of user-defined commands. Table style is the most common display style.
Document:This is the same as Table style except that row and column borders are not shown and different font sizes are used to display the first row of each item. The size of the text is based on the identity or other alphanumeric attribute, so that the effect is similar to the headings and subheadings of text in a document.
Tree:Each item is displayed as a node in a tree and a single row of values similar to List style. You can control the format of the tree nodes by a separate view. These tree nodes can be expanded and collapsed to show or hide sets of linked items.

Views are Tables

Most views have one row of cells, each containing one of the item’s attributes. So if a query returns 200 items, then the view will contain 200 rows, one per item. Items can be shown over more than one row. For example, if the same query is displayed with a view that uses 3 rows to show each item, then the result will be a table with 600 rows of the form:

3SL Cradle, items as rows in a table in a view
Items as Table Rows in a View

View Cells

Each cell in a view can contain fixed text, an attribute, linked items, or several attributes combined into a single value with some optional separating characters.

PDUIDs in Views

All of the components of PDUIDs are available to be shown in cells in a view.

Further Details

To continue reading, please see the full blog entry here.

Joscar

We are pleased to announce that following the submission of our renewal, our compliance information has now been published for buying organisations using JOSCAR (the Joint Supply Chain Accreditation Register).

JOSCAR registered logo
JOSCAR

Social Media

Still to Come this Month

This course is a 2 day course split over 4 half days. It provides the following modules:

  1. Introduction to Cradle
  2. Cradle Training Environment
  3. Document Loader Introduction
  4. Office Tools Introduction
  5. Engineering Data
  6. Hierarchies in Cradle
  7. Traceability
  8. Customising WorkBench
  9. Configuration Management
  10. WorkBench Output
  11. Document Publisher Output
  12. Customising your Environment
  13. Tool Support

Your Highlights

If you have any company news or achievements that you would like 3SL to share in any of our newsletters then please let us know.

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Displaying PDUIDs and their Components

This is the second in a short series of posts that explain Project Database Unique IDs (PDUIDs). This post explains how to view PDUIDs and their components. Later posts will explain:

  • How they can be used in operations in Cradle tools, API and WSI
  • How PDUIDs can be changed or preserved when information is moved between databases

Viewing PDUIDs

You can show PDUIDs and their parts anywhere that you can show any other item attributes, especially in views and forms. Use views to control how the results of queries will be shown. You use forms to show single items. In both cases, you decide which of the items’ attributes to show. You can show either PDUIDs or any of their parts. All of these values will be displayed read-only.

Views

A view specifies which of an item’s attributes will be shown, and the order and position of the values of these attributes.

Display Styles

You can display a view in one of four display styles:

List:Lists show each item in a row of read-only text. Lists cannot contain colour, images or linked items. You use a list to show the maximum number of items on screen at the same time.
Table:Each item is shown in one or more rows, each of one or more columns, which creates a grid of display cells. Each of these cells can contain text or graphics. You can specify colour and text styles for the cells. The cells also allow linked items to be shown. Some cells are editable. You can also create display menus of user-defined commands. Table style is the most common display style.
Document:This is the same as Table style except that row and column borders are not shown and different font sizes are used to display the first row of each item. The size of the text is based on the identity or other alphanumeric attribute, so that the effect is similar to the headings and subheadings of text in a document.
Tree:Each item is displayed as a node in a tree and a single row of values similar to List style. You can control the format of the tree nodes by a separate view. These tree nodes can be expanded and collapsed to show or hide sets of linked items.

Views are Tables

Most views have one row of cells, each containing one of the item’s attributes. So if a query returns 200 items, then the view will contain 200 rows, one per item. Items can be shown over more than one row. For example, if the same query is displayed with a view that uses 3 rows to show each item, then the result will be a table with 600 rows of the form:

3SL Cradle, items as rows in a table in a view
Items as Table Rows in a View

View Cells

Each cell in a view can contain fixed text, an attribute, linked items, or several attributes combined into a single value with some optional separating characters.

PDUIDs in Views

All of the components of PDUIDs are available to be shown in cells in a view. For example:

3SL Cradle DID PID UID and PDUID in View in Table Style
DID PID UID and PDUID in View in Table Style

The DID column contains the Database ID component from the items’ PDUIDs:

3SL Cradle View PDUIDs DID in a View
DID in a View

The PID column contains the Project ID component from the items’ PDUIDs:

3SL Cradle View PDUIDs PID in a View
PID in a View

The UID column contains the Unique ID component from the items’ PDUIDs:

3SL Cradle View PDUIDs UID in a View
UID in a View

The PDUID column contains the items’ entire PDUIDs:

3SL Cradle view PDUIDs PDUID in a View
PDUID in a View

There is no component to show the items’ Project Unique IDs (PUIDs). The PUID is the combination of the PID and UID, so we can easily output this in a view cell using the data type Multiple and concatenating these attributes with no separators:

3SL Cradle View PDUIDs PUID in a View
PUID in a View
3SL Cradle View PDUIDs PUID Component Attributes
PUID Component Attributes

All of these cells will be read-only in all display styles since PDUIDs are not user-modifiable attributes.

Forms

A form is a collection of fields, grouped into rows and columns, that display information for a single item. You can arrange the fields in a form in any way that you wish, to create any layout of information that you wish. Regions of forms can be made collapsible inside panels. Each field in a form can contain fixed text, an attribute or a collection of linked items. If an attribute is editable, then the form will allow it to be edited, subject to the user’s access rights to the item and that specific attribute. In addition, a field can be set to prevent editing of an attribute that would otherwise be editable.

All of the components of PDUIDs are available to be shown in fields in a form. For example:

3SL Cradle View PDUIDs and Components in a Form
PDUID and Components in a Form

The DID field contains the Database ID component from the item’s PDUID:

3SL Cradle View PDUIDs DID in a Form
DID in a Form

The PID field contains the Project ID component from the item’s PDUID:

3SL Cradle View PDUIDs PID in a Form
PID in a Form

The UID field contains the Unique ID component from the item’s PDUID:

3SL Cradle View PDUIDs UID in a Form
UID in a Form

The PDUID field contains the item’s entire PDUID:

3SL Cradle PDUID in a Form
PDUID in a Form
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Cradle Modules – Overview

Cradle Modules

Cradle is an integrated requirements management and systems engineering environment with the features, flexibility and scalability for the full lifecycle of today’s complex agile and phase-based projects.

Overview of Cradle Modules
Overview of Cradle Modules

From concept to creation, from Cradle to grave.

Cradle is unique. It provides the tools and features to create and manage all your data, at all stages in your systems development, and at all levels. By managing all the data in one place, only Cradle can provide traceability across the entire lifecycle in one tool. Without Cradle, you have to assemble many products from many vendors, and you will still not have the full traceability that Cradle can provide.

What does Cradle Provide?

Cradle provides full requirements management, analysis, design, architecture and performance modelling, test, risk and interface management and metrics in one product. You can use all of these facilities, or combine Cradle with tools from other vendors. If you have such tools then Cradle will link to them, extending their scope from a part of the system lifecycle to all of it.

Cradle is multi-user, multi-project, distributed, open and extensible. It links to your existing desktop tools to create a tailored environment to suit your process.

Cradle provides built-in issue, risk and interface management. It supports comparative trade studies and analyses. Cradle provides a built-in  configuration management and control system with baselines, version control, change histories and formal change control. It bidirectionally links a WBS and progress reporting to your project planning tool. With these capabilities,  Cradle removes the need for you to try to connect risk, CM or change tracking tools to your systems engineering. Cradle provides everything you need, integrated and ready to use.

Access Control and Authentication

Cradle has customisable, hierarchical, access control facilities and integrates with your authentication, access control and security mechanisms including firewalls, LDAP and SSL. Cradle provides user-definable views of project data, tailored to each stakeholder group. With customisable navigation, review and entry tools and tailored web UIs, Cradle shows each user the data that they want to see, in the way that they want to see it.

Cradle Databases

Projects use user-defined, arbitrarily extensible databases, linked to external files, URL resources and data in external repositories. Each database is configuration controlled, with change histories, baselines, versions and variants, managed by configurable change requests and change tasks.

Cradle Access

Cradle supports off-line and remote access from geographically separate groups. Internet and VPN access is provided, with full support for project and company firewalls and DMZs.

It connects dispersed teams together, with tailorable discussions, alerts and e-mail.

Cradle Modules Overview

Cradle is modular, using floating licences to share resources dynamically across the project. The Cradle modules overview is:

  • Cradle-PDM provides a project infrastructure, from access control and user accounts, through a user-defined schema, phase hierarchy, team hierarchy and access controls to configuration management and open external interfaces.
  • Cradle-REQ provides requirements management from external source documents to baselined, engineered requirements linked to the rest of the system lifecycle. It allows you to define and manage user stories, validations, test cases, and any other types of information for all of your process.
  • Cradle-MET provides user-definable metrics to gather and analyse statistics from project data.
  • Cradle-SYS is a flexible analysis and design modelling environment. It allows any number of models to be built and grouped into model hierarchies in distinct analysis and design domains. Models are fully cross referenced to requirements and all other information. SysML is also supported.
  • Cradle-DASH provides user-definable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) calculated from live project data in user-defined dashboards shown as tables or dials.
  • Cradle-PERF provides performance assessment, budget apportionment and data aggregation facilities for design models at any level in a system development.
  • Cradle-SWE provides code generation and reverse engineering for C, Ada and Pascal, to synchronise design and source code.
  • Cradle-DOC provides user-defined project document generation and a formal document register of project deliverables.
  • Cradle-WEBP provides web publishing of project data to static, hyperlinked, websites for external stakeholders.
  • Cradle-WEBA allows read-only and read-write access to project data through multiple, user-defined, web UIs that are tailored to each stakeholder group. It also provides external access to Cradle items through URLs.
  • Cradle-RISK provides ability to open and edit items of the mapped item type for risks. Also allows you to create and open risk profile graphs.
  • Cradle-TEST provides ability to execute test plans and create/edit test information, e.g. test cases, test results and test runs.

Feature Summary

Feature Summary - Overview
Feature Summary – Overview

Please contact 3SL for further information about adding any of the Cradle modules to your existing system.

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Product Range – Cradle Enterprise

Cradle Enterprise Overview

Collaborative Model Based Systems Engineering across the Systems Lifecycle

Complete Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and documentation solution for the entire project lifecycle, fully user-definable and applicable to all agile and phase based processes.

  • Supports the full systems development lifecycle at system, subsystem and lower levels
  • Integrates in one product features normally spread across separate tools from different vendors
  • Completely user-definable and user-extensible with point-and-click UIs
  • Manage any information, including requirements, risks, interfaces, tests and verifications
  • Scalable to millions of items of information
  • Full traceability of data from external sources and version management of source documents
  • Full traceability and coverage analyses
  • User-definable views of data including tables, trees, documents, matrices, diagrams and graphs
  • User-defined metrics and management dashboards

Cradle Enterprise is a complete multi-user solution to manage, trace and document all the data for your agile and phase-based projects.

Capture and Track Information

Capture information from external documents and tools, and track changes in these sources. You can build new sets of requirements, analysis, architecture and design models, tests or verifications, and link them to the source data and to each other. Check the consistency and quality of this information, and prove the integrity of the models and other data with bi-directional coverage and traceability analyses.

Customers’ confidence can be raised with proof that your work satisfies its sources and constraints, and will meet their needs.

Easily track progress with metrics and KPIs and link to your WBS and actual progress to your project planning tools.

Create Databases and Information

Create any number of databases, each with a schema and multiple projects that contain any number of items of any number of user-defined item types. Each item has any number of attributes with up to 1TByte of data, held in Cradle, or referenced in files, URLs or other tools.

All items can be linked with user-defined types of cross reference. The links have attributes to justify, explain or parametise them. Links are direct and indirect, for full lifecycle traceability, impact and coverage analyses.

External documents can be loaded into hierarchies of items. Every item in Cradle is linked to its source in a document. Changes in new document versions are automatically found and the database updated. You can prove the integrity of all source data to your customers with a range of detailed coverage analyses of their documents.

Items can be linear, hierarchical and in many-to-many relationships. Items can be split, merged and reordered. All information can be shared and reused. Cradle can support product ranges, models, variants and builds, and generate comparative analyses between them as tables, pivot tables and matrices.

Create any number of analysis, logical, process, architecture or design models in SysML, UML, SASD, IDEF, ADARTS and other notations. Optionally group models in hierarchies and link elements of all models to requirements, SBS, issues, test cases and all other information.

Track and View Information

Cradle tracks all edits to every requirement, test case, verification and all other information that you want it to hold. Edits can be reversed selectively or by group. Full or partial change logs are readily available.

Control the work with team hierarchies, roles and access controls. Review items with discussions, user-defined workflows and built-in CM with baselines, full version control and formal change management.

You define how information is viewed and reported in any number of views, shown as nested tables, trees, matrices, pivot tables and as diagrams.

Generate versions of documents such as a URD, SRD, IRS, SDS and SSDS to match your or your client’s formats with user-defined templates and detailed traceability of which items were published in each document issue.

Manage Projects

Manage your projects with:

  • Metrics, user-defined calculations of items’ values
  • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), results of metric calculations with colour-coded display bands
  • Bi-directional links to Project, including user task lists and actual progress reporting

Cradle is open. It supports many import/export formats, has several interface mechanisms to link to other tools, and connects to Microsoft Office components Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and Project.

Cradle is simple to customise and use through point-and-click UIs.

Major Features

The major features are:

Cradle Enterprise Features
Cradle Enterprise Features

Supported Platforms

The supported platforms are:

Supported Platforms

Characteristics

The characteristics are:

Cradle Enterprise Characteristics
Cradle Enterprise Characteristics

Cradle Enterprise is part of the Cradle product range that includes low cost, single-user tools.

Product Range Highlights

  • Applies to agile and phase projects
  • Application lifecycle management
  • Requirements management
  • Modelling / MBSE
  • Test execution / risk management
  • Full lifecycle integration
  • V&V and compliance management
  • Reporting / document publishing
  • Metrics
  • Dashboards
  • Project plans
  • User-defined UIs
  • Custom web UIs
  • Configuration management
  • Multi user
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Product Range – Cradle-SE Pro

Cradle-SE Pro Overview

Model Based Systems Engineering across the Systems Lifecycle

Complete Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and documentation solution for the entire project lifecycle, fully user-definable and applicable to all agile and phase based processes.

  • Supports the full systems development lifecycle at system, subsystem and lower levels
  • Integrates in one product features normally spread across separate tools from different vendors
  • Completely user-definable and user-extensible with point-and-click UIs
  • Manage any information, including requirements, models, risks, interfaces, tests and verifications
  • Scalable to millions of items of information
  • Full traceability of data to source and generated documents with complete version management
  • Full traceability and coverage analyses
  • User-definable views of data including tables, trees, documents, matrices, diagrams and graphs
  • User-defined metrics and management dashboards

Cradle-SE Pro is a complete solution to manage, trace and document all the data for your agile and phase-based projects.

Capture and Track Information

Capture information from external documents and tools, and track changes in these sources. You can build new sets of requirements, analysis, architecture and design models, tests or verifications, and link them to the source data and to each other. Check the consistency and quality of this information, and prove the integrity of the models and other data with bi-directional coverage and traceability analyses.

Customers’ confidence can be raised with proof that your work satisfies its sources and constraints, and will meet their needs.

Easily track progress with metrics and KPIs and link to your WBS and actual progress to your project planning tools.

Create Databases and Information

Create any number of databases, each with a schema and multiple projects that contain any number of items of any number of user-defined item types. Each item has any number of attributes with up to 1TByte of data, held in Cradle, or referenced in files, URLs or other tools.

All items can be linked with user-defined types of cross reference. The links have attributes to justify, explain or parametise them. Links are direct and indirect, for full lifecycle traceability, impact and coverage analyses.

External documents can be loaded into hierarchies of items. Every item in Cradle is linked to its source in a document. Changes in new document versions are automatically found and the database updated. You can prove the integrity of all source data to your customers with a range of detailed coverage analyses of their documents.

Items can be linear, hierarchical and in many-to-many relationships. Items can be split, merged and reordered. All information can be shared and reused. Cradle can support product ranges, models, variants and builds, and generate comparative analyses between them as tables, pivot tables and matrices.

Create any number of analysis, architecture, logical, process or design models using UML, SASD, IDEF, ADARTS, SysML and other notations. Group models in hierarchies and link all elements of all models to requirements, SBS, issues, test cases and all other information.

Track and View Information

Cradle tracks all edits to every requirement, test case, verification and all other information that you want it to hold. Edits can be reversed selectively or by group. Full or partial change logs are readily available.

You define how information is viewed and reported in any number of views, shown as nested tables, trees, matrices, pivot tables and as diagrams.

Generate versions of documents such as URD, SRD, IRS, SDS and SSDS to match your or your client’s formats with user-defined templates and detailed traceability of which items were published in each document issue.

Manage Projects

Manage your projects with:

  • Metrics, user-defined calculations of items’ values
  • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), results of metric calculations with colour-coded display bands
  • Bi-directional links to Project, including user task lists and actual progress reporting

Cradle is open. It supports many import/export formats, has several interface mechanisms to link to other tools, and connects to Microsoft Office components Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and Project.

Cradle is simple to customise and use. You do not need to learn a scripting language or become a programmer to tailor it to your process. After every change to your schema, Cradle will automatically update collections of queries, views and other definitions that make you productive immediately.

Major Features

The major features are:

Cradle-SE Pro Features
Cradle-SE Pro Features

Supported Platforms

The supported platforms are:

Supported Platforms

Characteristics

The characteristics are:

Cradle-SE Pro Characteristics
Cradle-SE Pro Characteristics

Cradle-SE Pro is part of the Cradle product range. The full, multi-user, product is Cradle Enterprise.

Product Range Highlights

  • Applies to agile and phase projects
  • Application lifecycle management
  • Requirements management
  • Modelling / MBSE
  • Full lifecycle integration
  • V&V
  • Reporting
  • Document publishing
  • Metrics
  • Dashboards
  • Project plans
  • Compliance management
  • Single user
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July Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the July 2023 newsletter from 3SL!

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.

PDUIDs

When we work with information, we need a way to distinguish each piece of information from all other pieces of information so we can be sure we have found what we were searching for. We do this by marking each piece of information in a unique way.

For information in databases, the markings are unique values called keys or identities. A piece of information can have multiple identities, each for a different purpose. For example, although a company’s payroll system is likely to identify each person by a unique Employee ID, each person’s details will also include their governmental tax ID (such as a National Insurance number, a Unique Taxpayer Reference, a Sozialversicherungsnummer or a Social Security Number). This tax ID will also be unique and so could also be used as an identity for that person’s information.

Cradle has two forms of identity, item identities and Project Database Unique IDs (PDUIDs).

We will publish a series of blog posts about PDUIDs, describing what they are, how to view them, how to use them, and how PDUIDs can be managed when you import information into your databases.

Item Identities

There are several basic item types in Cradle. Each basic item type uses a different combination of attributes to create a unique Item ID for items of that type:

Item identities table

An item is identified by this Item ID and a unique Instance ID, typically a version and draft.

PDUID Structure

Project Database Unique IDs (PDUIDs) are a single, consistent, numbering system for all database information. Each PDUID is a 26 character string that contains a Database ID to identify a Cradle system, a Project ID to identify a project database and a Unique ID:

Cradle PDUID Structure
Structure of PDUIDs

A PDUID references all instances of an item. Therefore the combination of a PDUID and an Instance ID (a version and draft) will identify a specific item. So, this is an alternative to the Item ID and Instance ID and has the advantage of being consistent and a single numbering sequence for all types of item.

Further Details

For further details in this part 1 of a description of PDUIDs, please see the full blog entry here.

Remote Databases

A Cradle system can contain any number of databases. For the best performance, we recommend that databases are stored on disks connected to the machine that runs your Cradle Database Server (CDS). But, this may not be possible.

For example:

  • The local system may not have enough disk space available
  • The information in the database may be classified and must be stored separately

Here each database will be stored on a remote filesystem that must be referenced by a pathname so the CDS can work with it.

Further Details

For further details of remote databases, please see the full blog entry here.

Over Half Way Through the Year

It’s true; the 2nd July marked the halfway point of the calendar year. That went fast didn’t it?

It feels like we only just celebrated the New Year and now we are six months away from doing it all over again.

At this time of year, it is good to reflect on what’s already passed and what is to come this year. Here are some ways that might help if you are looking to refocus and recharge over the summer months.

Check in on Team Goals

  • How are the goals the team set at the beginning of the year going?
  • When was the last time your team reviewed them?

Now is a great time to reflect on any progress. Is your team on track? Is everybody on the same page?

Whatever the progress so far this year, there will be lessons to be learnt from it. It’s time to put an action plan in place for the remainder of the year. Now is a good time to get the team goals back on track:

  • Ask who do you need to help achieve those goals?
  • What’s the best way to communicate with them?
  • Is there an alternative way to achieve them?

Communication

Summer can be especially busy; school summer holidays, weekly events, fewer people in the office, and various demands can bring stress to everyone.

With all these additional activities going on, it’s easy for people to get distracted, lost and even burnt out.

Now is a great time to contact your team, employees and other connections. It can be as simple as a chat over a cup of coffee, a walk and talk or a business/working lunch. This will allow you to connect in a more casual way, which in turn, can help strengthen the link between you and your team.

Help your Team Avoid a Summer Decline

It’s no surprise that productivity can fall off a cliff when the sun comes out! Thoughts of ice cream, beer gardens and future holidays can lead our minds to wander off and our focus can end up in the bin.

Ice cream
Ice cream

Now is a good time to prepare your team and business to avoid any slump.

Congratulate your team on their efforts so far this year. One way to keep the momentum going is to set small achievable goals, something that can be done within a week to a month can help. As you complete and reach each one, the team will get a boost.

Having weekly/monthly meetings can allow the team to see those goals that have been achieved. Using metrics, dashboards and graphs can help your team see the progress made each week, month, year or more.

This progress will give reasons to celebrate and that can only be a good thing!

Remember: the team working together will make the dream work!

Feedback

We continue to receive positive feedback from our customers. We really appreciate ALL feedback, as this helps us to assess and improve both the products and services we provide.

In June, we provided a Cradle training course to one of our customers in Australia. They kindly sent the following feedback:

“Extremely informative classes. We are very appreciative of the customised content tailored for our envisaged use of the tool”

Independence Day (4th July)

4th July was a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the Declaration of Independence which was ratified by the Second Continental Congress on July 4th 1776, establishing the United States of America.

Social Media

We commemorated #DDay – 79 years ago. “We will remember them“:

DDay
DDay

Some of our customers, both old and new, attended various shows/exhibitions etc, e.g.:

@SercoGroup announced they have been awarded nine contracts to help the #IRIDE space programme. This programme is led by the Italian government and implemented by the European Space Agency. This is one of the most amibitous Earth Observation programmes in Europe.

With electric vehicles taking over the roads, our customer @Enphase talked about EV chargers.

Looking Back

Last month we discussed:

We would also like to thank all attendees on our Configuration Management course which we provided in June.

Still to Come this Month

Your Highlights!

If you have any company news or achievements that you would like 3SL to share in any of our newsletters then please let us know.

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Remote Databases

A Cradle system can contain any number of databases. For the best performance, we recommend that databases are stored on disks connected to the machine that runs your Cradle Database Server (CDS). But, this may not be possible.

For example:

  • The local system may not have enough disk space available
  • The information in the database may be classified and must be stored separately

Here each database will be stored on a remote filesystem that must be referenced by a pathname so the CDS can work with it.

Remote Linux Filesystems

On Linux, a remote filesystem is mounted as a pathname. The CDS works through this pathname to access the remote filesystem. Remote filesystems include NFS (network file system) and others.

3SL does not recommend the use of CIFS (Common Internet File System) filesystems. We have seen several Linux systems that use CIFS to mount remote Windows filesystems. Sadly all these CIFS filesystems have provided very poor performance to the Linux server.

For NFS mounts, we suggest that you examine block sizes of 4K or more and consider nosuid mounts.

Remote Windows Filesystems

We are sure you are familiar with drive letters such as G: or H: that are the connection point to filesystems on remote systems.

For example, a filesystem disk1 on server myfileserver1 can be mounted as the X: drive. You can navigate to a pathname on X: such as:

X:\Cradle Databases\ABCD

You cannot use drive letters in the pathname to create a Cradle database on a remote drive. Drive letters are specific to a Windows profile and are created only when that profile is active.

So, please use UNC pathnames to refer to Cradle databases on remote drives. UNC pathnames are of the form:

\\servername\path

So in the above example, the pathname to the ABCD database would be:

\\myfileserver1\disk1\Cradle Databases\ABCD

Access to Remote Windows Databases

You must ensure that the access rights to remote directories will allow the CDS to search all directories inside the database and give RW access to all of the database files. Please note that the CDS runs as the local SYSTEM user on the machine where it is run. So it is this user who must have search, read and write access on the remote filesystem.

If you wish, you can control the user who will run the CDS. To do this iteratively (you may need to have Administrator rights depending on your system):

  1. Open Task Manager and in the Services tab, stop the Cradle Services Manager
  2. Open Windows Explorer
  3. Navigate into your Cradle system and look in the folder bin\exe\windows
  4. Press SHIFT and right-click on the CDS executable: crsvr.exe and choose Run As and enter the username and password that you want the CDS to run as

If you want to permanently change how the CDS runs, then (you may need to have Administrator rights on your system):

  1. Open services.msc, the MMC (Microsoft Management Console) or Services Control Manager (depending on your version of Windows) to see all services and stop the Cradle Services Manager
  2. Select the Cradle Services Manager, right click and choose Properties
  3. Select Log On in the dialog and specify the user that you want the CDS to run as and the password for this account:Run As User for 3SL Cradle Database Server
  4. Click OK to close the dialog
  5. Start the service and then close the list of services