Requirements – standard requirement type that you might wish to replace with a system note type instead
Events – used in the analysis stage of a project to model the environment of a system and to describe how the system interacts with this environment
Essential Domain – analysis models
Implementation Domain – design models
Project plans – integration with Microsoft ProjectBefore hiding unused item types
Some of the item types might not be necessary in your schema so you can remove unused item types/information in the Miscellaneous section of Project Setup:
Setting item types to be hidden
Once applied and WorkBench restarted, you will no longer see the item types/information you have chosen to hide. This includes:
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.
Is SaaS Beneficial?
Traditionally, software was installed on in-house computers. You managed the hardware that ran the software, ensured the integrity of the data created with the software with appropriate backups, and applied all the operating system and firmware updates needed to keep the system running properly.
Increasingly, individuals and companies simply want to use software, and have someone else host it, ensure the integrity of the data that they create, and manage the resilience of the underlying hardware and software infrastructure.
This is SaaS – software as a service.
Most large software companies try hard to force all customers to use SaaS by buying subscriptions. For example, although it is possible to buy Microsoft and Adobe products to install in-house, you have to work hard to find the part of their websites where such purchases can be made.
SaaS is charged on a per user per month basis for the functionality used. You pay more as you add users and as you access more functionality. You can stop the service when access to the software will be removed, all your data will be deleted, and you will stop being charged. This is all reasonable.
Some SaaS Benefits
SaaS brings benefits including:
You do not need to provide resources (hardware or VMs) to run the software
You do not have to maintain these resources nor provide the staff to perform this maintenance
You can easily react to short term needs
You do not need to provide integrity for the data that is created
You do not have any costs if you don’t need the resource for a while
Problems with SaaS
Of course there are also disadvantages to SaaS:
It will be more expensive than deploying in-house, typically after 2 years
You have no direct access, so you are reliant on your SaaS provider being responsive and complying with the SLA – you do have a Service Level Agreement don’t you?
You cannot directly interact with the software and must rely on the SaaS provider’s competence with the software and their understanding of what you want to achieve. This could cause delays or errors.
You do not have physical control over your data or the hardware that hosts it
Your data may be exposed by being given to third parties without your knowledge or consent, given such as the US Patriot Act (parts of which are still in effect) and the collaboration between groups including the EU and 5 Eyes – this includes all data centres managed by US companies regardless of their location, so be mindful when considering US-owned Infrastructure as a Service such as, but not only, Azure and AWS
You have to manage the IP ranges that are to have access, unless your SaaS allows access by the entire Internet
Is a Cradle SaaS Worth It?
This depends on your situation. In general:
if you do not have an IT organisation, or
if Cradle is too small to be applicable to your IT organisation
and:
if you are confident that 3SL understands Cradle and will be responsive to your needs and
if the SLA and Cradle SaaS are acceptable (see the 3SL Cradle End User SaaS Agreement – EUSA), and
you have agreed a location for your data (within 3SL or in a SaaS Virtual Private Cloud – VPC – that 3SL will build for you in an agreed location)
then, yes, SaaS is a good solution as it allows you to concentrate on using Cradle to the benefit of your projects and leaves the management of the Cradle infrastructure to others.
Fixed IPs for Cradle SaaS
We do not want a Cradle SaaS to be accessible by the entire Internet. Each Cradle SaaS includes an external firewall that specifies the IP addresses or ranges (CIDRs) of the locations that are allowed access. Access from any IP address is ignored if it is not in this list of allowed locations.
This method works well except when a user’s IP address is not fixed. A user’s IP address is not fixed if they access the SaaS from either:
many locations, such as customer sites, hotel rooms, train stations, public tea rooms, or
a domestic Internet connection where the ISP assigns a different IP address to the user every time that they connect to the Internet
In these cases, 3SL will consider the size of the IP address range. A small IP address range may be acceptable to both you and 3SL. For example, the CIDR:
78.37.252.0/22
is a range of 1,024 IP addresses 78.37.252.0 to 78.37.255.255 inclusive. In general, 3SL will not accept CIDRs of more than 64 addresses.
The solution to this problem is to have a fixed IP address.
Fixed IP Addresses and VPNs
If the end user’s location is not fixed or does not have a fixed IP address, they can get a fixed IP address by:
An organisation may provide a VPN. If so, then route the user’s connection to the Cradle SaaS over this VPN. This has two advantages. First, the connection from the end user’s computer is encrypted by the VPN, so it can be used safely from highly insecure locations such as tea shops or hotel rooms. Second, the connection to the SaaS will be from the organisation’s fixed external IP address. This is transparent to the end user. The end user simply starts the VPN as they will for all company work, and then connect to the Cradle SaaS.
A fixed IP address can be purchased from a range of providers, such as are listed here
For an extra fee, 3SL can provide a reverse proxy server that provides a VPN. The end user connects this VPN using authentication details from 3SL, typically a certificate issued by 3SL. The connection to the Cradle SaaS will come from the reverse proxy server, which has a fixed IP address. This method is also secure as it uses an encrypted VPN connection, and so it is safe to use from insecure locations.
Happy Easter
Easter, also called Pascha or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday.
We would like to wish all our customers, prospects, distributors and suppliers a Happy Easter:
3SL Easter
St George’s Day
Saint George’s Day is the feast day of Saint George, celebrated by Christian churches, countries, and cities of which he is the patron saint:
St. George as a UML Activity Diagram (ACD)
If you ever want a reminder of the legend of St. George the diagram above may be handy. For more information see the Cradle help section for ACD
We would like to wish all our customers, prospects, distributors and suppliers a Happy Saint George’s Day.
World Autism Acceptance Week
World Autism Acceptance Week is on Monday 27th March to Sunday 2nd April with Autism Awareness Day on 2nd April. The theme for 2023 is colour.
Parental Alienation Awareness Day is on 25th April each year. This is a global campaign to raise awareness of Parental Alienation. It is an opportunity for parents, grandparents, extended family members or friends to come together to access information, advice and to enable connection and support for others affected by Parental Alienation.
#hensoldt were exhibiting at #HeliExpo (booth 5614) where they talked about airborne portfolio covering mission systems, situational awareness and certified lightweight flight data recorder. Hensoldt also won contracts from #Hyundai Heavy Industries to provide six offshore patrol vessels and two corvettes which are currently being constructed for the Philippine Navy.
Congratulations to the team at @SafranSeats who had been recognised by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development at the CIPD Wales Awards for being the Best Wellbeing Initiative in the region for a large company.
@MirionHQ were exhibiting (booth 3) at the Cyber Security Implementation Workshop where they provided an insight into their solutions for cyber security, command and control and lifecycle management.
@Roche and Lilly have joined together to enhance early diagnosis of Alzheimers disease.
When a query is run in WorkBench, the tool will return a list of the items matching the criteria specified.
As a Cradle database can contain any number of items of information a query could find 0 to 1 million items.
Items in Cradle Database
The time taken to find so many items could be excessive. Therefore, queries find and return items from the database in blocks. The default size of a block is 1000 items but can be extended to 8000 items in UI Control user preferences:
Retrieve Item Options in User Prefs
This means that when you run a query it will return at most N items.
Navigating between Blocks of Data
When the block is shown in the WorkBench UI, it is preceded by Previous… and followed by Next….
If you select these, then the query is re-run to find the next block or the previous block of items.
Query showing Previous optionQuery showing Next option
In this example, clicking the Next… option will retrieve the next set of items in the query:
Query showing items
Selecting Previous… again will return you to the previous block of items.
Reporting Items
If you are creating a report or publishing a document using a query, it is likely that you would NOT wish to be restricted by blocks of items.
Reports allow you to specify:
Selected items – items highlighted in the query
All items in this set – the block of N items
All matching items in database – the totality of items matching the query criteria
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.
Cyber Essentials Assessment
Certified for Cyber Essentials
We, Structured Software Systems Limited (3SL), have been successful in our re-assessment under the Cyber Essentials scheme for another year.
As a Government-backed, industry-supported scheme, Cyber Essentials aims to help organisations protect themselves against common online threats.
By being certified compliant with Cyber Essentials, you can be assured that 3SL’s IT systems have, at the very least, a secure Information Security Management System (ISMS) and a robust set of operating principles and controls to safeguard our, and our customers’ information.
ISO9001
3SL Certificate Number 16926 ISO 9001
3SL are proud to announce their fourth year recertification for ISO9001. The team working with the audit said we passed with flying colours and there were no non-conformances. This is a testimony to all who have helped throughout the year improving and recording our processes.
The ISO says of the scheme
“ISO 9001 sets out the criteria for a quality management system and is the only standard in the family that can be certified to (although this is not a requirement). It can be used by any organization, large or small, regardless of its field of activity. In fact, there are over one million companies and organizations in over 170 countries certified to ISO 9001. This standard is based on a number of quality management principles including a strong customer focus, the motivation and implication of top management, the process approach and continual improvement. These principles are explained in more detail in ISO’s quality management principles. Using ISO 9001 helps ensure that customers get consistent, good-quality products and services, which in turn brings many business benefits.”
INCOSE
3SL are pleased to be advertising in the latest INCOSE members newsletter. You can find our latest publication here.
INCOSE Logo
3SL Inc SAM Registration
Our US partner, 3SL Inc, have successfully renewed their System for Award Management (SAM) registration for another year. This allows them to provide our products and services to the US government.
Happy Mothers Day
Mothers Day 2023 was on Sunday 19th March in the UK and Sunday 14th May in the USA. In other countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal, Sunday 19th March 2023 was Fathers Day where as the rest of the world, will celebrate it on June 18th 2023.
“Happy Mothers Day”
Happy Mothers Day
St Patricks Day
17th March marked St Patricks Day. St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and St Patricks Day is a national holiday in the Republic of Ireland although the day is celebrated all over the world.
3SL hope you all had a wonderful St Patricks Day.
Spring Time is Here!
On 20th March it was the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere and the first day of autumn in the southern hemisphere. This date marks the Astronomical spring equinox where as the Meterological spring started on the 1st of March.
Spring Time is Here
British Summer Time
Daylight savings begins on 26th March so remember the clocks go forward 1 hour at 1am here in the UK and throughout the EU. Let’s hope for a beautiful summer.
In certain situations, it may be necessary to stop a baseline from being closed if a condition has not been met. For example, if items have been registered in the baseline but items that are linked have not been.
Having this option set will ensure that all relevant data will appear in your completed baseline.
Open and Closed Baselines
Setting the Baseline Item Integrity Check
To set this option, navigate to the Configuration Management options in Project Setup and tick the Baseline Item Integrity Check option:
Baseline Option in Project Setup
You also have the ability to set a rule for the direction of the link/dependence:
All items linked to baselined items are also baselined (default option)
Baselined items’ source items are also baselined
Baselined items’ destination items are also baselined
Exclusions
You can also exclude item types or link types from being bound by this setting:
Excluded item and link types
Failing the Check
If any of the checks fail, an error message will be shown with a report showing the items that caused the close baseline operation to fail:
WorkBench has the ability to select multiple items and modify some attributes and categories using the Properties dialog.
Properties for Multiple Selected Items
However, what if you wanted to add data into selected item’s FRAMES?
In this example, we will show how this can be achieved using CSV export / import.
Adding data to multiple selected item FRAMES
Create a CSV File
Export your item type to CSV. You only need to map the default attributes Identity, Type, Draft and Version that are already pre-set. The other attributes/frames/categories do not need to be exported.Export Items Dialog
Setting Required Attributes
Open the CSV file in Excel and add a column representing the new frame. In this example, we are adding a new frame named TEST and adding the text “My Text” in this frame for all (or selected) items. You could, of course, add different text content for each of these cells.Add Frame Column to Excel
Add a Frame in your WorkBench Project
If you don’t already have the frame, you can add a new frame to the item type in Project Setup now. This is the frame where we will add content en bloc.
Frame Setup
Importing The CSV File
Select Import with the file type CSV and the required item type ensuring that the Overwrite option is set to Merge and press Import. Note also that there are options here to update the modification date / last modifier and also whether to add an entry to the items’ edit history.
Import OptionsImport Dialog
Map the fields ensuring that the added frame is mapped
CSV Fields
You will see that the new frame has been added with content for all items and the previous content remains intact
However, should you require additional assistance, reporting a bug or suggesting an enhancement, additions to our documentation etc, you can contact 3SL directly via Support Services:
3SL Support Services
Contacting 3SL
When seeking support, we suggest assigning a Cradle liaison/Project Administrator as the users’ first point of call as they should already have undergone some form of Cradle training. If this person cannot provide an answer, then our support team will be available to assist.
3SL Support Services
Technical Support Department is available 9am – 5pm GMT Monday to Friday but often also available outside of these hours via email support@threesl.com . Our landline is +44 (0)1229 838867.
Support Call Logging
When communicating with 3SL via email, we will initially assign you a call number and a support engineer to address any problems that you might have. Please provide as much information about this call as possible so we can quickly resolve the call without any misunderstanding. The details that we like to receive are:
Name and full contact details
Area of Cradle with the problem
Your perceived priority for the problem
Operating system information
Cradle version
Means of reproducing the problem
Screenshots, error logs and data (sanitised or raw) are especially welcome to allow us to quickly and easily reproduce any problems.
Any bug reports or enhancements will be tracked in our database and you will be informed when an update is available.
Web Meetings
Should there be any confusion or further information required about a call, you or 3SL may suggest a demonstration via a Web Meeting.
3SL generally uses GoTo Meeting as our meeting platform but we can also use your corporate default platform such as Microsoft Teams.
Cradle Training
3SL offers training courses in the administration and practical usage of Cradle as:
Online “public” training interspersed throughout the year
On-site or online “private” training
These training courses cover subject areas such as:
Our Cradle “cloud” services (SaaS – Software as a Service) provide access to 3SL’s Requirements Management and Systems Engineering tool – Cradle using remote servers. This means there is no need to install the software on your company systems.
Cradle Cloud Service
They are also a cost effective way to get up and running with Cradle.
3SL offers a choice of Cradle-Enterprise systems delivered as Cradle cloud services from a choice of servers, in a range of fixed term subscriptions, each accessed by your choice of concurrent users.
The Cradle service provides Cradle directly to the users from a remote environment managed by 3SL:
In a matter of days from order
With no software installations
Needing no, or little, work from your IT
What is the Cradle Service?
The Cradle service:
Is a self-contained set of Cradle and third party software tools
Is integrated with your filesystems and printers
Is secure and resilient
Needs no administration by your organisation
If you wish, is linked to your corporate email
If you wish, is run on servers exclusive to you
The Cradle service delivers the latest version of Cradle, and related applications directly to user’s desktops. Cradle and the other tools appear in windows like any other application that a user runs locally. But Cradle, and your databases, all run on remote servers inside the Cradle service.
You can have any number of databases. They, and the data inside them, are private to you. 3SL will manage the service so you can be assured that it is always available.
You can choose a lower cost shared service or a dedicated service. In the shared service, you share servers at 3SL in the UK with other subscribers, keeping privacy of your data and databases. In a dedicated service, 3SL creates a virtual private cloud (VPC) of servers using a third party hosting provider that are exclusive to you and located in any geographic area that you choose.
All databases are backed up automatically with a 3 hour RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and an 8 hour RPO ( Recovery Point Objective). Backups are held for 8 months.
Cradle Subscriptions
The Cradle system types available as a subscription are:
Cradle Enterprise-RM Basic – requirements management including the ability to generate metrics and dashboards
Cradle Enterprise-RM Pro – requirements management including the ability to generate metrics, dashboards and produce quality documentation
Cradle Enterprise-SE Basic – systems engineering including systems modelling and the ability to generate metrics and dashboards
Cradle Enterprise-SE Pro – systems engineering including system modelling and the ability to generate metrics, dashboards and produce quality documentation
The Cradle subscriptions can be packaged into simple fixed term durations ranging from one month to sixty months. This allows you to budget and ensure cover for a whole host of proejcts. You will be free to finish or renew as your project needs at the end of the term.
Cradle SaaS in a Nutshell
Choose from a range of Cradle Enterprise systems to provide the capabilities you need
Choose a shared or dedicated host environment
Specify the number of users that you need to have access to the environment
Specify how long you want the service for
Work in any number of databases
Upload and download data and results easily from your local IT systems
Print directly to your local devices if needed
On-boarding service to help you get started
Off-boarding service to preserve your work before your subscription ends
Add extra terms and change who can access the service at any time
For pricing of the Cradle subscriptions please visit our website.
WorkBench provides a QuickAccess Bar that allows you to launch queries by item type from the bottom of the WorkBench main screen. It’s intended to provide quick and easy access to all of the relevant types of information in your Cradle database.
Default Queries
By default, WorkBench is initialised to show a standard (Automatic) set of queries each ordered by the Identity attribute
All – Lists all items that you can access.
Bottom-Level – Lists all bottom-level items that you can access. Bottom-level items are items that do not have any cross references from them to other items of the same type. For example, they have no children.
Document – Lists the latest instance of items that you can access and displays them as a document. For example in Document style.
Document (Simple) – A simplified version of the Document query.
History – Lists the latest instance of items that you can access and displays them in a view showing change histories.
Latest – Lists the latest instance of all items that you can access. There can be many instances of each item, such as many versions of the item.
Recoverable – Lists all items that are in a recoverable state.
Suspect – Lists all items that are deemed suspect.
Top-Level – Lists all top-level items that you can access. Top-level items are items that do not have any cross references to them to other items of the same type. For example, they have no parents.
Unlinked – Lists all items that you can access that don’t have cross references to or from them from any other items.
Yours – Lists all items that you own.
Quick Access Bar query options
These queries may be useful as a starter set of queries. However, it is likely that you will want to tailor the queries shown in the Quick Access Bar to meet your own project needs and use the Project queries and views to display the data.
Note that all automatic queries are ordered by Identity. You might wish to order your Quick Access Bar queries by Key, especially when working with hierarchies of items.
Adding Project Queries to the Quick Access Bar
In Project Setup, you can select the item type that you wish to tailor and press the Quick Access Bar button. In this example, we will use Requirements:
Project Setup – Quick Access Bar option
This presents you with a dialog that allows you to add up to 10 Project or System defined queries to your Quick Access Bar.
You can still show the Automatic queries by selecting the Append automatic queries checkbox:
Quick Access Bar Setup dialog
Once applied, all users in the project will see the changes to the Quick Access Bar:
Additional Queries in Quick Access Bar
These additional queries will use the view as defined in the Query Details dialog.
Quick Access Bar – Query Details
Personalising the Quick Access Bar
You may wish to personalise the Quick Access Bar for your own use to only show the item types that are relevant to you in the order that you wish them to be displayed. You can achieve this in the Preferences:
Quick Access Bar options in Preferences
If you select the Append remaining item types checkbox, all other item types are still shown on the Quick Access Bar after the ones you have selected:
You have captured a number of items into Cradle. However, the KEY attribute that defines the hierarchy has incorrect values. Do you have to open each item individually to correct this numbering?
For example, the items below should have a sequence of 1.1.1 to 1.1.8:
Incorrect hierarchical numbering
Solution
No, you can actually define the key sequence by selecting all of the items to be changed and pressing Properties:
Properties option
In the Item Properties dialog, you will see that the Key attribute is listed with the value As Is. This is due to the items having different values:
Item Properties dialog
In this field you can add the value sequence within chevrons <<#=>>. In this case, you could enter the value 1.1.<<1+>>:
Item Properties dialog showing Key
The result of this operation is shown below in which the Keys are now numbered sequentially as required:
Correct hierarchy numbering
Any changes to the items will be stored in the items’ histories.
