Glossaries Glossary - Dashboard to Dynamic

Dashboard

Dashboards are a mechanism that allow management summary information to be generated and displayed or published.

Data Definition

The definitions of data-related symbols in diagrams. They store information about a data item such as composition, edit validation, meaning, notes, type and performance data.

Data Dictionary

A collection of data definitions for all data items represented on all views of a system analysis or design.

Data Exchange Specification

A project deliverable document defining the data to be exchanged across an interface by two equipments or sub-systems in a system. The Data Exchange Specification defines the data that flows across an interface, the format of this data, the circumstances under which it flows, the protocol(s) to handle the transmission of the data, and the mechanisms to handle erroneous transmission of the data. The content of the Data Exchange Specification often forms an integral part of the technical specifications within contracts between a prime contractor and sub-contractor in a large system development. Each Data Exchange Specification normally has an associated Interface Specification.

Data Flow Diagram

A diagram style (DFD) used in a system analysis or design to depict part of the functional and behavioural views of a system. The diagrams contain processes, stores, and flows and depict both the transformation of data by the system functionality and the control exercised both over the system by its environment and by the system over its own behaviour. The diagrams are hierarchical and as such allow appropriately levelled views to be shown containing appropriate amounts of detail.

Data Integration

A type of integration between individual software tools in a software or systems engineering environment. Data integration refers to the ability of a tool to use (with or without an end user-transparent conversion process) the data produced by another tool, and also the ability of a tool to produce data in a form manipulable by other tools.

Data Structure Diagram

A diagram type (DSD) that is used to depict the structure of data definitions of elements of the DD. It is a graphical alternative to the Composition Specifications within such data definitions.

Database Identifier

A Database Identifier (DID) is unique to each Cradle PDB and is automatically generated by the Cradle system. It ensures that PDUIDs are unique between projects, especially in the situation where two projects are created with the same PID within different Cradle systems.

Definitions Manager

The Definitions Manager is used to create, copy or delete definitions for the current project. Definitions may be moved/copied between different users, user types, or teams to which the current user has access

Delimiter

A special character or string that marks the start and/or end of a piece of data. Various types of delimiters are used, for example, to mark the start of paragraphs when capturing requirements, and to identify the names of input and output flows in specifications.

Deployment Diagram

Deployment Diagrams (DPDs) show the physical processors within a system, the processes that are allocated to them, and to a limited extent how these processors are interconnected.

Design Specification

A generic term used to describe textual items of information generated in the system design phase of a project that consist of items in the Implementation Domain and whichever system notes are produced at that time.

Details File

When a binary frame is being viewed or edited, the contents of the binary frame are either placed into a new, temporary file, or the external file containing the binary frame is accessed directly.

Diagram I/O

An abbreviation for diagram inputs and outputs, being the flows of data and control between the diagram and its external interfaces. These external interfaces may be to the system environment or to other diagrams. The term is used especially to refer to the sets of inputs and outputs that can be highlighted within Cradle either for reporting or for comparison with those of another diagram.

Discussion

A discussion is a hierarchy of comments for an item. The discussions concept is similar to e-mail threads.

Document Loader

A tool which allows users to capture information from Word documents and import it into a Cradle Project Database (PDB). The tool is designed to extract both textual and binary content whilst preserving the hierarchical structure of paragraph headings.

Document Publisher

Document Publisher allows you to use Microsoft Word to construct arbitrarily large and complex documents from data sets in a Cradle project database. Word documents or reports are user-defined through Word templates constructed with tags or bookmarks that are keyed to access database information and define the layout/format of the information in the output document.

Domain

Domain refers to the modelling environment in Cradle. This can be Essential for analysis models or Implementation for design models

Dynamic Behaviour

The view of how a system behaves through time, often expressed in terms of both the events that a system responds to, the sequence of such events and responses, the states that the system, or a part of it, can be in, and those parts of the system that are active at any time. The dynamic behaviour of a system is often represented in an Event List, in State Transition Diagrams (STDs), and in Behaviour Diagrams (BDs).