Systems/Software Engineering Tips

Hint: to open the small pictures perform a "right-click" and then "open in separate tab"   Intention This document is intended as a discussion base for topics and solutions around Reporting in general and specifically the Integrity Gateway and the Integrity Reports.   Status Although the PTC world speaks in between with ThingWorx and PTC Navigate (including reporting Apps), I still believe that Integrity Build-In Reporting has its place in the product.   Related Use Case As a user, I want the system to provide a single interface to generate predefined reports without having to switch to different tools. I need different formats depending on my goal for the information processing, either in MS Word, MS Excel, HTML or PDF format.   Standard Integrity Functionality Integrity Gateway: Create standardized Output - mainly in Word Format - for any stakeholder or auditors. Integrity Reports: Ad Hoc Reporting for any kind of business need in HTML or XML format.   1. Integrity Gateway (Client) The Integrity Gateway is a Java client application that can be run with user interaction or in silent mode. The user can select one of the provided templates (export configurations) and the target file name. Then, the gateway reads and transforms the Integrity data to create MS Word output.   2. Integrity Reports (Server) Integrity Reports are a server-based way to create HTML pages or XML files from Integrity. The layout is based on HTML templates, which are enriched with certain Integrity tags. Such tags allow, for example, to create repetitive sections based on the data provided (for data tables). Integrity reports are very powerful, although we have seen problems when complicated rich text or specific image types are involved.   Comparison Matrix: Feature Integrity Gateway Custom Gateway* Reporting Engine* Integrity Reports Report Gateway* Supports Output in Word Format Yes Yes - - Yes Supports Output in Excel Format - Yes Yes - Yes Supports Output in HTML Format - - - Yes Yes Supports Output in XML Format - - - Yes Yes Supports direct PDF Export - Yes - - Partially Supports Scheduling - - - - Planned Supports E-Mail Distribution - - - - Planned Supports configurable Output File Names - Yes   - Planned Supports Archiving - - - - Planned   We see that Integrity provides different techniques for different purposes (standard and non-standard*). All are valid approaches for the respective business case.   Reporting Customizations The most common customization is the Custom Gateway, but the Reporting Engine is also very often used. The Report Gateway is brand new and combines the functionalities of Reports and the Gateway on Server.   The Custom Gateway is a local Java Application which sits on top of the Gateway and offers mainly the following: Flexible Output Path and configurable File Names PDF Generator Baseline Picker   In addition, the Custom Gateway can add Java functionality to any export. Herewith you can get almost all data from any location in Integrity and enrich your data export. Examples are: trace listing, administration configuration export, audit trail listing, test document export with test session and detailed test results. All this is done with additional API calls directly before the document generation process.   The Custom Gateway also works with Excel. A similar template concept with tags as in Word was implemented. This allows you to create professional looking preconfigured Excel files directly from Integrity including Excel charts.     The Reporting Engine is an ad-hoc reporting tool to create Trace listings in Excel. It is a stand-alone Java-based solution that is not related to the Integrity Gateway. The layout is template-based and the trace data to be listed can be configured in specific XML files.   The Integrity Report Gateway is one of the latest customizations that bring the Custom Gateway functionality to the server. It was created on customer request to avoid local Java files completely. This solution already replaces the local Integrity Gateway. To further develop this solution, additional sponsors are required (current state: conceptual study, but very stable, re-use possible on request).   At the moment, we do not have a common solution to meet automated report scheduling, e-mailing or archiving. Although Integrity offers all of these elements, we only have to put everything together.   Report Scheduling Use Case: As a user, I want to create a report (one or multiple times) automatically from the system at a particular time or day, for example, for my own internal or external meetings with my clients as a preparation. The report should be generated automatically, that I do not have to log into the system and have to run it by hand entering the selection criteria again and again.   Report e-Mailing Use Case: As a user, I would like to have a system generated report automatically sent to me or a definable user group, for example, for my own internal or external review meetings with my customers. The report should be automatically sent, so I do not have to log into the system, to select and send it manually.   Report Archiving Use Case: As a user I would like that specific reports are automatically archived by the system when I have requested this. For example, I want the reports generated by the system sent to my clients to be archived, so I can keep track of them. A different example relates to audit-related reports I have prepared, which I must hold for several years.   Next Steps I am interested in your approaches to solve today's Integrity internal reporting requirements. I am also interested in how you have implemented scheduling, emailing, and report archiving.   Thank you   (Known professional or semi-professional solutions in use by our clients:  PTC ThingWorx Apps, BIRT, Oracle BI Publisher)

If you are interested in "Meeting Minutes" and / or "RESTful services" in Integrity LM, read on ...

Intention This document is intended to describe the current status of Integrity LM configuration reports and to collect related discussions and ideas.   Configuration Reports for W&D Integrity Docs Custom developed offline solution creating static html pages about types and triggers for review and sharing Is provided as a JAR file to be executed on client One alternative is "Type Fields in Excel" Custom developed offline solution creating Excel Files instead of html files with similar information Especially helpful when you are in a workshop and like to track requested changes directly in Excel for later implementation Is provided as a JAR file to be executed on client IMConfig Custom developed Online solution for Admin reporting. For Type-Fields, the same java code is used here like in solution #2. And, it offers many more reporting, not only "Type-Fields-Workflows". For example, it offers also reporting for User-Group-Dynamic-Group details. Is provided as a single WAR file to be copied to the server Administration Reports Custom developed Word Export showing Administration Configuration Details for Types, States, Fields etc. CLI You can use the CLI to create config lists in CSV or XML format, and upload the same into any custom reporting tool. I am using #3 instead, where possible. Relationship and Trace Listing Custom Developed Excel List for all admin Relationships  and Traces. Created for Documentation and Validation purposes.  Trigger Overview  This report lists all Triggers with the name, and they are ordered by the type names on which the trigger fires. Each box represents a trigger. Additional flags highlighting the type, the pre or post mode, if a script is linked etc.   Configuration Reports for Config Mgmt: for ACLs: Standard Client Form providing ACL details in regards to given ACLs for users/groups and projects, subprojects In General You can use the CLI to create config lists in CSV or XML format, and upload the same into any custom reporting tool.   Next Steps If you are aware of any other solution that I should list above, please post it here as comment. If you are aware of any other related Idea or Discussion that I should reference, please post it also.   Related Discussions: For W&D: PTC Integrity Configuration Report‌ Re: Is there a possibility to give out all definition done in ILM "Workflow and Documents" how to compare two Integrity configurations   Volker

Hello, we are currently evaluating an option to include customized help into the ILM standard help system.   I am wondering if anyone of you can give me input how you today create custom help text (in your environment), and which tools you use to maintain it. From PTC point of view this customized help might come out of Integrity Process Director directly.   I am pretty sure that such a "Customized Help System Redirector", like it is briefly described below, can be implemented easily.   Here is the draft concept:   Related Ideas List Adminstrators of Integrity Related PTC Windchill Solution Windchill Help Center Enhancements Volker

Paul Bowden, Principle Consultant, from Nanga Systems teams up with The Reuse Company to show you how Requirements Quality Suite and Requirements Authoring Tool is used with PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager to ensure high quality, reusable requirements. These requirements can then form a high quality foundation to drive successful UML / SysML activity. This allows multi-discipline teams to build complete reliable and agile traceability across your engineering assets.   

This article outlines a concept how you can include the Integrity Gateway configuration files for mappings and the main gateway-tool-configuration.xml in the staging process. The goal is to have one single process for any kind of server file handing.

Intention This document describes the consulting solution "Integrity STeF", which can help you to perform functional tests within Integrity W&D.   What is STeF? Integrity STeF stands for "Integrity Setup Testing Framework" to perform functional tests by entering and updating Integrity data through the Integrity API. STeF uses the FitNesse tool (see fitnesse.org). FitNesse itself is a Wiki-based testing platform to manage the test cases and test groups. STeF combines both tools by building the bridge between them.   Related Use Cases As a functional tester, I’d like to test if the data entry for Defects or Change Requests can be done without errors by different roles, including state changes and proper handling of required fields. As a functional tester, I’d like to test that all my triggers will perform as before after a major concept change in my trigger logic. As a system tester, I’d like to perform a number of tests in one run, to validate that my system performs in a certain area as before after some system changes. For example, I’d like to validate if document entry is still possible even if I had to make major ACL changes recently. As a system tester, I have to validate that the key process within Integrity W&D are still running ok, especially after installing hotfixes or performing an application upgrade.   How can STeF help you? In FitNesse you use Wiki tables to define your test cases in a very easy way. Each column contains one attribute, a row is an Integrity operation, such as create item, edit item or even delete item (to cleanup your test case afterwards). Once done, you can connect via STeF directly to an Integrity environment and can execute the tests. A positive result will be indicated with a green color, a failure is indicated by red. FitNesse tracks the test history for you automatically.   Regression tests are one of the common requirements which fit nicely into the concept of FitNesse and STeF.   Note: The screenshots above showing how a Requirement Document test is defined and executed in FitNesse. Such a test can be defined for any item type.   Status STeF is almost 4 years old. It was one of my own first development activities for PTC Integrity LM that I did in Java. Recently it was upgraded to the Integrity version 10.9, but should also work with 11.x (needs validation).   Special Features STeF can also collect data from Integrity for reverse engineering of test cases.  (see second picture above) STeF handles also negative tests. STeF can be extended with additional Java classes to handle almost all API commands within Integrity (also Source commands should be possible, although not implemented yet) STeF can also call the Gateway or Reports or Charts or Queries, and validate them. FitNesse can execute one, all in a test group or even all defined test cases in one single run (nightly tests). FitNesse has a command line option.   You should not expect STeF/FitNesse is not intended as a performance Testing environment. It’s for functional tests only.     Next Steps If you are interested in STeF, contact me directly and I will arrange a Web Conference to discuss your Use Cases and possible implementation scenarios for STeF.

Requirements Quality Suite, a solution from The Reuse Company, allows you to customize, check and improve the quality of your requirements specifications and requirements documents.   In this video you can see: 1. How a PTC Integrity document is opened in Requirements Quality Analyzer (RQA) 2. How RQA can check the quality for this Integrity document 3. How Requirements Authoring Tools can help creating smart requirements on top of PTC Integrity 4. How our Authoring plugin is performing from within PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager 5. How different quality metrics can now be checked on-the-fly 6. How the Authoring plugin allows you to write requirements in PTC Integrity just by following a requirements pattern description  

Hello All,   Let me show you how we recently configured the Integrity Lifecycle Manager layout for our Rich Client. Below is an example, the Test Session. As you can see, it looks new and helps the user to navigate easily within the form. Now, I ask you for your feedback. Maybe you have implemented another form layout that you are very proud of?   Test Session Layout:   Same Layout with Comments:   And the other Tabs:

Uploaded 10/01/2010 by Jim Winder to YouTube Developers are disconnected from Requirements, frustrated with lots of manual effort, and pulled in many directions. In this short demonstration we see how MKS Integrity provides a one-stop solution to help developers stay happy and productive