stSoftware

Overview

The stSoftware application life cycle consists of weekly incremental releases with stake holder planning and demostrations. The release cycle is two weeks from the planning phase to feature release, features are broken down into small enough tasks to be able to fit into the two week release cycle. This project management methodology is known as Agile/Scrum

Agile project management is broken up into three main phases:-

1. Planning
2. Development Sprints
3. Release Sprints

stSoftware cloud systems have three main environments:-

1. Edge - Latest build which has passed all automated tests.
2. UAT - The last promoted "Preview" build after the end of the development sprint
3. Production - Promoted from "UAT" after the user test period.

(source)

Agile principles

The Agile Manifesto is based on twelve principles:

1. Customer satisfaction by rapid delivery of useful software
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development
3. Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)
4. Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers
5. Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted
6. Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location)
7. Working software is the principal measure of progress
8. Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
10. Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential
11. Self-organizing teams
12. Regular adaptation to changing circumstances

Planning Phase

There are three main activities in the planning phase.

1. Product Vision
   • Grand statements
   • Business long term goals
   • Major system features
2. Gap Analysis & System Design
   • Business Analyst Programmer analyses the Gap between the Product Vision and the generic stSoftware product
   • The initial system design is developed
   • These processes guide the Product Roadmap
3. Product Roadmap
   • Each task is estimated by the developers.
   • Any task dependencies are added as additional tasks.
   • The priority of each task is given by the business owner.
   • Large tasks are broken down into multiple smaller tasks which are less than 1 week of development effort.

Development Sprints

A sprint (or iteration) is the basic unit of development in the agile development lifecycle. The sprint is a "timeboxed" effort; that is, it is restricted to a specific duration. The duration is fixed in advance for each sprint and is typically one week.

Each sprint is started by a planning meeting, where the tasks for the sprint are identified and an estimated commitment for the sprint goal is made, and ended by a sprint review, where the progress is reviewed and lessons for the next sprint are identified.

Sprint backlog

Each development sprint is one week in length, a set of coherent tasks are taken from the "product roadmap" based on the priority given by the business user. The set of tasks "sprint backlog" including any dependencies are chosen to be a estimated week of total developer team effort.

Daily scrum

The developer team meeting for 15 minutes to review yesterday's progress and plan today's tasks.

Incremental Release

When a feature set is completed and the automated tests ( ~6,000) for the whole system are clean the system build is released to the “preview” environment. A manual "smoke" test is done on the "preview" enviroment once released.

Release Sprints 

Release to UAT

After the end of the "development sprint" the last incremental "preview" release with a report of the tasks completed is promoted to UAT environment.

At the end of a sprint cycle, two meetings are held: the "Sprint Review Meeting" and the "Sprint Retrospective".

At the Sprint Review Meeting:

• • Review the work that was completed and the planned work that was not completed
  • Present the completed work to the stakeholders (a.k.a. "the demo")
  • Incomplete work cannot be demonstrated

At the Sprint Retrospective:

• • All team members reflect on the past sprint
  • Make continuous process improvements
  • Two main questions are asked in the sprint retrospective: What went well during the sprint? What could be improved in the next sprint?

Release to Production

The "UAT" release is matured for a one week period. Business users are able to test the upcoming release in the UAT environment, if no regression issues are found then the UAT release is promoted into the "production" environment. Feature sets are disabled or reverted before promotion if required. The promoted “UAT” releases propergated throughout the production server cluster progressively using a rolling restart of each web server so that there is no visible outage of the system.

A new Progressive Web App demo has been released. This Demo shows how a phone app can be integrated with a database giving powerful real-time mobile functionality. It is supported on both IPhone and Android. The Demo shows just a few of the possible features that can be implemented:

• Uploading photos
• Loading jobs
• Site locations
• Reporting on individual tasks
• Answering questionnaires 

The Demo App utilises new technology and libraries such as framework7. 

More details about our progressive web Apps can be found on our Progressive webs Apps page along with an interactive Demo or you can contact us directly here.

 

                         

The new Test tab is now available in the CMS and makes the testing process simple and easy. This incredibly useful tool allows the developer of a site to easily debug their product.  The Test Tab utilises QUnit Testing which is a powerful, easy-to-use JavaScript unit testing framework.

Navigation: 

The Test tab is located in the top menu when creating a new CMS website page. Under this tab there is the title 'Setup'. This is where you can create tests. To create a test simply click 'Add' located down the bottom of the screen.

 

Clicking 'Add' will bring up the following screen....

Creating a Test:

On this page the tester has a few options:

• Name: The name of the tests. Eg: "Test Page for JohnSmith"
• Sequence: The order of when this test is run in comparassion to other tests. Eg: "55"
• Domains Pattern: This limits the condition of when this test is run. Eg: "localhost" (This will only run when the URL contains "Localhost")
• Disabled: When checked this disables the test from running
• Script: Place your validation code here, for the test to pass, the script must contain an assert command to finish..
  • Eg: assert.ok( userName.match(/.*JohnSmith.*/), "Passed!" );
  • (This makes sure the users name is "JohnSmith")
• Description: Is a quick explanation of what the script does for future reference... Eg: "Checks users Name"

 

Clicking Ok will bring you back to the 'Test' panel when you will be able to see the list of tests you have created. The test that you created will show on the bottom of the list. 

 

Running Tests:

To run the tests go to the page you wish to run the tests on, go up to the URL bar and look for the line "CMS_MODE=PREVIEW" and change this value to "CMS_MODE=TEST";

 

 

The tests will automatically start running. If a test fails a popup will notify you of the failure so the issue can be addressed.

 

Overview

Advanced keyword searching is now available on PDF, WORD and HTML files once automatic indexing is enabled and the indexing process has been completed. 

https://www.stsoftware.com.au/site/ST/blog/article/advanced-text-search/

Enabling automatic indexing of file

Under the setting menu choose the tab 'Database'. 

 

Choose "single" as the file index queue at the very bottom of the tab and then press "Apply". 

The system will now schedule all PDF, WORD and HTML files to be indexed. The background process may take a number of hours depending on the number of files to be indexed.

The "Show Job queue" menu under Admin->Jobs will list the outstanding documents to be indexed.

Limitations

The standard email gateway for sending emails is Amazon Simple Email Service

If your domain has configured an SPF record you will need to include the domain amazonses.com

For example:- 

"v=spf1 include:amazonses.com -all"

 

stSoftware privacy and security policies are based on Australian government regulations. All data and files of Australian clients are stored on Australian based servers. 

 

PRIVACY ACT 1988 - SECT 13D Overseas act required by foreign law

When implementing new processes which are likely to result in a high risk, stSoftware shall before the processing, assess the impact of the envisaged processing operations of the protection of personal data in accordance with Australian Privacy Principles. This assessment is to ensure the safekeeping of the data subjects personal information. The assessment will contain

• A description of the processing operation and the purpose of this processing.
• Evaluation of the necessity of the processing operation.
• Assessment of the risks to the rights and freedoms of data subjects
• The measures envisaged to address the possible risks, safeguards and security measures implemented.

When necessary, stSoftware shall carry out reviews to assess if the processing is in accordance with the data protection impact assessment laid down by the APP when there is any chance of risk along with undertaking its Security checks.

stSoftware takes pride in its security policies and ensures the highest security levels for our clients' data. In the unlikely case of a data breach, stSoftware will follow the Australian government guidance to notify the data breach.

 

The notification form will contain

• The nature of the breach, including categories, the approximate number of data subjects concerned and the approximate number of personal records concerned.
• Name and contact details of the data protection officer. 
• A description of the likely consequences of the personal data breach
• The measures are taken or proposed to address the data breach, including efforts to mitigate adverse effects.

stSoftware collects personal information for billing, sales and support. stSoftware meets or exceeds principles covered in the Australian Privacy Principles Privacy Act 1988. 

 

Your privacy is vital to us at stSoftware, and we will abide by or exceed all guidelines laid out by the APP (Australian Privacy principle) 5.2 and Principle 5.1. 

Timesheet App report allows users to regulate and monitor jobs assigned to them.

The Timesheet App is located under the Timesheets tab in the control panel. Clicking on Overview and then the Timesheet App link will cause a pop-up taking you to the application.

The Timesheet App has 3 views:

• The Calender View
• The Data view
• The Chart view

Calender View

The Calender view is laid out in a typical calendar format showing the day, month and year.

 

 

You can navigate by clicking on a different day. Changing month or year is done by clicking the arrows either side of the table. These buttons are located just above the days of the week. Clicking on the right arrow will go forward a unit and left to go back.

 

Having time set against a task will change the color of the date. If less than 8 hours has been entered for a day a red circle around that date will Appear.

Note* Red circles do not Appear in future dates as time shouldn't be added to those dates yet. This is also true for weekends as time is not expected to be entered on these days

 

Customization: All color coding can be customized according to an organizations needs on request. The below colors are default settings.

 Color code:

• Red = Less then 8 hours has been entered for that day
• Green = 8 hours has been entered for that day
• Blue = Over 8 hours has been entered for that day

 

 

 

Utility Bar

The utility bar is located on the top left of the App accessed by clicking on the Tab icon. Any user has access to their own Timesheet along with the chart views. The sign out button is also located on the bottom of this pop-up if you wish to switch users. 

 

 

Time Per Client Chart

Time Per Client Chart can be accessed by clicking on the Time Per Client Tab. This chart shows an overview of times entered for the week in a simplistic, easy to read pie-graph. The graph is segregated into parts each showing time entered against each client for that week. The chart displays:

• The selected week,
• The total hours for that week,
• Client list
• Individual hours spent working for each client.

 

 

If no time has been entered for that week, a notification will pop-up informing you of the absence of data.

 

Navigation of weeks can be done by clicking the 'Previous' and 'Next' button located at the bottom of the App. 

 

Time Chargeable Chart

The Time Chargeable Chart can be accessed by clicking on the Time Chargeable Tab. The layout of Time Chargeable Chart is similar to the Time Per Client Chart. It shows the amount of time spent working on Chargeable, Non-Chargeable and RnD tasks. This is displayed in an easy to view pie-graph and is color-coded in the following layout:

Chargeable = Blue

Non-Chargeable = Red

R&D = Orange

 

Data View

To Enter the Data View, click on a date you want to view and/or edit on the calender view screen.

The Data entry screen lists all tasks assigned to the individual on that day. The date selected and the current user will be show at the top of the window.

The Client name and Task name is located on the left side of the window. Time already placed against each task is on the right side.

 

 

Clicking on the name of the task will open a separate window showing the specifics of the task and the data entry screen.

Entering time against a task in the data entry screen automatically sync with the time Timesheet App. The same will occur when entering a time via the Timesheet App, entered times will appear pm task screen.

Entering time for a task in the Timesheet App can be done in 2 ways:

1. Entering a time into the field manually
2. Adjusting time with the arrows located to the right of the field.

 

When a time is entered against a chargeable task the number inline with the task will change color accordingly. 

• Black = lots of time left to for this task
• Orange = Max hours for this task almost reached
• Red = Used all time allocated for this task

The task below is a chargeable task set for 20 hours showing the color change as more time is recorded

Example Black:

Example Orange:

Example Red:

 

 

When a time is entered against a task the total hours for the day, located at the top, will change color. Each color shows the following:

• Red = Not enough time entered for today
• Green = Perfect hours entered for today
• Blue = More then 8 hours entered for today

 

Red Example:

Green Example:

 

Blue Example:

How it works

The Transaction Report is a powerful and useful search tool allowing site Admins to keep tabs on any changes made across their system.

This tool allows Admins to clearly see what changes were made, when they where made and who made them. Having this clarity allows for better information management as specific changes can be tracked along with having the ability to pick and choose what information is relevant to you.

The Transaction page is located under Admin towards the bottom of the main menu. Under admin, Click on Logs to open up the page to the Transaction search tool.

Initially the page will not have any information displayed until you enter some information into the 'Since' and 'Excluding Classes' fields and click search. Entering no data or leaving the fields blank and clicking search will return all information for today only.

 

 

Transaction Report Layout

The information requested when a transaction search is undertaken will be displayed into four main columns consisting or Trans ID, Who, When and Reason.

Each Column Displays

1. Trans ID - Transaction number

2. Who - The specific user that made the update or change, eg: Admin, User1 or User2 etc

3. When - When the change was made, eg: 24 2017, 10:30

4. Reason - The reason for the update, change or modification, eg: record modified

 

 

 

 The Since Field

The since field is a major part of the Transaction search tool allowing users to specify what time they want to be displayed. Entering today's date will display all items from 12pm or 00:00 in the morning till the present time. The time is then displayed in the 'When' field in 24 hour time. If you wish to be more specific on the time in which changes where made then entering a time after the date will allow changes from then onward to be displayed.

eg: 24 Nov 2017 10:40

 

 

Entering a date from a few months back will result in a similar return to that of entering today's date. The search will display all items from the entered date until the present. If there is more then 1000 results a next page button will appear at the bottom of the page.

 

 

Entering an invalid date will result in a popup to notify you that your search didn't go through. It will display which field is wrong and why. In the case shown below, the date was in the future so an error popop came up on the screen telling me of the issue.

 

The Excluding Classes Field

Excluding classes Field is the second major part of the Transaction tool. Entering information in this field in the form of a class will extract that result from the information displayed on search. This allows the user to remove information that isn't relevant to them. In the case below, I don't want to see sessions so i add 'session' to excluding classes. That key class is then not displayed in the results below.

 

You also have the ability to exclude multiple classes by separating each class with a ,

 

Trans Id

Clicking on Trans Id will open a new tab showing more in-depth information on the specific item.