Overview
eVisioner, a leader in team performance management systems, used components from the Altova® MissionKit® including: XMLSpy®, StyleVision®, UModel®, and DiffDog® to build a Web-based governance solution from the ground up. MetaTeam® is a unique XML-based collaboration environment that aims to raise project team performance and lower costs by empowering users with better organization and decision-making resources. MetaTeam lets organizations of all sizes provide work groups and virtual teams tools to structure projects, create living charters, optimize decision making, assign and align roles, manage relationships, track performance against goals, and more.
The Challenge
The vision for MetaTeam was a highly scalable application for the coordination and management of team goals, roles, and responsibilities. The solution needed to promote transparency and decision-making ability through effective organization and ultimately lead to better team performance.
After creating a prototype of the MetaTeam product, eVisioner realized that creating a consistent user interface for such a large program under active development would require either constant attention or an inflexible development process, and possibly both. In addition, the developers needed a way to integrate documentation, import and export data, and allow customers to generate customized reports. Together, all of these concerns suggested the implementation of an XML architecture.
The Solution
In keeping with the principles defined by the naked objects pattern, eVisioner planned to automatically generate the MetaTeam user interface from its domain model and an abstract application description in XML.
The eVisioner team found that the XML development tools and other components included in the Altova MissionKit were a perfect fit to model, build, and test the MetaTeam team governance application.
UML Model
Development of the MetaTeam application began with UML class and sequence diagrams created in Altova UModel. UModel provided a means to model the substantial changes that were required to move from the prototype to production-ready code. In addition, UModel's intuitive user interface made it easy to navigate, understand, and manipulate MetaTeam’s interface and the subclassing method that was used to approach a handful of complex central classes.
XML Schema & Application Definition
eVisioner used the graphical XML Schema Editor in XMLSpy to create a wire frame model of the MetaTeam Web application, which it uses as the basis for generating functional J2EE code - in total over 3,000 Java and JSP files - for each iteration. Using XMLSpy's XML Schema and Grid views made it simple to reconfigure the layout of the application, turn features on and off, and specify behaviors without any concern that the look and feel of the application would become inconsistent.
A small section of the MetaTeam framework definition shown in XMLSpy's XML Schema view
The MetaTeam application definition is contained in an XML instance file that specifies the behavior of the application. Using XMLSpy's XPath Analyzer with intelligent XPath autocompletion, the developers were able to create a library of XPath 2.0 expressions to check for defects and validate that required fields were handled correctly. For example, the simple XPath below finds all input elements that do not include a description attribute.
Report Templates
With the working application in hand, the developers then created an XML model of an example workgroup mapped to the domain model used in MetaTeam. Using the workgroup model they created report templates with Altova StyleVision, including a default team charter. Not only does the stylesheet template provide multi-channel output to HTML, PDF, and Microsoft Word, but it also gives eVisioner employees an easy way to work with customers to create and upload customized versions of the reports.
PDF output generated by StyleVision
XML Differencing
Because of the considerable emphasis on XML development, DiffDog, Altova's XML-aware diff/merge tool, became an integral part of the application development and testing process. In particular, DiffDog provided critical XML differencing capabilities during testing of the code generation framework. Since the framework let developers re-use common components such as tabs, forms, and other UI features in multiple parts of the application, it was necessary to prove that these replicated structures were identical to their source. Serializing the in-memory model back to XML allowed DiffDog to visualize the differences so that the developers could catch slight variations before they caused problems.
Testing code using XML differencing in Altova DiffDog
The Results
eVisioner's choice to use XML as the basis for building its Web application has made MetaTeam a truly modular team governance solution that can be scaled up or down as needed.
Using its XML-based infrastructure alongside of the Altova MissionKit, eVisioner is able to generate a full working copy of MetaTeam in less than two minutes with 100% confidence that the application will perform as defined. Moving tabs, adding forms, or changing a page layout requires just an incremental generation taking seconds. This speed and reliability allows eVisioner to make minor updates to the application in less time, thereby being more reactive to customer feedback. With the additional ability to offer customers a way to easily customize their reports using StyleVision, eVisioner gains a unique capability that increases the value of MetaTeam to its customers.
Delivering legendary service is something the Atlassian Support team is constantly striving for. At Atlassian Summit 2010, Andrew Rallings, our Support Director, shared the three ways we try to achieve this goal and some of the innovative tools we have created to better serve our customers.
In the following video, check out Andrew Rallings's keynote (approximately 10 minutes in length) about Atlassian's Legendary Support. (Starts at 48:59).
Firstly, how do you know if you are delivering Legendary Support?
The only true way of knowing if you are delivering legendary support is by asking your customers. Each month we send out a Customer Satisfaction Survey to a randomly selected group of customers who have raised support issues that month. We roughly get a 40% response rate which is around 4 times the industry average (thank you to all our customers for such an awesome response rate, you guys rock!).
Measuring our support quality is one thing but how do we go about achieving it? We identified three ways to achieve legendary support...
1) Build products with no issues
When it comes to support, the best service you can get is the one you never need. Development, Product Management, Quality Assurance, Performance Engineering and Support work closely together to deliver not only a great product, but a high quality product with as few bugs as possible. As a result we have a number of large improvements scheduled to be delivered over the next 3-6 months such as the Universal Plugin Manager, improved user management and LDAP integration, and a dramatically improved Rich Text Editor for Confluence. Also, in the last year alone, we have fixed approximately 3,500 bugs across all of our products. There is still a long way to go, in particular we want to make installing and upgrading even easier, but we are heading in the right direction.
2) Provide great tools and online help
When you do have issues, we want to provide you the best online help and tools available that can help you find the answers to your issues quickly any time of the day.
Some of the things we have done to do just that include:
3) Deliver best-in-class service
When you do need to file a support issue, we want to provide you with the best service we possibly can. In your customer satisfaction surveys you said that you wanted two things: (1) you wanted us to answer your issues for your product in your time zone and; (2) you needed our service to be reliable.
To achieve this we needed to make some pretty big organisational changes. We recently opened a new office to cover the US East Coast and grew our entire Support team by more than 50%. What this means is that by October 2010, you will have a support engineer for your product (i.e. all products) in your time zone.
In terms of reliability, we have already published our target Initial Response Times but over this next 6 months we will publish exactly how we are doing against these targets. Providing transparency to our response times is a great way to demonstrate increasing reliability. We also created a highly customised Shared Support Queue that helps us better prioritise our incoming issues, to ensure the most efficient and effective delivery of support.
Related Links
With the Excel Plug-In (Beta) it is now possible to automate the content of an Excel work sheet. This plug-in is not designed solely for getting data from Excel sheets (please read Data Driven Testing here), instead it offers you the opportunity to automate the cells, rows and columns of an Excel document. For example, if you want to validate the impacts of your add-on on Excel, then the Excel plug-in is definitely the correct tool for you. In addition to access to the Excel UI elements, there are also new adapters available:
Through these adapters it is also possible to interact with the objects provided by the Excel object model.
Set up the Excel Plug-In
We now create a new project, which will show briefly what’s possible with the new Excel Plug-In. In the example we perform a calculation (implemented in user code) and use one of the formulas (actions recorded by Ranorex Recorder) which should simulate an Add-On.

Adding the new reference
/// <summary>
/// Sets the values of the cell and carries out the calculation.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="sheet">The worksheet which should be used</param>
/// <param name="value">The calculate value</param>
/// <param name="resultCell">Your cell for the result</param>
/// <param name="cellNames">Your cells are filled with a value. For example '"A1",A2"'</param>
public static void SetValuesCalc(ExcelWorkSheet sheet, int value, string resultCell, params string[] cellNames)
{ int result= 0; Cell excelCell; foreach(string cell in cellNames) { //Searching for the cell excelCell = sheet.FindSingle<Cell>(".//cell[@address='" + cell +"']"); excelCell.Click(); //Enters the value by using the keyboard Keyboard.Press(value.ToString()); Keyboard.Press(Keys.Enter); //Calculates the result of all cells result= result+ Convert.ToInt32(excelCell.Text); } //Searching for the result cell excelCell = sheet.FindSingle(".//cell[@address='" + resultCell+ "']"); excelCell.Click(); //Uses the SUM Formula or Excel Keyboard.Press("=SUM(" + cellNames[0] + ":" + cellNames[cellNames.Length - 1] + ")"); Keyboard.Press(Keys.Enter); //Checks if the result of all cells equal the result cell. CheckResult(result, excelCell); }
CheckResult
/// <summary>
/// Checks the result of the calculation
/// </summary>
/// <param name="expectedResult">Result of all cells used</param>
/// <param name="result">The result cell of the calculation by Excel</param>
private static void CheckResult( int expectedResult, Cell result)
{ Validate.Attribute(result, "Text", expectedResult.ToString());
}

/*****************************************************
* Parameter 1: Path or element for excel sheet
* Parameter 2: Value shall be calculated.
* Parameter 3: The address of the result cell
* Parameter 4: The cell addresses which should have a value
* ***************************************************/
SimpleCalc.SetValuesCalc("/form[@processname='EXCEL']/element[@class='XLDESK']/workbook/table[@name='Sheet1']", 12, "A5", "A1","A2","A3");
Now we create a recording where we calculate the average value of several numbers and format the result. Thereby we show how easy it is to test an Excel Add-On with the Recorder.
//Execute recording Formula.Start();
You can download the sample project (Excel Project) which includes all the steps we performed in this blog. Please, don’t forget this Plug-In is still a Beta version and there is the possibility that some things might be changed.
Please send us your feedback and your suggestions to improve the Excel Plug-In.
In addition to its Best Practices Analyzer and Persona Management view, the commercial launch of TeamPulse includes a range of other new features and enhanced functionality:
TeamPulse Standard Edition, which includes one user and an unlimited number of projects, is immediately commercially available at $249 USD per license. Also available is TeamPulse Community Edition, a free full-featured edition limited to five users and one project. For additional information about TeamPulse, please visit www.telerik.com/team-productivity-tools.aspx. To learn more about Telerik and get the latest breaking company news, please follow @Telerik on Twitter.
Planned worldwide implementation to automate management and use of open source software; validate and improve developer efficiency
WALTHAM, Mass., July 27, 2010 - Black Duck Software, a leading global provider of products and services for accelerating software development through the managed use of open source software, today announced that SAP (NYSE: SAP) has selected to implement the Black Duck™ Suite. The comprehensive suite provides a platform for managing the use of open source software in a multi-source development process. It will help development teams at SAP improve productivity by further automating the company’s open source approval processes. SAP is the world's leading provider of business software(*).
SAP, which previously used complex, time-consuming and partly manual processes for handling open source approvals and the legal compliance aspects of open source use, sought a scalable, enterprise-strength platform to further automate the management, compliance, and integration of open source software into its development life cycle. After researching available tools and platforms, SAP chose the Black Duck Suite to support SAP developers worldwide with the suite’s automated, developer-oriented, multi-function platform, which supports scanning, early detection and management of open source used in software development.
“When we established the open source approval process at SAP in 2001, we assumed we’d receive only a few open source requests per month,” said Francis Ip, head of SAP Global Technology Legal Compliance. “However, with the continuously increasing importance of open source globally and SAP’s recent strategic change towards systematically utilizing benefits that come with open source, it was necessary for us to scale our open source process through further automation. We conducted an exhaustive search of applications on the market, and the Black Duck Suite was the best solution we tested. The Black Duck Suite will help us further automate and scale our open source process in order to support our open source strategy.”
“Using the Black Duck Suite will help SAP developers reduce the amount of code that needs to be developed while increasing the velocity of development,” said Peter Vescuso, executive vice president, Black Duck Software. “Automating the use and management of open source software also will yield the benefits of compliance with software license obligations, reducing risk and improving developer efficiency.”
For more information on the Black Duck Suite visit www.blackducksoftware.com.
(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning and related applications.
About Black Duck Software
Black Duck Software is the leading provider of products and services for automating the management, governance and secure use of open source software, at enterprise scale, in a multi-source development process. The use of Black Duck™ solutions enables companies to shorten time-to-market and reduce development costs while mitigating the management, security and compliance challenges associated with open source software. Black Duck Software powers Koders.com, the industry’s leading code search engine for open source, and is among the 500 largest software companies in the world, according to Softwaremag.com. The company is headquartered near Boston and has offices in San Mateo, Calif., London, Paris, Frankfurt, and Tokyo. For more information, visit www.blackducksoftware.com.
Black Duck, Know Your Code and the Black Duck logo are registered trademarks of Black Duck Software, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. Koders is a trademark of Black Duck Software, Inc.
SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.
SAP Forward-looking Statement
Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
Press Contacts
Peter Vescuso
Black Duck Software
press@blackducksoftware.com
+1 781-891-5100
Ann Dalrymple
TopazPartners
adalrymple@topazpartners.com
+1 781-404-2432
At the recent Atlassian Summit 2010, we demonstrated the homegrown tool that Atlassian's global Technical Support team uses to manage our shared support queue. In part 1 of this blog series, we'll cover why we needed a new tool, and the concepts behind the shared view we built. In part 2, we'll break down how we turned our best practices and ideas into a working tool that we plan to eventually release as a JIRA plugin.
We just released NCover 3.4.12. It's a regular bugfix release but also includes an exciting reduction to NCover's memory usage when running applications that spawn lots of subprocesses. You can read all about the release in the release notes.
Please join us in 2 weeks to learn more about Ceptah Bridge.
Ceptah Bridge links MS Project with JIRA and provides bi-directional synchronisation between the systems. It streamlines the project management process by making Microsoft Project tasks available to JIRA users for browsing, modifying and reporting progress. A rich interface gives the user full control over the changes made during the synchronisation.
REGISTER NOW: Tue, Aug 10, 2010 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM PDT (California Time)
Altova has just released a new MapForce course as part of its line of free online training modules. This course focuses on HL7 integration using both the EDI (version 2.x) and XML (version 3.x) formats. Each of the three modules include step-by-step tutorials, evaluation exercises, and a chance to work with real HL7 files and functions.
Go on, join the EHR revolution! Download a free 30-day trial of MapForce, go to our training page, and check out powerful HL7 mapping from Altova!
What's hotter then Orlando, FL in August? Agile 2010 in Orlando in August! Seriously though, this is the second year Atlassian has been a sponsor of this awesome show, and we're excited to be back. We're pining to reconnect with folks in the agile world to find out what's the latest and greatest, as well as share what we've been working on.
Our JIRA and GreenHopper gurus will be manning our booth and showing off the latest from GreenHopper and JIRA, as well as all of Atlassian's development tools. As you may have heard at Summit, over 10,000 customers use GreenHopper -- in just one year our customer based grew by a 10x magnitude. Making GreenHopper one of the most popular agile planning tools out there.
This year we'll not only be at Agile 2010 in Orlando, from August 9-13, 2010, but we'll also be sponsoring Agile Australia in September. If you're planning on going to either of these shows, don't miss an opportunity to stop by and talk to the guys that make Atlassian get jiggy wit agile ;-).

Get the Most Advanced UML Features - And Save 50%, 70%, or Even 90% Over Competing Tools!
For a limited time we’re offering special savings on Altova UModel. Combining a rich visual interface with superior usability features, UModel also includes high-end code engineering functionality to empower you with the maximum benefits of UML software development.
Starting at just $149, Altova UModel delivers the most advanced UML modeling features in the industry - at a fraction of the cost of other UML tools.
The same powerful functionality and ease of use that you've experienced in other Altova tools is packed into an affordable, intuitive UML modeling tool. UModel supports:
* All 14 UML 2.3 diagrams
* SysML and BPMN
* Code gen and reverse engineering of Java, C#, and VB .NET
* Round-trip engineering
* XMI import / export
* Visual Studio and Eclipse integration
* 32- and 64-bit versions
* And much more
Cool off with an additional 20% discount Enter code JULY10 during checkout in the Altova Online Shop for 20% off UModel. Act fast - this sizzling offer expires July 31, 2010.
*Savings calculated by comparing published single-user prices of Sparx Enterprise Architect Engineering Edition, Magicdraw Professional Edition, and IBM Rational Software Architect Standard Edition including Rational Modeling Extension for Microsoft .NET, with equivalent UModel Enterprise Edition configured with comparable bundled software maintenance plans.