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What's New:
New Feature Summary
This section outlines new functionality added
to recent versions of WhiteCloud. Click on any version below for
details.
What's New in Version 3.1.6
What's New in Version 3.1.4
What's New in Version 3.1.3
What's New in Version 3.1.2
Earlier Versions
What's
New in Version 3.1.6
Automatic Version Updates
WhiteCloud now automatically checks the
WhiteCloud website for availability of updated versions. It then
offers automatic download of the latest version of WhiteCloud.
This check is done once a week, or any customisable interval, and you
can also perform it manually from the Help -> Check for Updates
menu. For example, a dialog such as the following might be
displayed ...
If you are connecting to a remote WhiteCloud
server which has been upgraded and requires clients to also be upgraded,
you will be automatically informed of this when you start up WhiteCloud,
and a compatible client upgrade proposed, such as in the following
example. This means that your company's WhiteCloud administrator
can upgrade the server at any time, without having to inform each user
individually.
What's
New in Version 3.1.4
Remote Web Functionality
WhiteCloud can now access its database over
the internet, remotely. This means you can use WhiteCloud
from anywhere that you have an internet connection. The
application operates in exactly the same way.
Please contact us at sales@whitecloudsystems.com to find out more about setting up a server to provide this functionality
to remote client applications.
Note that the remote client application
does not require an installation procedure if you only require
remote functionality, without a local database. The executable can
simply be copied or downloaded directly onto your hard drive, and run
from there. This makes it easy to start using WhiteCloud on any
computer. New versions of WhiteCloud can also now be downloaded
directly from within WhiteCloud.
Changes to Permissions
Items within WhiteCloud can only be viewed
and modified if the logged-in user has sufficient permissions on each
item. The way this is controlled has been made simpler and more
consistent. The details of this can be found in the section on Permissions.
Important: Defects, Change
Requests, Issues, Risks, and Requirements should all be raised against a
Deliverable, and the Deliverable should have its 'Project' field
defined. Users who are not assigned to the Project will not be
able to view or edit the Defects, Change Requests, etc.
Note that a logged-in user can now see their
permission level on each Task (as either Full, Restricted, or Read-Only)
at the bottom of the Resources &
Permission section of task details.
What's
New in Version 3.1.3
Users and Resources
To improve clarity and consistency, the term 'Users' has been replaced by 'Resources' throughout the application,
except where explicitly referring to someone who can login and operate
the WhiteCloud application. If a resource has a login
name defined (see Adding a Resource)
then that resource can login as a WhiteCloud user.
Resources can now also be created by project
managers, not just by WhiteCloud administrators. More
specifically, if you have full permissions on a project, you will now be
able to create resources, and assign them to the project without having
to request an administrator to do this. More details on this
change can be found here.
Start and Finish date entry
In previous versions the planned Start and Finish dates of each task could not be entered manually, as
they are calculated automatically on the basis of other constraints,
such as Earliest Start Date and dependency links between
tasks. Furthermore, Duration could not be specified just
by entering Start and Finish dates. For convenience, and to
provide more intuitive behaviour, the latest version now lets you manually
enter these dates, while still performing auto-calculation to ensure
constraints are satisfied. See Task
Planning Details for more explanation
of the behaviour of these fields.
A variety of other minor enhancements and
fixes have also been included in this release. The Help manual has
also been updated in a number of areas..
What's
New in Version 3.1.2
Task Reporting Summary
details
The Task Reporting Screen now includes a Summary section which provides totals of Planned Work and Actual Work over a
selected date range for the displayed tasks. Individual
totals for each resource can also be displayed, as in the screenshot
below. The summary
details are also included on printed reports. This new
feature lets you monitor your schedule, progress, and resourcing over
specific periods of time. See Task
Reporting Summary for more information.
Earlier Versions
Baseline Editing
Baseline names and descriptions can now be edited.
Resource Usage Screen
The Resource
Usage screen lets you see how much work each resource has been
allocated for each day in the calendar. This is invaluable for
determining whether team members have been over or under-allocated for
any day, and for providing an overview what work has been assigned to
each resource.
Additional Task Dependency
Link Types, and Lags
Tasks can now be linked in four different
ways, allowing you to capture a much wider range of dependencies between
their start and finish dates.
Finish-to-Start
Finish-to-Finish
Start-to-Start
Start-to-Finish
Links can also have an optional lag duration defined, which is the interval or delay between the dependent
task dates.
The example Gantt chart below shows a complex
example that includes all four types of dependency link, some with lag values.
Automatic Assignment Notification by Email
When a team-member is assigned to a work
item, WhiteCloud can now automatically email that person with a
notification. Assignment Notification can be configured for
each user, specifying what work-item types and their work email
address. This is done in the user details screen, as shown
below. See Assignment
Notifications for more information.
Baselining
Baselines can now be created for
Projects and Tasks, and these can be viewed on the Gantt chart.
In the example below, the light
blue line shows the original planned start and end dates for each task,
for a particular baseline. The purple shows the current
plan. As plans change, it is easy to see how they compare with
earlier plans. See Baselines for more information.
Find items quickly by ID
You can now quickly find any item by its
id...
Just type in the id, and press the arrow or
Enter.
Link any item to any other item via
'hyperlinks'
The description text of any item can now
include references to other items, such as "defect-32" or
"task-531". You can then right-click on these references
to immediately view the item. For example, the change-request
below has a reference to defect id 6. The right-click menu item
shown below will open that defect.
References can be created by simply typing
the reference, or using the "Insert Item link" operation also
shown below.
This provides a simple but very flexible way
of relating and navigating around related work items.
Planned and Actual Work
The relationship between Planned Work, Actual Work, Percent Complete, and Remaining Work has
been improved, and a new Work Overrun field has been added.
Specifically, the following equation is now always maintained:
Planned Work + Work Overrun
=
Actual Work + Remaining Work
Percent Complete is always based on
the ratio of Actual Work to Work + Work Overrun, thus
giving a correct indication of progress.
Also, for convenience, Resources and Timesheet Entries
associated with a Task are now directly accessible from the '...'
button next to
the Resources and Actual Work fields.
Task Resource Summary report
The Resource Summary popup screen is now in
the form of a printable report. This provides totals and
metrics for each resource assigned to a task and all of its
subtasks. For example, if you have a task that represents an
Iteration, the resourcing summary will quickly let you check the
balancing of resources within the iteration, and to monitor individual
progress. Resource
Summary
View uncompleted tasks assigned to a
Resource
There is now a simple way to see all
uncompleted tasks within a task hierarchy that are assigned to a particular
resource. This is very useful for viewing outstanding
work for a team-member, or yourself.
A new menu item will show the dialog below,
where you can select a team-member...
The task hierarchy will then be automatically
expanded to show
all un-completed tasks assigned to the team-member, highlighted in red,
as below...
The highlighted tasks will also appear in the
team-member's To Do list, but the above view shows the context of the tasks
within the project hierarchy. The menu item for this is:
right-click Resource Assignments -> Show uncompleted tasks
assigned to a user.
Traceability between Tasks and Change
Requests
A Task can now be associated with multiple
Change Requests, and vice versa. There is a new Change Requests section on the Task details screen that lets you view and modify these
associations. Conversely, each Change Request has a Tasks section.
The associations can also be viewed as a column on
the Task Reporting screen and on the Change Requests reporting screen.
Section Printing
Individual sections of item details can now
be printed independently, via the right-click menu. For example,
the Status History of a defect can be printed, or the Requirements
associated with a deliverable.
Product Release Versions Screen
Release Versions for products can now be
viewed in their own screen, and also from menu items. Previously
they were only accessible as a sub-section of the product details
screen. Release Versions are central to tracking and
planning work items such as defects and change-requests, and for
associating with iterations in the task hierarchy.
Item edits can be saved without closing the
form
When editing an item such as a Defect, Change
Request, or Deliverable, you can now save the changes without closing
the form. This is done via the new  button.
This feature is especially useful because it
lets you find out the new ID that gets assigned to an item when saved,
without having to close the form first.
Repository Document Duplication
The Document Repository now provides a Duplicate function. This can be especially useful if you have a
template document in your repository, from which you need to make
duplicates from. You can duplicate into any target repository
folder.
Screen Access
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