Polarion Software Weblog

If you’ve seen my other post – “Polarion 2013 – Just Released” – you know we have just released version 2013 of the Polarion product line. That post summarizes the features we iteratively developed and released to our customers during the past year, but which are actually features of version 2013. (Yes, is a bit different from what you may be used to from other software companies… but it’s how we deliver new and enhanced functionality to our users on a regular, predictable basis.)

The purpose of this post is to highlight the new and noteworthy changes/features added to Polarion 2013 since Polarion 2012 SR3.  (A list of all the issues addressed in this release is provided in the Resolved Work Items file.) So let’s look now at the “latest-greatest” new things.

Diagraming

Create and edit many types of diagrams right in your LiveDoc™ specification documents.

Or attach them to work items.

And edit them in the online diagram editor

Searching Attachment Content

Work Item, Document, and/or Wiki attachment content is being indexed, so you can search for artefacts by searching the attachment content.

You can also search for attachments on the site search.

Duplicate Work Items

When duplicating work item, user can select what properties will be duplicated.

Document Attachments

It is possible to manage (add, remove, update…) document attachments in a same way as work item attachments.

System Engineering Project Template

New project template designed for system engineering, reflecting all the best practices of or Professional Services team

Connectors

Polarion Connector for HP Quality Center™ (HP QC)Platform Enhancements

Polarion Connector for Atlassian JIRA™

Platform Enhancements

External Repositories

The user-password in repositories.xml is encrypted

Custom Admin Changes

New API has been added to plug admin page for custom extension to Polarion Administration portal.

More…

For a summary of everything that has gone into the making of Polarion 2013 in the past year, see “Polarion 2013 – Just released”.

Or jump directly to:

•  SR1 - Robust handling of concurrent LiveDoc modifications: concurrent non-overlapping granular changes are automatically merged and people can easily review the result (and of course the history).
• SR2 - Work Items Table presentation: vertical/horizontal pane layout, an optional compact mode, and text wrapping in table cells.
• SR3 - Additional Custom Fields types: user role, project,  project group, build, document, wiki page.

Where to Get Polarion 2013

Polarion 2013 is a free update for customers with a current maintenance subscription. You can download the update distribution at http://www.polarion.com/downloads/update.php.

It’s always fun and exciting to announce a new Polarion release and show off the work of our world-class R&D team. The new 2013 release is no exception, and there are a number of things I’d like to highlight here.

In addition to the new features and enhancements, which you can read about below, you may also be interested in our newest product: Polarion^® CLOUD™. It has all the features most teams will ever need, it’s hosted on the state-of-the-art Amazon Web Services™ cloud, installed, maintained, and supported by Polarion experts, and pricing starts at just $99 per user per month. For more info, visit http://www.polarion.com/products/cloud/.

Polarion 2013 Top New Features

Diagraming
Create and edit many types of diagrams right in your LiveDoc™ specification documents, or in any type of Work Item.

Formal Testing Procedures
Define test steps tables within your Test Cases to capture explicitly how to conduct tests. Import and round-trip using Excel^®; execute online, or offline with results re-imported and logged in Polarion.

Test Planning
Enhanced flexibility for when planning tests: plan via live query results or hand pick the test cases that should be executed. Select any option from 5 possible choices.

OLE Support
We made some significant improvements in connecting Polarion 2013 technology with proprietary Microsoft OLE^® objects. To ensure that OLE objects (including the new version of OLE objects with EMF thumbnails) can be converted well, we require the conversion to be done on the Windows Server platform only.

Easier than Ever for Users
Features that have been in Polarion since version 1.0 revisited: Query Building and Work Item Linking. New in-place Query Builder helps users construct simple to complex queries visually, with project-specific elements and options. New Easy Linking leverages the latest web technology enabling visual linking across any number of browser windows.

Connectors
Widely accepted ALM definitions all agree that a collaborative environment in which different disciplines and teams work together is a vital necessity. Polarion’s solution makes sure you can have exactly that in a single solution. However, we know that in the real world beyond the definitions, there are reasons to keep using some existing tools. That’s why we have introduced the Polarion Connector for HP Quality Center™ (HP QC), and the Polarion Connector for Atlassian JIRA™ as part of our ALM solution.

Mobile Access
You asked… we delivered. The new ALM2GO app delivers all the functionality of Polarion® REVIEWER™ on your Apple iPhone. The app is free on the Apple App Store. (You will need at least one low-cost REVIEWER license present on your Polarion Server.)

Plus…

While these are the top features, the release also incorporates many other smaller improvements, requested by our customers, that we implemented in service releases during the past year, and which lead via our iterative development process to major releases like version 2013. I’ll just mention one from each of the past 3 Service Releases:

•  SR1 - Robust handling of concurrent LiveDoc modifications: concurrent non-overlapping granular changes are automatically merged and people can easily review the result (and of course the history).
• SR2 - Work Items Table presentation: vertical/horizontal pane layout, an optional compact mode, and text wrapping in table cells.
• SR3 - Additional Custom Fields types: user role, project,  project group, build, document, wiki page.
• SR4 - Good! You’re still with me and realized that “SR4″ is actually the Polarion 2013 release, with everything for the services release plus some New and Noteworthy features implemented since 2012-SR3. Be sure to check those out HERE.

On behalf of the entire Polarion team, thanks once again for using Polarion solutions!

Jiri Walek
Product Manager
Polarion Application Lifecycle Solutions

Shortly before Christmas the Polarion R&D team released an update for all Polarion products: Polarion 2012 Service Release 3 (SR3).

As usual, this Service Release delivers important bug-fixes, but there are also some new features and significant enhancements, including Import and Export of Test Steps, support for additional custom field types, Import of OLE Objects from Word, as well as  many usability improvements and support for the latest browsers.

This is a free update for customers with a current maintenance subscription. You can download the update distribution at
http://www.polarion.com/downloads/update.php.

This page is a “log” of the new and noteworthy changes/features in Polarion 2012 SR3. A list of issues addressed in this release is provided in the Resolved Work Items file.

Test Steps

Import from Microsoft Excel^®

You can now import Excel Sheets that contain not only test cases, but which have additional rows containing discrete test steps. (Polarion ALM and Polarion QA only).

Execute Tests with Test Steps off-line

When you describe the steps of your manual tests as trackable “Test Steps”, you can now export test cases that have such Test Steps associated with them to Excel for offline execution. When testers execute the steps offline, they can record the result of each test step as well as the overall result of each test case in the Excel workbook. When that’s re-imported to Polarion, test records are automatically created which track the results, and Defect items are created to track failed test steps and/or test cases. Everything is automatically linked for traceability, of course.

Customize the Test Steps Table

New Test Steps topic in Testing administration enables you to customize the table of Test Steps rendered in the Test Steps field of Test Case type Work Items. You can add columns to track any information you need to track with each Test Step you define. You can also change default column heading labels to use your team’s customary terminology.

OLE Objects

If you need to import Microsoft Word documents that contain OLE Objects, you can now configure Polarion to automatically convert OLE objects into PNG images.

Import Multi-valued Fields

When you import Work Items from Excel spreadsheets, you can now configure the import to map multiple field values in Excel cells to Polarion multi-valued enumeration fields.

New Custom Field Types

By popular request, this release adds several new field types that you can use when configuring custom fields in your projects. The new type are:

• user
• timepoint
• project
• build
• test run

Usability Improvements

Rich Text Toolbar Always Visible

When editing a Work Item’s description, the field’s toolbar now remains static and no longer scrolls out of view when the field content increases.

Custom Logo for Each Polarion Instance

Do you have a Multi-instance setup? You can now visually differentiate each Polarion server instance by specifying the URL to an image file in a new system property: com.polarion.logoURL. The specified image replaces the Polarion logo in the Navigation panel on the configured server.

Internet Explorer Compatibility Mode Check

As you know Polarion follows the most recent developments in HTML technology, and so it should run in latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer. However, we advise users not to run Polarion in so-called “compatibility” mode in IE. If users run it in this mode, a warning appears on the login page.

Structure Operations

The LiveDoc document interface is the easiest way to modify a Document’s structure, but sometimes you review the content using a table interface and you need to move item in a structure, create a sibling …

Saved Configurations for the Work Items Table

Users can now define, save, and reuse multiple Work Items table configurations, so they can easily switch between different table layout and content without having to configure the columns for each different view they want.

PDF Export for LiveDoc Comparison View

When a user compares 2 LiveDoc documents, the Document view of the comparison result can now be exported to a PDF file. PDF header/footer customization support now recognizes 2 additional parameters:

Browser Support

Service Release 3 adds support for Firefox 17. See the README.html file in your SR3 distribution.

In case you have not yet heard via the grapevine, we have in fact released version 2012 of our Application Lifecycle Management solutions. After several days of installation and checking in some customers’ environments I’m pleased to make the official release announcement here on the Polarion Blog.

First of all, here’s where you can get your hands on the new version (followed by info on what’s new in version 2012):

Test Drive Servers:

• Polarion REQUIREMENTS Test Drive Server (log in there, or sign up here)
• Polarion QA Test Drive Server (log in there, or sign up here)
• Polarion ALM Test Drive Server (log in there, or sign up here)

Downloads:

• Polarion REQUIREMENTS
• Polarion QA
• Polarion ALM

The above pages provide distributions for both new installations and updating a current installation. Polarion customers with current maintenance subscription can update free of charge.

WHAT’S NEW IN VERSION 2012

Polarion 2012 represents a major release for Polarion, with significant new features, improvements and enhancements,  including:

• New product: Polarion QA: Web-based collaborative Test Management with support for manual and automated testing, and easy results tracking for most third-party test automation tools. (More info)
• Quality Assurance and Test Management: New technology to support test specification, planning, execution and reporting. Test specification and execution are now separated in the data model, and automated testing is supported for the native build system and all third-party test automation tools that can export results to xUnit format. Exclusive round-trip for Microsoft Excel® supports offline testing by external testers.
• Polarion Live-Branch™ Variant Management: Exclusive new technology for managing document variants enables common specification artifacts to be maintained in one master document and referenced in “branched” documents, which can also contain variant-specific specification artifacts. Variants can be branched from the current state, or any historical state of the master to easily satisfy audit demand for time-specific information. Users control when and how master changes are propagated to referencing documents, and the granularity of propagated changes.
• Polarion Time-Machine™ Navigable Baselines
  Another innovative new technology, the Time-Machine feature enables users to literally go back in time to browse and search the historical state of a project, captured in a baseline, just as they can the current project state. Reports generated from inside the time-machine contain only data that was current at the time… another huge headache reliever for audits.
• Embedded SQL Database Layer: This behind-the-scenes “geek” feature makes many types of queries much faster and more efficient, especially those for artifact searching for dynamic reports on wiki pages and for traceability reports. Primary artifact storage and history remains in Subversion, and users’ existing Lucene queries still work. But users creating complex join type queries now have the option to tap the SQL layer for improved power and speed.
• Fresh, Easy-to-use User Interface: Inspired by social media portals, designed for collaboration and efficiency, focused on users, and supported by several rounds of usability tests. (Quick Video Tour)

For more information, including a list of improvements and enhancements check the Version History (also included in distribution archives).

P.S. Small but important errata:

Installation guides and version history file in distributions incorrectly states required Java version as Java 7. The correct version is Java 6. The corrected documents are available in the Documents section of product download pages.

THANKS…

On behalf of the entire Polarion team I would like to send special thanks to the customers, partners, and others who helped us with the release through our Early Access Program. Your input and suggestions really helped us make this very ambitious, feature-laden release possible.

By Nick Entin, VP R&D, Polarion Software

How Polarion Works during the Sprints

In the previous article of this series we learned more about all the different meetings that are important part of Scrum.

In this final post of this series, I’ll describe how we manage the Sprint Progress in the Polarion development team.

Sprint: Development

During a sprint, the development team continuously integrates all changes, and updated versions of the product are installed on the internal servers daily to prove stability and allow earlier testing of new functionality by other people (testers, doc writers, etc.).

The Polarion development process stipulates the following:

• An integration build is run at least once per day (usually nightly).
• In case of build failure, the problems need to be fixed ASAP and a new build triggered.
• Failed unit tests should be treated with highest priority, and a build should be triggered again to confirm fixes of the unit tests.
• 20% of each iteration’s development time is reserved as buffer for unpredicted activities (e.g. a critical defect or failed unit tests, or an urgent support request from a customer).
• If for some reason the buffer is exceeded, or senior management requires execution of some unplanned items, the iteration should be cancelled and a new plan created.

Every developer should know his/her personal plan, which matches the team plan set during the planning meeting. Developers track tasks via…
Personal queries, like “assigned to me in current Time Point”

• E-mail notifications of newly assigned work items
• The LivePlan chart and corresponding Wiki pages in our Polarion system

How we burn down our Burn-down charts at Polarion

There are several possibilities in Polarion for projection of the Team’s productivity and progress. (more…)