Silver Catalyst - Silver Stripe Software
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1. available on the Internet To view Silver Catalyst feeds make sure you use a reader that can access the Silver Catalyst server Internet feed readers will not be able to access Silver Catalyst Use a desktop or a LAN version instead i SILVERCATALYST Bl silver stripe Subscribing to the RSS feed The rest of this chapter will assume that you have some knowledge about RSS and that you have access to an RSS reader software Once you have the feed reader set up you need to subscribe to the feed in the software The procedure varies between different software so consult your feed reader documentation on how to do this No matter which software you use you will need to enter the URL of the feed in the software To get this URL click on the orange RSS icon The dialog box that appears will contain the URL for that feed Enter this URL into your feed reader software Once subscribed you will receive notifications as shown in the screen at the start of this chapter http 27 0 0 1 4334 Ww S GLI app catalyst projects Atlaso 20 W ebsite teed You can get RSS notifications for this project at the above URL In order to read the RSS notifications you will need an RSS reader software Enter the above URL into your RSS software to recieve notifications for this project Close Unsubscribing from the RSS feed If you no longer wish to receive notifications you can unsubscribe from the feed Your feed reader software wil2. Control L Control 1 Page Up Page Down Silver Catalyst Version 1 5 1 l User Manual Toggle between normal and full screen mode Resize page to fit on screen Previous page Next page Ml silver stripe Introduction System Requirements SILVERCATALYST This quick start guide will help you get started with Silver Catalyst First we ll show you how to install Silver Catalyst Next we ll go through a sample project that will touch on all the main features Then we will look at each screen individually Finally we ll talk about applying Agile principles with Silver Catalyst followed by some extra topics and additional resources Once you are through with this document you will be able to use Silver Catalyst for your own projects Server 1 Microsoft Windows XP Operating System 2 512 MB RAM 3 80 MB Hard Disk Space Client 1 Mozilla Firefox 1 0 2 0 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 7 Ml silver stripe Chapter 1 Getting Started jp SILVERCATALYST Installation Installing Silver Catalyst is easy Just follow these steps and you should be ready to go 1 Copy the setup file to your server computer 2 Double click the catalyst_setup exe file This will start the installation Click Next to continue 3 Select a location to install Silver Catalyst to The default location is C Program Files Catalyst Click Next to continue 4 Select the Start Menu group This is the folder un
3. Creating a new project To create a new project click the Create a new project link to expand it and display the form Then enter a name for the project and click the Create Project button Note that as of now you can only use English alphabets digits and spaces in the project name You cannot use a name that already exists When you create a new project you will automatically have permission for the project However the Bi silver stripe SILVERCATALYST project will be invisible for everyone else Ask your Silver Catalyst administrator to give permission to any other login accounts that require visibility to this project The login username and login type display The home page also shows you the username you have logged in with and the type of the account Participant or Observer In the case of an administrator a link to the administration screen is shown here Welcome admin 4aministrator Esdadmin panel Otherwise a link to the settings page will be shown Welcome geoff Observer rour settings Bl silver stripe Chapter 5 The Dashboard E SILVERCATALYST Registration 20 2 5 Mar S Mar 10 Mar 11 1ar 12 Mar Registration From 8 Mar 2007 To 14 Mar 2007 Description Priority Assigned To Remaining Create logo Must Siddharta Register domain name Must Aarthi z Generate site statistics Could Siddharta o 13 Mar Status Not Started Mot Started Mo
4. a bit more complicated such as the end date of an iteration not being before the start date Description Priority Assigned To Estimate C Foso WO When a constraint on a field has not been satisfied it will be marked with a red border and the submission button will be disabled as shown above Collapsible sections Many sections in Silver Catalyst can be collapsed and expanded These sections are shown with a greater than symbol if they are expandable and a lesser than symbol if they can be collapsed Click the symbol or the text near the symbol to toggle between the collapsed and expanded states lt Backlog In place editing Tasks and iterations can be edited in place in the dashboard detail and team member views To edit the item just click on it The item will be replaced with a form right there in the same location Make changes to the item in the form and click Save to save your changes or Cancel to revert back to the original state Description Priority Assigned To Create logo Must we Siddhartal E Nobody Customer codes When you visit the help and support screen as an administrator you can view the Customer codes for your installation The codes are two sets each 20 characters long You will need these codes if you have purchased licenses and want to purchase some more as they enable us to link your new order with your previous purchase Customer Code 4 18l1ac4O0f5o0bb996870c3 Custome
5. import and export Therefore you can use this plugin when you want to import data from a spreadsheet to export data to a spreadsheet In order to import data from a spreadsheet perform the following steps 1 Ensure the the spreadsheet has columns with the task description and optionally the priority person assigned to estimate remaining status and notes 2 Save the spreadsheet in CSV format You can do this by going to File gt Save As and selecting the Unicode Text format for Microsoft Excel or Text CSV format for OpenOffice Calc Other spreadsheet programs will have an equivalent format 3 Go to Silver Catalyst and select the CSV Import Export plugin Select the exported CSV file to import it into Silver Catalyst Bl silver stripe Chapter 14 Further Resources SILVERCATALYST Extending the Tool Silver Catalyst can be extended to do a lot of other things For instance did you know that you could change the look of the Silver Catalyst pages and put your team or company branding on the website For these and other extensions check out the Extras section of the website at http www silverstripesoftware com extras Silver Stripe Blog If you are interested in project management agile software development or software delivery check out the Silver Stripe Blog at http www silverstripesoftware com blog Community Forum A Yahoo Group has been setup to enable you to discuss software delivery with fellow
6. users To join the group go to http tech groups yahoo com group catalystpm and click the Join This Group button on the top right corner You need a Yahoo account to join the group silver stripe software Online Resources There are a number of excellent discussion groups for discussing agile software development and software delivery Here are links to some of them scrumdevelopment http groups yahoo com group scrumdevelopment extremeprogramming http groups yahoo com group extremeprogramming crystalclear http groups yahoo com group crystalclear agileprojectmanagement http groups yahoo com group agileprojectmanagement agilemanagement http tech groups yahoo com group agilemanagement pragprog http groups yahoo com group pragprog agilemodeling http tech groups yahoo com group agilemodeling industrialxp http groups yahoo com group industrialxp agile testing http groups yahoo com group agile testing agile usability http groups yahoo com group agile usability Getting in Touch For help on any part of Silver Catalyst feel free to send an email to support silverstripesoftware com
7. ALYST Silver Catalyst has a customizable dashboard through which you can embed external web pages into the dashboard Use this feature to display the current build status acceptance test pass rate the bug rates or any other piece of information that you want to view on a regular basis Instead of visiting each application regularly you can get all the information on the dashboard screen of Silver Catalyst Configuring the dashboard External Pages Configure External Dashboard Pages To manage the list of pages that are displayed on the dashboard click on the Configure External Dashboard Pages link on the dashboard screen You can configure the title of the page and the URL of the page that you want to add Title URL Build Status http 192 1668 1 13 8080 job Catalyst buildTimeGrapt dd Page After you add the page it will appear on the dashboard screen You can always return to the configuration page by clicking the Configure External Dashboard Pages link to add more pages edit existing pages and delete pages that you no longer want to view silve soft zm tu LA ny pe External Pages Configure External Dashboard Pages Build Status min O md wT i oo O E m oo O md i rl e el cl cl a cn cn cr H iH H H H H iH H H H H H H H BJ silver stripe Chapter 11 A Guide to Agile SILVERCATALYST In this chapter you ll see
8. CATALYST The notes field The notes field is a free form area where you can store any information about the task Need to store the requirement id Put it here Need to store the bug number from the bug database Put it here Want to store a URL This field is the place Is the task currently blocked for some reason Type that here The daily stand up meeting One of the key features of agile is how everyone in the team knows what is happening in the whole project The daily stand up meeting is a facilitator to this Alex runs the daily stand up meeting for fifteen minutes the first thing every day Along with Barbara and the onshore team Kevin and the offshore team also join in the stand up via Skype Chat IM Telephone The dashboard view shows the burndown chart for the iteration The teams use the burndown chart to gauge their progress and estimate the position at the end of the iteration The burndown chart also alerts the team to possible impediments in the iteration Burndown chart For more on using the burndown chart see Chapter 11 A Guide to Agile Day 4 Wrapping up the iteration Great the iteration is done It s now time to reflect on the progress of the iteration Agile teams spend a short amount of time at the end of each iteration to see what went well what didn t go so well and where they can improve Bl silver stripe SILVERCATALYST Checking your progress On the last day of the iterati
9. bers name If the name is being used for the first time the team member will be automatically created Otherwise the drop down box will allow you to select one of the team members who are a part of the project For more on estimating the work take a look at Chapter 11 A Guide to Agile Scheduling a task To schedule a task drag the task from the backlog and drop it over the destination iteration You can use the same technique to move tasks between iterations or from an iteration back to the backlog To move more than one task at a time click on each task to select it and click and drag the last task to move the whole group You can even select tasks from different iterations for group drag and drop If the iteration you want to drop on is outside the screen just drag the tasks to the top or bottom of the screen to automatically scroll the wndow up and down respectively The average velocity The average velocity is displayed above the burndown list This shows you how much work actually gets completed in an iteration Use this to calculate how much work should be scheduled in the iteration Ml silver stripe i SILVERCATALYST Deleting a task To delete a task drag the task and drop it over the Recycle area You can undelete tasks at any time by dragging them out of the Recycle and back to the Backlog or iteration If you want to permanently delete the tasks then right click on the recycle area and click the Clea
10. ct and more tasks to a team member who is relatively free silver stripe software Chapter 9 Settings and Administration Your Settings Your account role is an administrator gt Change your account password Administration Catalyst RSS Feed Accounts gt admin lt siddharta Account Settings This person is a Observer v Set password Save details Delete Delete this account The settings and administration screen is where users can change their Silver Catalyst settings In addition administrators can create new login accounts edit accounts and set permissions in this screen Changing your password You can change your account password by clicking on the Change your account password link under the Your Settings section and entering a new password in the form that appears Bl silver stripe SILVERCATALYST Catalyst RSS Feed The Catalyst RSS Feed is a special administrator feed that notifies the administrator of all changes from all projects In addition this feed also contains notification of administrator actions like creating and editing accounts and changing permissions Creating an account To create an account click the Create an account link to expand the form Then enter a username and password and set the type of the account Administrators have access to the administration section of Silver Catalyst Participants can view and edit project deta
11. der which Silver Catalyst shortcuts will be stored in the Start Menu You will most likely leave this at the default value Click Next to continue 5 Confirm your choices and click Install to start the installation 6 Thats it Silver Catalyst is installed on your machine For the rest of this document we will assume you left the installation values at their default In case you didn t be sure to use your value when appropriate Upgrading If you already have Silver Catalyst installed on the server you will need to upgrade the database before you can use it To upgrade 1 First uninstall the existing version of Silver Catalyst This can be done by running the Uninstall Silver Catalyst shortcut in the Start Menu Bl silver stripe y SILVERCATALYST 2 Next install Silver Catalyst as described above 3 Finally run the Silver Catalyst Upgrade Database shortcut in the Start Menu Starting the Server To start the Silver Catalyst server 1 Goto Start Menu gt All Programs gt Silver Catalyst and click on Silver Catalyst To start the Silver Catalyst server via the command prompt navigate to C Program Files Catalyst and execute catalyst exe start The first time you start the server you might get a dialog from your firewall software asking if you want to allow Silver Catalyst to start a server Answer yes to this dialog When Silver Catalyst starts you should see a screen like the one below
12. done in the following iteration The planning screen Alex returns to the home screen and clicks on the LoansNow link to view the project s dashboard There is no information in the dashboard at the moment Alex clicks the Planning button to go to the planning screen In the meantime Geoff logs in from his location and Susan logs in from her location The two teams also join Alex in the planning screen silver stripe Y SILVERCATALYST Adding tasks to the backlog After a discussion with everyone via Skype Chat IM Telephone Alex gets a list of features to be completed He now has to add them to the project backlog To do that Alex clicks the Add task to backlog link and fills up the form lt Add task to backlog Description Priority Assigned To Estimate TY should mioo im MoSCoW prioritization Silver Catalyst has four priority levels Must Should Could and Wont This type of prioritization is known as MoSCoW prioritization Features that absolutely have to be done are categorized as Must If any of these features are not done the project will be considered a failure Features that are important to the success of the project but are not absolute musts they have a workaround or are not so important are categorized as Should Features that are nice to have but not particularly important are categorized as Could Features that are not going to be implemented this time are marked as Wont Why hav
13. e file and restart Silver Catalyst Silver Catalyst will load with your new plugin installed To disable a plugin stop the Silver Catalyst server then remove the line containing the plugin name from the pluginconf py file Save the file and restart Silver Catalyst plugins PDF Report By default Silver Catalyst is installed with the PDF Report plugin This plugin allows you to download a PDF version of the project dashboard It will be enabled by default so unless you disabled it you do not need to do anything When enabled the dashboard screen will have a PDF section below the iteration details Download PDF Report A POF Report for current iteration Click the link to download the PDF report for the project Bl silver stripe SILVERCATALYST Wiki Link Wiki Link is another plugin that comes with Silver Catalyst Wiki Link allows you to link tasks in Silver Catalyst with pages on a wiki This allows you to add more information about the requirement in the wiki page and reference it within Silver Catalyst Agile teams typically use the wiki to store detailed requirements Ul screenshots design notes acceptance test cases and other documentation CSV Import Export CSV Import Export is a plugin that allows you to import CSV data into Silver Catalyst and export your project data in the CSV format CSV stands for comma separated values and it is a format used by spreadsheet applications for
14. e of the units you can use for estimating your tasks is story points A story point is an abstract quantity that represents the complexity and length of completing the task Choose an estimate for the first task and estimate the remaining tasks relative to the first task For example if the second task is estimated to be twice as difficult as the first task assign it double the number of story points If its the same complexity give it the same number of story points and so on Over time you will be able to use the feedback to get better at judging how many points to estimate for a given task Once you do that then you can calculate the number of story points you delivered in the previous iteration and use that as a guide towards planning the next iteration For story point estimation to work you only need to ensure that the way you estimate tasks remains consistent Bi silver stripe Y SILVERCATALYST Tasks status in Silver Catalyst can be one of Not Started In Progress Done Pass Fail Typically a task starts as Not Started When someone works on it change it to In Progress Once it has been implemented mark it as Done When the acceptance tests are run the status can be changed to Pass or Fail appropriately When is a task really done One of the things you have to figure out is to decide when a task is done Is it when the coding is complete Is it when the tests pass Silver Catalyst contains two sta
15. e these features in the backlog at all There are two reasons One is that feature priorities can change as the project goes on These features could have started as Should and been re prioritized to Wont and they may be re prioritized back again The second is that these features are a starting point to the second version Bl silver stripe Y SILVERCATALYST For more information on MoSCoW method of assigning priority see Chapter 11 A Guide to Agile Tasks added by Alex appear in the product backlog Backlog Description Priority Assigned To Remaining Design registration forms Should Aarthi 4 Display content on front page Could Aarthi 6 Prepare page layout for registration Should Winod 5 Change font hierarchy Should Winod z Total Remaining 17 Creating an iteration Next Alex creates the current iteration by entering the name of the iteration and the start and end dates As the tasks and iterations are added the screens of all the others in the conference Geoff Susan and the two teams is updated in real time lt Add iteration to project Mame Start End Pp lr jar Bl silver stripe SILVERCATALYST Planning the Iteration The teams now have the features in the backlog and an empty iteration The conference continues in order to determine the features that will be completed in the coming iteration As features are scheduled for the iteration the team drags the feat
16. eration Description Priority Assigned To Remaining Create main page graphics Must Aarthi 7 Register analysis tools Should Vinod 7 Create error messages Should Vijay 7 Total Remaining 21 The planning screen is where you plan out your iterations This screen allows you to create iterations and tasks schedule tasks and delete tasks Creating an iteration To create an iteration click the Add iteration to project link to expand the form Enter a name for the iteration and the start and end dates of the iteration both dates are included in the iteration Entering dates is optional so you can leave it out if the dates are not yet decided or enter just the start or end date However note that the iteration will only appear in the dashboard if both the start and end Bl silver stripe SILVERCATALYST dates have been entered There is no way to calculate whether an iteration is in progress otherwise Another thing to remember is that while the start and end dates can be the same day to get a one day iteration the end date cannot be before the start date Creating a task A task is created by first clicking the Add task to backlog link to expand the form and then filling up the form Enter a short description of the task its priority the person to assign to and the estimate for the task When you create a task it appears under the Backlog section To assign the task to someone just enter the team mem
17. f the login If you are logged in as an administrator you will have a link to the administration panel here otherwise you will have a link to your account settings Bl silver stripe SILVERCATALYST The list of projects The home screen shows you the list of projects that are visible to you There may be additional projects that you do not have permission to view These projects are not displayed Clicking a project in the list takes you to the dashboard screen for that project Next to the project link is an orange icon This represents the RSS feed for the project Clicking this icon will open up a dialog with the URL to the RSS feed You can then add the RSS feed to your feed reader software to receive notifications about the project For more information see Chapter 12 Using RSS Atlas Website EN le E Next to the RSS icon will be a list of plugin icons These icons appear when the plugin is installed In the above screen no plugins have been installed and no icons appear By default the Wikilink plugin and the CSV import export plugins are displayed For more information on these plugins see Chapter 13 Plugin Support The team member list The team member list shows a list of all the team members from all the projects who are using Silver Catalyst Clicking on a team member s name will show the tasks that have been assigned to that team member The tasks are shown from all the projects that are visible to you
18. gin so that I have visibility into the project This form of naming is good if you want to make the business value clear Stories vs Features vs Tasks Most agile processes make a distinction between a feature and a task In such teams a feature also called a user story is used to refer to a anything that directly leads to business value For example Add a user to the system would be considered a feature A task is used to refer to actions that must be performed internally but do not directly add business value Refactor the database code is an example of a task Silver Catalyst provides no distinction between features and tasks As far as Silver Catalyst is concerned everything is a task that needs to be completed You can still provide the differentiation by using the notes field to mark the tasks that are customer valued features Set the estimate for these feature tasks to zero When all the sub tasks are completed set the feature task status to Done The priority field allows you to set the priority of the task Silver Catalyst supports four different priority levels Must Should Could and Wont Agile processes generally advocate that you do the highest priority tasks first The priority field helps you make this decision How do you decide the priority of a task This is an interesting exercise by itself Blsitver stripe y SILVERCATALYST MoSCoW prioritization Silver Catalys
19. happens once in a while Try to avoid scope creep The Irregular Burndown This is an indication of an incomplete understanding of what to do The estimate swings wildly as new information is uncovered The Sudden Drop This happens when tasks are overestimated or estimates are suddenly edited after a gap Edit the estimate for tasks in progress at least once a day Remember that the burndown chart is like the pulse of your iteration If it flat lines or starts misbehaving it means that your iteration is getting sick Take notice and take action Bi silver stripe software Chapter 12 AA Using RSS Project changed feed All news Y Today 1 Project changed feed Task Moved by admin 1 48 PM Stared news J O 7 or Leet Loe amin oo PT EJ Unread news Iteration Created by admin 148PM Project Created by admin 148 PM L praata ask Created by admin 13 48 3 27 2007 Project changed feed Name New task Priority Should Assigned To Nobody Status Not Started Estimate 3 Notes Iteration Iteration 1 RSS is a technology that allows you to be notified of changes Silver Catalyst uses RSS to publish project notifications such as when tasks have been created or changed To view RSS notifications you need a software capable of reading RSS notifications They are generally referred to as feed readers or news aggregators There are a number of free and paid feed readers
20. how you can apply various agile project management concepts using Silver Catalyst This section assumes that you have an understanding of an agile process If you would like to learn more about agile software development then there are a number of excellent online discussion groups Check out the Online Resources section of Chapter 14 Further Resources for some of them Tasks A task in Silver Catalyst is meant to resemble an index cards in its properties namely It is short It is easy to create It is easy to edit and move around The description field is for a short one line description of the feature An example would be Add a user to the project Keep it short and sweet It is easy to get carried away and try to fit in a few paragraphs If you need additional detail use the wikilink plugin to link the feature with a wiki page Feature Driven Development FDD Feature naming template FDD has a simple template for naming features The template is lt action gt lt result gt lt object gt For example Calculate the average of the price Add a user to the project This is a nice template for keeping your descriptions small yet descriptive Bi silver stripe y SILVERCATALYST Extreme Programming XP User story template XP has another template for naming user stories The template is As lt role gt I want lt feature gt so that lt business value gt For example As a manager I want to be able to lo
21. ight there This is useful when you want to edit a task from a future iteration or a completed iteration The dashboard is probably a better place to edit tasks from the current iteration Bl si Iver stripe software Chapter 8 Team Members Aarthi Atlas Website Backlog Description Priority Assigned To Remaining Status Notes Design registration forms Should Aarthi 4 Not Started Display content on front page Could Aarthi 6 Not Started Registration From amp Mar 200 7 To 14 Mar 2007 Description Priority Assigned To Remainina Status Notes Register domain name Must Aarthi a Not Started Misc From 15 Mar 2007 To 21 Mar 2007 Description Priority Assigned To Remaining Status Notes Create main page graphics Could Aarthi 7 Not Started Display tasks in red Could Aarthi 7 Not Started Iteration Zero From 1 Mar 2007 To 7 Mar 2007 Description Priority Assigned To Remaining Status Notes The team member screen shows you all the tasks from all the projects assigned to one particular team member Like the dashboard and detail screens you can click a task or iteration and edit it in place This screen is useful for a team member to keep track of what they have to do and adjust the estimates of their tasks Another use of this screen is during planning you can see how loaded the team member is across all the projects Thus you would assign less tasks to a team member who also has work from some other proje
22. ils Observers can only view project details but cannot edit them Normally team members are participants and customers or management are observers This allows customers or management to get visibility into the project Editing an account Under the Accounts heading is a list of Silver Catalyst accounts Click any account to expand it Here you will be able to change the type of the account or change the password You can also delete the account here Note that you cannot delete the account that you are currently logged in as In case you change the administrator password and then forget the password you can re generate the administration account In order to do this you need access to the server machine Shutdown the Silver Catalyst server Then from the command line go to the directory where you installed Silver Catalyst and type catalyst exe createadmin This command will create an administrator account with username admin and password admin Now start the server again and you will be able to log in with the above account Setting project permissions You can also set the project permissions for the account Permissions allow a specific project to be visible or hidden to a particular account Each project is shown with the current permission Change the permission for any of the projects and submit the form to save the new permissions Bl silver stripe Chapter 10 Customizing the Dashboard SILVERCAT
23. ion details is the PDF Report This allows you to download a PDF version of the current iteration status The PDF report is useful for mailing to stakeholders who do not use Silver Catalyst You can also print it out and use it for the daily standup meeting For more information on PDF report see Chapter 13 Plugin Support Customizing the dashboard The dashboard screen can be customized by embedding external web pages such as build status or acceptance test pass rate For more information on how to do this see Chapter 10 Customizing the Dashboard Bl si Iver stripe software Chapter 6 Planning Screen lt Add task to backlog gt Recycle J Clear Recycle Description Priority Assigned To Estimate should Mi Nobody SS gt Add iteration to project Average Velocity O gt Completed iterations lt Backlo g lt Registration Fro m 8 Oct 200 To 14 Oct 70 07 Description Priority Assigned To Remaining A Delete Iteration Desi istration f Should Aarthi 4 i a A TS si ae Description Priority Assigned To Remaining Displ tent front Could Aarthi 6 7 isplay content on front page ou arthi Greate lego Must Vijay 5 P t f istrati Should Vinod 5 n e A SE aaa oe Generate site statistics Could Siddharta 0 Ch font hi h Should Vinod 2 S S AEE ma Register domain name Must Aarthi 0 Total R ining 17 ini otal Remaining Total Remaining 5 lt Misc From 15 Oct 2007 To 21 Oct 2007 x Delete It
24. l have a method to do this so consult your reader s documentation to find out how to do this Once unsubscribed you will no longer get any notifications You can subscribe and unsubscribe any time you want Ml silver stripe Chapter 13 Plugin Support SILVERCATALYST Plugins Silver Catalyst has support for plugins These plugins can be installed to extend the functionality of Silver Catalyst By default Silver Catalyst is installed with the PDF Report plugin which we discuss in further detail below As new plugins are created they will be added to the Extras section of the Silver Stripe website You can access this section at http www silverstripesoftware com extras Installing and removing plugins The steps for installing and removing plugins may be different for different plugins Consult the plugin documentation for instructions Enabling and disabling plugins Once a plugin has been installed it can be enabled and disabled at any time To enable and disable the plugin you need to edit the pluginconf py file in your Silver Catalyst directory To enable a plugin first stop the Silver Catalyst server Then add the plugin name surrounded with quotes and ending with a comma to a line between the square brackets Note that the plugin name is case sensitive and that the quotes and comma are important i SILVERCATALYST Bl silver stripe plugins pdfreport Save th
25. log out Alex then logs in again using the account he just created for himself Setting project permissions Once logged in Alex can no longer see the LoansNow project on his home page This is because by default only the person who created the project has permissions enabled for the project Alex now needs to set the permissions for the accounts created To do this go to the administration page All the accounts will be displayed under the Accounts heading Click on an account to expand the options for it lt geoff Account settings This person is a Set password Delete Permissions Test is Visible dl Save permission settings Bi silver stripe y SILVERCATALYST Expanding and contracting sections Silver Catalyst has a number of sections that can be expanded and contracted to show and hide information These sections are marked with the gt and lt symbols Click on the heading to expand the section and click again to contract it Once expanded Alex can set the permissions for the LoansNow project for that account Alex sets the permission to Visible and saves the permission setting for all the accounts Day 2 Iteration planning Agile projects are highly iterative At the start of every iteration is the iteration planning meeting The iteration planning meeting is a collaborative meeting where the teams and all stakeholders sit together and plan what needs to be
26. o access Catalyst visit http 192 168 1 260 4334 from the client machine Loading plugins pdfreport OK Loading server varning Computing default hostname info Medusa U1 11 gt started at Fri May ii 17 58 23 2007 Hostname AQUA Port 4334 Connecting to the Server Open your browser and go to the URL shown on the console window For the example in the screen above that would be http 192 168 1 20 4334 The URL will probably be different for your installation If all went well you will see the Silver Catalyst login screen Congratulations your Silver Catalyst installation is complete ES ATALYST Username Password Licensed to Silver Stripe Software License for 6 more team members 10 members total Unlimited duration license You are running Catalyst Pre release 1 To give feedback about Catalyst click here Shutting down the Server To shut down the server go to the console wndow and press Control C After a couple of minutes the Silver Catalyst server will shut down and the console window will close You will not be able to use the Silver Catalyst tool when the server is not running Ml silver stripe Chapter 2 Basic Operations i SILVERCATALYST Administrator Login Silver Catalyst has a default administrator login The first time you use Silver Catalyst you will need to login using this account To login enter admin without the quotes fo
27. on Kevin calls in everyone for a conference to discuss the iteration progress The burndown chart shows how much of the work was planned and how much was completed Using this chart the team can discuss reasons for any irregularities during the iteration and how to improve them Calculating the velocity The team also calculates the velocity of the iteration The velocity is the amount of work done in the iteration and is calculated by taking the initial estimate and subtracting the estimate left over at the end Scheduling the next iteration The next time around the team takes tasks based on feedback from this iteration If they managed to finish all tasks they can plan for more tasks next iteration If they couldn t complete everything scheduled for this iteration Barbara moves all the unfinished tasks to the next iteration and the teams plan for fewer tasks next time silver stripe software Chapter 4 The Home Page lt Create a new project Name 16 Welcome admin Administrator E5 admin Panel lt Projects lt Team Members Atlas Website EJ E a Aart Company Marketing EJ E pre Vijay When you first login to Silver Catalyst you will be presented with the home page The home page shows a list of projects and the team members that are using Silver Catalyst Additionally you can create a new project here The home page also shows you the account login you are using and the type o
28. p in mind while deciding on the iteration length Change The start of the iteration is a change point it is the only place where the customer can give feedback and re prioritize features If the customer feels that they need to make changes often you might want shorter iterations Uncertainty The more the uncertainty the shorter you want the iteration to be This is required so that you get quicker feedback Team experience You might want a longer iteration length with a less experienced team Communication Projects with less communication between the stakeholders will benefit from shorter iterations The most common iteration lengths are 2 weeks and 4 weeks The burndown chart The burndown chart is used to gauge the progress of an iteration By looking at the angle of the line you can see whether you are going to finish on time or not It is not uncommon to underestimate tasks and take on too much work for the first few iterations After a couple of iterations you will get a feel for how much work can be accomplished Bl silver stripe i SILVERCATALYST Apart from that these are some burndown shapes to look out for om ia le EN The Flat Burndown This is an indication that the team is either stuck or not updating the tasks daily In either case discuss to see what the problem is The Rising Burndown This is an indication of an underestimation or scope creep Underestimation is fine it
29. r Recycle button in the Recycle area Completed Iterations Completed iterations are shown in a separate section Click on the Completed Iterations heading to expand that section and show previous iterations You can expand any of the previous iterations to see the tasks for that iteration Deleting an Iteration If you create an iteration by mistake and want to get rid of it click the Delete Iteration button next to the iteration name If there are any tasks in the Iteration they will be moved to the recycle area You can either permanently delete the tasks or move them back into the backlog Ml silver stripe Chapter 7 Detail Screen lt Project Members vinod Vija Siddharta Aarthi lt Iteration Burndowns Iteration Zero Registration Misc 12 20 30 5 5 1 Mar 3 Mar 5 Mar 7 Mar B Mar 10 Mar 12 Mar 14 Mar 15 Mar 17 Mar 19 Mar 21 Mar lt Iterations Backlog Description Priority 4ssigned To Remaining Status Notes Marian ramita Peers SE ml Ash A hint DE stm While the dashboard and the planning screen only show you a part of the project the detail screen shows you the entire project There are three main sections to this screen the project members the iteration burndown comparison and the iteration details Project members This list shows you all the team members who are a part of the project This is different from the list on the home page which shows you all the team members f
30. r Code B c0dbc r19d9503bc e24 Ml silver stripe Chapter 3 A Quick Tour SILVERCATALYST This chapter will illustrate the use of Silver Catalyst by following the progress of a team using Silver Catalyst to manage their project This chapter is organized as follows 1 Day 1 Setting up the project 2 Day 2 Iteration planning 3 Day 3 Day to day use 4 Day 4 Wrapping up the iteration First let us get introduced to the team and stakeholders Geoff The customer Susan The business manager Alex The project manager Barbara The technical lead of the onshore team Kevin The technical lead of the offshore team Day 1 Setting up the project Before the team and stakeholders can start using Silver Catalyst the Silver Catalyst administrator needs to setup the project and the login accounts Installation Alex will be the Silver Catalyst administrator for this project He downloads Silver Catalyst and installs it as described in the previous chapter Bi silver stripe W SILVERCATALYST Logging In Silver Catalyst comes with a default administrator user Enter admin without the quotes in both the username and password fields and click the Login button to log in Alex logs in to see the Silver Catalyst home page Creating a new Project The first task for Alex is to create a new project To do this click on the Create a new project link In the form that appears ente
31. r both the username and password fields When you login for the first time it is highly recommended that you change the password for this account and create separate accounts for other team members to use Silver Catalyst See Chapter 9 Administration for details on how to do this Navigation Navigation in Silver Catalyst is done via the icon bar at the top of the screen A P Q y P Home Page Dashboard Planning Detail Logout Help amp Support The current page will be underlined in red If a page is inactive it will be grayed out am P p Current page Inactive page The dashboard planning and detail screens will only be active if you have selected a project from the home page Take note of the help amp support screen This screen contains video tutorials that give an overview of Bl silver stripe SILVERCATALYST Silver Catalyst show you how to do planning and a demonstration of the auto synchronisation feature in Silver Catalyst You will need the Flash plugin to be installed on the browser in order to view the tutorials In addition you can access the support email address upgrade your copy of Silver Catalyst purchase additional licenses and access other support data from this screen Form validation Some forms have constraints that will disable the form until the constraint has been satisfied In most cases the constraint is used to mark required fields In a few cases the constraints may be
32. r the project name and click the Create Project button lt Create a new project Mame Doo Required fields Required fields on forms are highlighted in red when empty The form button will be disabled until all the required fields are filled Alex creates a project called LoansNow Once created a link to the LoansNow project appears on the home page BJ silver stripe Y SILVERCATALYST Creating a login account Next Alex needs to create login accounts for others who need to access the data To do this Alex clicks the Admin Panel link on the home page to go to the administration page Once in the administration page click on Create an account to view the account creation form lt Create an account Username Password Type Po Administrator y Types of login accounts There are three types of login accounts Administrator Participant and Observer An administrator can view and edit a project plus create accounts and set permissions A participant can view and edit any project for which they have permission An observer can only view the project details for the projects that they have permission Based on the roles Alex creates the following login accounts geoff susan Observer alex Administrator barbara kevin Participant Bl silver stripe SILVERCATALYST Logging Out Having created an account for himself Alex clicks the Logout button to
33. rom all projects Clicking on a persons name will take you to the team members screen Bl silver stripe SILVERCATALYST Iteration burndown comparison The iteration burndown comparison shows you the burndown charts for all iterations in the project You can see the starting estimate for the project and the amount of work left over at the end This shows you the iteration velocity which is the amount of work done during the iteration Click on any of the burndown images to view a larger version of the burndown Using the burndown comparison you can compare both the shape and velocity from one iteration to the next Use this to see trends between iterations Are you getting better at doing work Is there a particular burndown shape that is repeating itself For more on the burndown shape check out Chapter 11 A Guide to Agile How do you compare against ideal burndown rate This comparison is also useful when conducting iteration retrospectives Note that the iteration needs to have both the start and end dates to be defined in order to generate the burndown chart Burndown charts are also shown for future iterations that have not been started These iterations will just show the scheduled work and the ideal rate see the third burndown in the screen above Iteration details Below the burndown comparison are details of all the tasks and iterations in the project As usual you can click on any task or iteration to edit it r
34. s This is the fail fast strategy With the fail fast strategy you know right away if there are going to be any problems instead of finding out somewhere at the end of the project Bj silver stripe y SILVERCATALYST Assigning a task to a person is simply a matter of entering the team members name in the field The team member is automatically created when the name is encountered for the first time How should you assign tasks Should the project manager assign tasks to the team members or should the team members choose the tasks that they want to work on That is up to you but no matter which you choose it is a good idea to ensure that the teams and project managers have discussed it before hand One interesting solution is to keep all tasks assigned to Nobody Then ask everyone to pick one task As each team member completes a task they can pick one more from the list of unassigned tasks Therefore at any point in time each team member is only assigned a single task This allows the team to automatically balance the load between the team members To estimate a task enter the estimate into the estimate field Silver Catalyst does not specify the units for the estimate That means it is up to the team to decide on the units and interpret the estimate accordingly Some teams estimate in hours some estimate in days Other teams use other units for estimates Estimating using story point units On
35. sk to If the person exists the task is assigned to them If you enter a name for the first time a person with that name is automatically created and the task assigned to that person Estimating a task Once assigned team members estimate the tasks Like assigning Kevin clicks on a task to edit it and enters the estimate in the estimate field Once that is done he clicks the Save button to save the edited task Bi silver stripe p SILVERCATALYST Estimate in which unit Silver Catalyst does not specify the units for any of the estimates which means it is up to the team to decide on a unit Some teams specify estimates in hours some in days and some in ideal points or story points As long as the team knows how they are estimating they can interpret the estimates accordingly For more on estimating by ideal points see Chapter 11 A Guide to Agile Once all the tasks are assigned and estimated the planning is complete Congratulations It s now time to start doing the work Day 3 Day to day use How does Silver Catalyst help you in day to day work This section explains Updating task estimates As work is done the task estimates need to be updated with the duration remaining This is done by going to the dashboard clicking the task changing the estimate field and saving the task You can also change the task status this way CO i silver stripe Y SILVER
36. t Started 14 Mar Motes The dashboard shows you all the information about the current iteration in the project There are two main display sections the burndown chart and details of the iteration Although not a complicated screen it is a key screen that can tell you everything you want to know about the current iteration The burndown chart The burndown chart is the heartbeat of the iteration It shows you how much work is remaining on each day of the iteration By extrapolating the amount of work remaining you can make a rough estimate as to when you will complete or how much work will be left over at the end of the iteration The shape of the burndown chart can also be used to bring impediments to light For more on interpreting burndown charts see Chapter 11 A Guide to Agile Bl silver stripe SILVERCATALYST Iteration details Below the burndown chart are the iteration details This section show the iteration name and duration followed by a list of tasks in the iteration To edit the iteration or task details just click on the task The task will be replaced by a form where you can change any of the details Click Save to save the edited details or click Cancel to cancel your changes This is really useful when you want to update the estimate continuously as you finish work or you want to reassign a task to another team member during the daily stand up meeting PDF report Below the iterat
37. t has four priority levels Must Should Could and Wont This type of prioritization is known as MoSCoW prioritization Features that absolutely have to be done are categorized as Must If any of these features are not done the project will be considered a failure Features that are important to the success of the project but are not absolute musts they have a workaround or are not so important are categorized as Should Features that are nice to have but not particularly important are categorized as Could Features that are not going to be implemented this time are marked as Wont Why have these features in the backlog at all There are two reasons One is that feature priorities can change as the project goes on These features could have started as Should and been re prioritized to Wont and they may be re prioritized back again The second is that these features are a starting point to the second version One mistake often made is to prioritize all tasks as Must Instead try to minimize the number of tasks set to Must Let the team take the time to discuss priorities with the customer This is important because all agile processes depend upon doing the highest priority tasks first Setting the priority Selecting the priority of a task can be based on a number of factors One factor is the amount of value the task has to the customer You might also want to set the high risk tasks to Must or the tasks with the most unknown
38. tus that can be used to mark done Done and Pass It is usually better to have a set of acceptance tests for each task That way it is easy to see when a task is done when the tests pass If you are doing something like this use the Pass state to indicate that the task is done Some teams do not yet have a comprehensive set of acceptance tests In such a case you can use the Done state when the coding is done or the unit tests pass to indicate that the task is done Whatever you choose ensure that the whole team is clear on what done means Then use that definition to decide when the task is done The notes area is a free form area that you can use to store any data that you want Some possibilities For bugs you may want to store the bug number or URL so that you can reference the bug in the bug database If you have some external documents you might want to put in a reference to those documents You can use it to mark tasks for example annotating the customer valued feature tasks with feature in the notes field Or use your own annotation Or you can just leave it blank g silver stripe 4 SILVERCATALYST What is the use of annotating tasks Its for your own convenience at the moment We may use annotations in the future but the current version of Silver Catalyst doesn t do anything with the annotation One more reason you might want to use annotations is to mark tasks which can then be manip
39. ulated using external scripts For example you may want to mark bugs using the bug id annotation You can then write a script to change the status of the task when the bug is fixed Iterations In Silver Catalyst you can give a name to your Iterations Normally you would just call the iterations 99 cc Iteration 1 Iteration 2 etc However this is a good place to think about iteration goals If you decide to have an iteration goal it is a good idea to put the goal as the name of the iteration Sprint goals Iterations sometimes called Sprints can have a sprint goal This is the overall goal or theme of the sprint For example a sprint goal might be complete payment processing While planning you would then schedule tasks related to completing the sprint goal A sprint goal is useful because it provides focus to the sprint Rather than having the sprint consist of a series of unrelated tasks a sprint goal makes you choose related tasks This in turn increases the feeling that you have accomplished something at the end of the iteration Next you will want to put in the start and end dates for the iteration This is the time to make another decision the length of the iteration Bl silver stripe SILVERCATALYST Iteration lengths How long should your iteration be 4 weeks 2 weeks 3 days As with most other things it depends There are a number of factors to kee
40. ure from the backlog and drops it on the iteration lt Registration From 8 Oct 200 To 14 Oct 2007 x Delete Iteration Description Priority Assigned To Remaining Create logo Must Wipay 5 Register domain name Must Aarthi o Generate site statistics Could Siddharta T Total Remaining 5 Sometimes they decide to move features back from the iteration to the backlog During the discussion the team adds a couple of features that they decide to remove They do this by dragging and dropping them over the Recycle area Clearing the recycle Once the planning is complete Barbara permanently deletes the tasks that are in the Recycle area by clicking the Clear Recycle button next to the heading gt Recycle F Clear Recycle Bi silver stripe p SILVERCATALYST Assigning a task Geoff and Susan log off from Silver Catalyst Alex and the two teams have to decide who will do each task and how long it will take They move over to the dashboard screen by clicking the Dashboard button The dashboard screen shows the tasks for the current iteration By clicking on a task any team member can edit the task In this case Barbara clicks on a task and puts in her name in the assigned field and saves it Likewise the other team members assign the tasks mus Jia TE Creating team members You don t need to create team members in Silver Catalyst Just enter the name of the person whom you want to assign the ta
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