New Dashboard: Project Activities

We added a new dashboard with our latest release of Lighthouse. The dashboards, 'Project Activities', are now available at both the Account and Project Level.

The 'Project Activities Dashboards' identify objects (like Requirements, Test Cases, Defects, Issues, or Change Requests), who changed them, and when they were changed. As a Product Manager, I find it very useful to log into our account and see which requirements, defects, issues and change requests are being changed.

Here is a snapshot of the activity from early this morning (like 6 AM EST). It shows that one requirement changed today, 96 'objects' changed yesterday, 376 changed between 2 and 7 days ago, etc. As I expand each one, I can get the details on what exactly changed, as well as links to the actual objects.



If you signed up for your Lighthouse Account this week, then the dashboards are automatically added to your view.

If you signed up for your Lighthouse Account before this Monday, then you have to enable your dashboard. It's simple:

1. Select Preferences > Dashboards
2. Select your dashboard
3. Select Edit Dashboard
4. Select the Recent Activities dashboard

Of course, if you don't have a Lighthouse Account (which is completely crazy), then you can sign up for your free one here!

Artifact Unveils “One-Click Traceability,” a Virtual Appliance, and Three New Lighthouse Editions

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Artifact Software Inc. Newsletter

Here Comes La Jolla!
November 2007
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In this issue...

Lighthouse Upgrade Details

New Features & Improvements

Recently Added & Coming Soon

We're pleased to announce that our next Lighthouse version, La Jolla, will deploy this coming Sunday at 9 PM EST. Read below for more upgrade details and feature news.

Lighthouse Upgrade Details ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lighthouse will be unavailable on Sunday, November 11 from 9 PM EST to 11 PM EST. You will not be able to log in to Lighthouse during the upgrade, so please plan accordingly. We apologize for any inconvenience the upgrade might cause. Please check our forum for additional service updates.

New Features and Improvements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The La Jolla release takes traceability to an entirely new level with our OneClick conversion. Managing your project activities is easier than ever with our new Project Activity dashboards. Read below for details on these and other new features in our La Jolla release. OneClick Conversion Lighthouse makes traceability simple with OneClick. Take all of your ... Requirements and automatically create Test Cases Change Requests and automatically create Requirements Change Requests and automatically create Defects Defects and automatically create Change Requests Defects and automatically create Test Cases Issues and automatically create Defects Issues and automatically create Change Requests Test Cases and automatically create Requirements Read more about this here. Project Activity Dashboards La Jolla includes two new dashboards that make project management easier than ever. These real-time dashboards highlight all changed project activities over your choice of time frames. Instantly get a snapshot view of all changes to requirements, defects, test cases and more, all in real-time. You can now quickly and easily see everything that's changed in your project during the given time period. No more searching through emails, IM sessions or multiple tools. Lighthouse Project Activity Dashboards provide the key data you need so you can focus on leading your project. Requirement Filters With our new filters, you can quickly view requirements based on any criteria. Interested in finding requirements that have defects? Easy. Want to know which requirements are missing tests? No problem. You can filter requirements by status, resource, release, test status, or any custom field you added. Super User Finally! Add a user once, use everywhere. Create a new user, provide that user with Administrator Rights, and that user is automatically added to every project in your account. The Super User role makes it easy to provide total access to your key project managers and executives without having to manually add them to each project, one-at-a-time. Custom Reports Our Custom Reports module is going through a number of feature enhancements, making it easier than ever to create reports on any data within Lighthouse. With La Jolla, we've added a number of new, reportable fields, including 'Modified Date', 'Test Type', 'Requirements Type', and 'Timesheet Notes'. Stay tuned for even more enhancements in upcoming releases. If you need assistance with Custom Reports, email support@artifactsoftware.com to schedule a personalized Custom Report session and see for yourself what you can accomplish.

Recently Added & Coming Soon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In case you haven't logged into Lighthouse recently, here are some of the recent upgrades as well as a list of upcoming features. Let us know if you want more details! Cozumel (released summer 2007) Custom Fields: This feature lets you fully customize existing Lighthouse data elements or add your own fields. This means you can easily adapt your terminology and methodology to Lighthouse. Specifically: Change the name of any data field labels Add new data values to any of the existing fields Create new fields Modify the layout Baltimore (late November 2007) Lighthouse Virtual Appliance: For those companies wanting to run Lighthouse inside their corporate network, the Lighthouse VA will be released later this month. My Activities Dashboard: Each user get's a personalized dashboard, giving them a simple view into all items (requirements, defects, test cases, ...) assigned to him/her. Vegas (late December 2007) Custom Reports Enhancements: Custom Reports is being overhauled to include many of the enhancements you've requested. Stay tuned for more information regarding this release. Improved Dashboards: Significant improvements are being made to dashboard performance. Rome (scheduled for early 2008) Integrated Project Planning: Project Planning is being overhauled as well to include everything you need to create, manage and maintain your Project Plans directly within Lighthouse, meaning you never have to use Microsoft Project again. Of course, we'll support MS Project if you want to continue using it!

New Features at EclipseWorld

Tomorrow we are exhibiting at EclipseWorld in Reston, VA, where we will be showcasing many features in our upcoming release. Stop by and learn how you can easily (and automatically) create test cases from requirements, convert issues to defects, and so much more.

Our next release, named La Jolla, is something we are most excited about and our beta sites have had fantastic things to say about it. Many of the enhancements come directly from our community, and we are always looking for more feedback. Share your thoughts in our blog or forum.

We'll also be talking about our partner products from Codign Software. They have some Eclipse plugins that generate JUnit tests, determine coverage and measure how testable your code is. Interesting stuff!

Community Interview: HRWorX, LLC

The following post talks about who some of our customers are and why they chose Lighthouse. Feel free to contact us if you would like an interview as well!

Client: HRWorX, LLC

[Artifact] What does your company do and what's your role?

[Rob Hankey] HRWorX develops software that collects data (usually forms driven), for both the public and private sectors. I am one of the owners of the company and handle the company operations.

[Artifact] What issues were you trying to solve when you found Lighthouse?

[Rob Hankey] HRWorX was looking for a way to develop and track requirements and associate them with a project plan and the resulting tasks. The fact that we can track client issues and development defects is a plus.

[Artifact] Why did you choose Lighthouse and how is it most helpful for you?

[Rob Hankey] We chose Lighthouse because it combines all the features of a project from the beginning to end and allows me to keep all our data in one location.

To learn more about HRWorX, please visit their website at http://www.hrworx.com

Artifact Releases a New Version of Lighthouse Premium

We released an upgrade to Lighthouse called La Jolla that lets you completely customize Lighthouse to suit your methodologies and needs. You can now add fields, change existing fields, provide branding, create custom reports, and much more.

This feature upgrade is part of Lighthouse Premium, which is offered as a subscription service. A free thirty (30) day trial is available so that users can evaluate the new features before committing to the subscription service. Lighthouse Premium also includes a Service Level Agreement (SLA), Premium Customer Service, Custom Reporting, Branding, Notifications and Roles, and much more. You can read the full press release here.

For example, now when a user reports a bug against Lighthouse (yes, we have a couple), we can now add customer data directly into the bug report. Take a look at the screenshot for an example - imagine what you could do with your Lighthouse Account!

Community Interview: Dassian

The following post talks about who some of our customers are and why they chose Lighthouse. Feel free to contact us if you would like an interview as well!

Client: Dassian

[Artifact] What does your company do and what's your role?

[Keith Lee] Dassian builds add-on components (software) for SAP (the largest ERP software company in the world). We concentrate in the project accounting area and cater mostly to Aerospace, Defense, Engineering and Construction companies.

[Artifact] What issues were you trying to solve when you found Lighthouse?

[Keith Lee] Dassian was looking for a tool to cover two main purposes:

1. To allow us to communicate with each other as we are going through a development cycle with a new product (or upgrades to an existing product). Our staff is international and 100% virtual.
2. To allow customer interaction with our staff for issues, bugs, enhancement requests and questions. We also wanted to integrate our user and technical guides when we resolved customer queries.
   

[Artifact] Why did you choose Lighthouse and how is it most helpful for you?

[Keith Lee] We chose Lighthouse for the following reasons:

• Lighthouse provides a framework to interact with our customers that is 100% web-based and not dependent on software installation.
• Lighthouse provides an easy-to-use tool to communicate internally as we are developing and resolving issues.
• Lighthouse took NO TIME to get started. We were productive within a few hours and within a few days had created a Dassian-specific user guide that we were able to provide to our customers.
• Lighthouse has a low cost of ownership.
• Lighthouse allows us to grow into using more functionality for our software development cycles.
  

To learn more about Dassian, please visit their website at www.dassian.com

Artifact Software Featured in Eweek.com

Today, Darryl Taft at eWeek published an article on three bay area (Chesapeake Bay that is) companies - Artifact, Avicode and Codign. Artifact Software is featured and the article provides a good bit of information on what we have to offer.

We are also in the process of releasing a major upgrade scheduled for this weekend. The feature emphasis will be on extending our customization capabilities to let our users change and add new fields for defects, requirements, tests, change requests, issues and much more. But, more on that in the coming days.