Now Released: Modern Requirements4DevOps 2020

Now Released: Modern Requirements4DevOps 2020

Details of Modern Requirements4DevOps 2020's Core Enhancements!

User friendly, short cycle times, ability to author requirements online, compliance reporting, and reduced development rework. These are just a few of the phrases that have been used by our customers to describe the aptitude of several modules within the Modern Requirements4DevOps application. New features and enhancements have been made to the modules with our 2020 release.

Here we will share a few highlights made to a few of our modules within Modern Requirements and some tool enhancements for your convenience. Modules that we will be outlining are:

  1. Rights Management
  2. Review Enhancements
  3. Smart Docs Enhancements
  4. Smart Reports Enhancements
  5. Baseline Enhancements
  6. MatCal (New!)

 

1. Rights Management: You asked, and we listened. You can now manage User Access. A user (must have collection/project Admin) rights can now manage user access to both modules of Modern Requirements4DevOps, and the features within each module. Setting these permissions is as easy as one-two-three… steps to set permissions:

  • Access your project
  • Go to Project Settings
  • Scroll down to Extension > click on Modern Requirements4DevOps

This is what you will see:

From this screen, you will be able to set the *Group and/or *Team permissions (located on the left panel). There are two ways to set permissions, you can either do it in the “*Common Settings” or within “*Modern Requirements4DevOps Modules” individually (located on the right panel of the permissions tab). Here you can set permissions for the features of each modules.

The permission options available are:

  1. Create/Edit Folder
  2. Delete Folder
  3. Create/Update Artifact
  4. Delete Artifact
  5. Create/Update Meta Template
  6. Save as Template
  7. Smart Reporting
  8. Report Designer

Currently, Rights Management is supported for three modules: Smart Docs, Baseline and Reporting.

Rights Management Video

For further details on what’s new in Rights Management and its functionality please refer to the video.

 

2. Review Enhancements: The Review module allows you to communicate, review, and approve within the project environment and facilitate change when necessary. Enhancements have been made to Review module. Here is a list of a few of the new features:

  • Read-only rights to non-participants of review
  • Auto Bulk generation of review Audit Reports
  • Audit Reports Format- Word/PDF

Read-only rights to non-participants of review: With this enhancement you now have the ability to configure rights for non-participants where they can view review details in read-only mode.

Non-participants users: Users that are neither the approver nor the reviewer.

Auto Bulk generation of review Audit Reports: This enhancement will allow you to generate Audit Reports of all reviews in a project at once in bulk or project wise from admin panel.

You can select project(s) and provide details here to generate the audit reports of their existing reviews automatically

Audit Reports Format – Word/PDF: System now gives you the ability to select format in which you want to generate the audit reports in. You can select either word or PDF version.

The purpose of Approval Audit report is to provide details of all the work items in a Review. It provides complete status regarding who has approved or rejected the review work items along with the comments and decisions

How to configure settings:
  • Go to Admin/Collections Setting
  • Scroll down to Extensions
  • Choose Modern Requirements4DevOps2020
  • Go to Review tab (look for the option you want to make the changes to)
Note: For a detailed list of enhancements and new features please refer to “Modern Requirements4DevOps 2020 Release Notes” under Review Management (page 10).

Review Management Video

For further details on what’s new in Review Management and its functionality please refer to the video.

 

3. Smart Docs Enhancements: Smart Docs is a tool that bridges the gap between document and information management by authoring requirements in a document view online. New features have been added to Smart Docs, some of the highlights are as follows:

  • Full Screen Support
  • Right Panel UI Update
  • Inherit Parent Properties Update

Full Screen Support: In order to have a better user experience and larger display you can now view Smart Docs in full screen mode.  Which means a better view when building your online requirement documents.

Right Panel UI Update:

  • For your convenience a cross icon has been added to the right panel UI. Which means you can now close the right panel directly through the panel itself.
  • If this was not enough, we have also added expand/collapse capability to the “*find” query area for a better user experience.
  • Also, in order to provide more space to show more work items, “Add child/sibling” and “Select all/ unselect all” buttons have been removed. Remember, you can still drag and drop your work items into the document section.

Inherit Parent Properties Update: This is an update with which by default, the check box to inherit parent work item properties in child work item will be shown ‘un-checked’. 

Note: If no properties are selected from the drop-down option, then no properties will be inherited in the child work item.

Smart Docs Video

For further details on what’s new in Smart Docs and its functionality please refer to the video.

 

4. Smart Reports Enhancements: Smart Report enables users to format their reports according to the work items structure. It is accessible from many of the ADO and Modern Requirements4DevOps modules. Here is a list of some of the tool enhancements made to Smart Report module:

  • Upload macro-enabled Word template
  • Retain selection of last uploaded Word template
  • Retain selection of last Smart Part

Upload macro-enabled Word template: Smart Report now allows you to upload and execute Macro-Enabled Word document (.docm) as well as Macro-Enabled Word Template (.dotm) files in Smart Report through “Upload word template”. It will make your user-friendly option of uploading word templates even more of a breeze.

Retain selection of last uploaded Word template: Guess what… Smart rReport has now become smarter, it will now retain the last selection that you made while uploading your word template. 

Retain selection of last Smart Part: Well we did not stop at remembering the last selection for the word template… Enhancements have been made where the system will now also retain the selection of your last Smart Report Part as well. Well, it is winning all the way for report creators.

Smart Report Video

For further details on what’s new in Smart Reports and its functionality please refer to the video.

 

5. Baseline Enhancements: Baseline allows you to take a snapshot of your requirements at a point in time to allow better control and track changes. Here is how it will make your work experience even better:

  • Retain work item selection on tab switching
  • Comparison ID on Baseline comparison

Retain work item selection on tab switching: System will now remember the last work item selection when navigating between different tabs within baseline. What does that mean?  Well, while working with a baseline (specially with a large one), navigate to Compare or Detail tab and back to View tab if you have forgotten which work item you were working with…  Worry no more, because the system will remember it for you.

Comparison ID on Baseline comparison: Enhancements have been made so you can now view work item revisions only where work items exist within both baselines being compared. For example: if a work item doesn’t exist in one of the baselines, no revision ID will be displayed, instead “-” will be displayed in Rev.ID or Comp.Rev.ID column. This rule will also be applied in the difference report.

Baseline Video

For further details on what’s new in Baseline and its functionality please refer to the video.

 

6. MatCal (New): A new feature has been introduced to Modern Requirements to perform mathematical and logical expressions. Sounds exciting? Well, we are excited about it. Here’s why:

  • It will allow you to have work items field(s) automatically calculated based on input of other field(s) of the same work item(s)
  • It can be applied to any work item fields, including numerical, Boolean, and textual types of work item fields

What you need to do: Provide your formulas to a Modern Requirements Customer Success team member and we will be happy to configure it on your behalf.

MatCal Video

For further details on MatCal and its functionality please refer to the video.

 

 

 

 

 
For a detailed list of all enhancements and features please made in 2020 release, please refer to Modern Requirements4DevOps 2020 Release Notes.

We are excited to announce that Modern Requirements4DevOps 2020 is now available for download!

Collaborating through Review Management

Webinar - Collaborating through Requirements Management

Teams using Modern Requirements4DevOps can turn requirements into documents and have those documents immediately reviewed by any internal or external member of your team. Our solution provides the immediate feedback of an in-person review and fosters rich collaboration, including e-signatures, which is needed for compliance by standards bodies such as the FDA.

Working Smarter with Smart Docs
 

Webinar - Working Smarter with Smart Docs

Designed to bridge the gap between document and work item management, Smart Docs empowers users with documentation capabilities within Azure DevOps. This means your documents now live within your team’s project, and your team can finally benefit from a complete and central source of truth.

Modern Requirements4DevOps 2019 Update 2 Release Notes

MODERN REQUIREMENTS4DEVOPS - Update 2

October 21 -2019

In this update we have added many new features and enhancements.

We’re talking Smart Docs, Smart Note, Alice (BA Assistant), FAQ, Diagram, Mock-up, Use Case, Review management, Trace Analysis, Baseline, Reporting, Smart Reporting and Impact Analysis all receiving something with our biggest YTD update. One have tackled the speed and overall performance of our Review module by redesign our entire implementation. It looks the same, but it is both better, more capable, and faster.

We have our first implementation of a new and long sought after feature: MR Artifact. The MR Artifact system allows users to see exactly which Modern Requirements Artifact your requirement is in. You can now open a work item, click MR Artifacts from the context menu and see if it is in a Smart Doc, Review, or Baseline.

With many new features, updates, and enhancements, Modern Requirements4DevOps 2019 Update 2 is something to get excited about.
Read on to find out more.

Features

General

MR Artifact feature added to the Context menu: Users can now view a list of all the Modern Requirements artifacts a given work item is a part of. Currently the MR Artifact window will reflect if a work item is in the following artifacts:
  1. Smart Doc
  2. Review
  3. Baseline
Users can access this new feature in the context menu of any work item.

Smart Doc

  1. Inherit parent work item properties in child work item: When a work item is added under a parent node, it can now inherit the values of configured field(s) from its parent work item. Users can configure these settings from Meta Template Designer window at individual work item level.
  2. Read-only fields in Smart Editor: The system will no longer allow users to edit the content of fields which are defined as read-only in the process template.
  3. Enable ‘open work item’ option for stakeholders: Users, logged-in as stakeholder in the MR application, can now update a work item by using the option to “Open in standard editor” from the toolbar. This option can be accessible from both ‘Document’ and ‘Compare’ Tabs of Smart Docs.

Review Management

  1. Enable ‘Submit Comment’ option for review initiator: A Review initiator can now offer feedback on any work item by providing a comment using the ‘Submit comment’ option.
  2. Two New Types of Audit Reports: We have added the following two audit report types:
    1. Approval Audit Report: This report includes the complete details with regards to the approval actions taken on each work item in a review i.e. a work item is approved/rejected by whom along with the response comment, review action, comment on a comment and any added linked work items.
    2. Review Results Report: This report includes the complete details with regards to the review actions taken on each work item in a review i.e. a work item is reviewed by whom along with the response comment, review action, comment on a comment and added linked work items.

Baseline

  1. Changes to Link Types will now mark a work item as “Changed”: Users can now configure the Baseline tool to mark a work item as “Changed” if the work item’s ‘Link Type’ has changed. Users can configure this feature by selecting the desired link types they want to trigger as a “Change” by using the baseline tab of admin panel.
  2. Configurable Difference Reports: Users can now configure which work item changes are reflected in the ‘Difference Report’ that can be generated when comparing Baselines. Users can configure this by selecting the desired fields from “Work item display fields for Comparison” section in general tab of admin panel.
  3. Configure Difference Reports to show changes to work item link types: Users can configure the Difference Report to include the changes to work item link types. Users can select link type changes that should be considered in the report from the “Consider work item links for compare baseline” section in baseline tab of admin panel.
  4. Copy Area/Iteration path of source project to target project: On copy/reuse baseline, the system will automatically get the area/iteration path of the source project and set it to copied work item(s) if identical values exist in the target project.

Enhancements

General

Improve Compare pop up functionality: By default, ‘Last Approved’ and ‘Last Reviewed’ revision numbers of a work item will be shown respectively on top of the list in compare drop down. The other remaining revision(s) of a work item will be shown in descending order (i.e. from latest to oldest).
Additionally, when opening the ‘Compare’ popup, the default comparison between revisions of work items will be shown between the selected revision and ‘Last Approved’ revision. If there is no ‘Last Approved’ revision, the ‘Last Reviewed’ revision will be compared with selected revision. And if there is no ‘Last Reviewed’ revision, the comparison will be shown between previous revision and selected revision.

Bug Fixes

  1. Fixed an issue where invalid navigation was occurring when creating a baseline/review from the Backlog view on Teams.

Smart Doc

  1. Access ‘Document Templates’ from Meta Template Designer window: User can now interact with their Document Templates from the Meta Template Designer window. This means a user can customize a Document Templates in the following ways:
    • change the work item hierarchy of a Document Template
    • change the name of a Document Template
    • delete Document Templates
    • or branch a Document Template to create a new, unique version where you can apply your changes
    After altering an existing Document Template, users can apply their changes to Smart Docs using this template through the ‘Update all Templates’ feature found in the file explorer toolbar.
  2. Improved text/image wrapping in Smart Docs: All data included in a Smart Doc will now be wrapped to the next line properly. This enhancement is being implemented to make reading Smart Docs easier. This enhancement applies to a Smart Docs’ title, HTML fields, as well as to large images and tables.

Bug Fixes

  1. Fixed an issue where changes made to a Test Case’s ‘Steps’ field from Smart Editor was removing all steps from that work item. The ‘Steps’ field tab will no longer be shown in the Smart Editor.
  2. Fixed an issue where users were unable to select their desired font-size in Smart Editor.
  3. Fixed an issue where an error message “Error in generating the report due to some reason” was showing on exporting a cloned document which contains duplicate work items into MS Word/PDF format.
  4. Fixed an issue where clone of a specific Smart Doc version was not creating if the document contains duplicate ‘Diagram’ work item.
  5. Fixed an issue where file & images with following extensions ‘.bin, .msg, .svg’ wer enot uploading in Smart Editor through “Upload file/insert image” option.
  6. Fixed an issue with the ‘Compare’ tab of Smart Docs where field(s) of new work items were not displaying with the color Red in rare cases.
  7. Fixed an issue where on comparing the current version of Smart Doc with any previous version, the title of deleted work item(s) from the current version is showing in ‘Red’ fond as strikethrough to prominent the difference whereas other fields were not showing in same manner. This issue was occurring only in particular process template.
  8. Fixed an issue in ‘Compare’ tab where the ‘+’ icon was incorrectly being shown after performing an ‘Update All Templates’ operation.
  9. Fixed an issue in version management where a new version’s created time was being shown incorrectly.
  10. Fixed an issue where extra spacing was showing in between numbered list/bullets and text in the generated Word document after exporting with the ‘Save as Word’ feature.
  11. Fixed an issue where numbered list/bullets were not showing indented in the generated Word document after exporting with the ‘Save as Word’ feature.
  12. Fixed an issue where image was not pasting on Smart Editor if image was copied along with caption from MS Word.
  13. Fixed an issue where “Clone Smart Docs” popup invoked from a specific Smart Doc version was showing the incorrect value in the ‘Type of clone’ drop down.
  14. Fixed an issue where a user would have to logout and login to see work items types/fields when using a customized process template.
  15. Fixed an issue in Word Import where data was not mapping to the correct work item fields as defined in the ruleset. This issue originally occurred when the same heading was used for two different properties of the same work item e.g. Description & Acceptance Criteria.

Review Management

  1. Maintain review meta-data in MongoDB: The Modern Requirements system will now maintain the complete details of a review in MongoDB instead of storing in HTML field of a ‘Feedback Request’ work item.When initiating a review, the system will no longer create the linking between Feedback Requests and the work items in a review. The system will no longer create a Feedback Response work item when a user provides a review response (approval/submit review).
  2. Create review on large data set: Reviews can now be created using a maximum of 10,000 work items.
  3. Approve/reject All on large data: This enhancement is meant to increase the user experience when performing ‘approve all/reject all’ operation on large data sets. The system will identify if the operation will take more than one minute, and in this case will notify the user that this action will complete in the background. This releases the user’s UI and allows them to proceed without waiting for the approve all/reject all operation to complete.If a system needs to perform this operation in the background, the following message will be given: “History is being updated on approval work items. A notification email will be sent to the respective stakeholder on successful completion”.
  4. Renamed “Review Audit Report”: Existing ‘Review Audit Report’ is retitled as ‘Legacy Audit Report’.
  5. Closed Review: Once the review has been closed, review stakeholders will not be able to add comments or link work items to existing response comments.
  6. “Comments” panel of Details tab: When a user provides a comment in ‘Comments’ section of the ‘Details’ tab, it will be added to the Feedback Request work item along with the domain and username of a stakeholder.
  7. “Review Completed” feature: When a review participant completes a review, a comment will be added to the Feedback Request work item along with the domain and username of the participant.
  8. Adding a linked work item on the given response: Using the ‘Link work item’ feature to link a work item to an approval/rejection will now link that work item directly to the work item you are currently reviewing.
  9. UI updates in ‘Review Request’ popup:
    1. On initiating a review from Smart Docs, ‘Work item section’ will not be shown.
    2. On previewing a review, list of selected work items will not be shown.
    3. In review email body, list of selected work items will not be shown.

Bug Fixes

  1. Fixed an issue where alignment was disturbing of ‘Details’ tab when a review contains text of more than “1000” character in a purpose field.
  2. Fixed an issue where ‘Approve All’ was not working properly and completely got hanged in case of multi-user scenario.

Smart Report

  1. Generate Smart report on large data set: Users can now generate smart report on 10,000 work items. If the generation process cannot be completed instantly, a background process will be initiated. While the report is being generated in the background, users can continue with other tasks on the platform. Users can select the option to be notified by an email on the report completion. This email will contain a URL link either to ‘Save as Word’ output of the report or to ‘Save as PDF’.
  2. Apply Word template styling on generated Word document from Smart Report: On exporting to MS Word from Smart Report, users now have the choice to either keep formatting and styling of selected CSS file or use the styling from their uploaded Word template.When applying the formatting from an uploaded Word template, users must use “Inherit Word Styling” CSS from the ‘Style Sheet’ drop down. By using this CSS option, the selected Word template will apply styling for Heading, Font size (Bold & Underline), Font color, Indentation, and Alignment.

Bug Fixes

  1. Fixed an issue in Smart Report designer, where “Save” button was showing as disabled when there was a hyphen(-) character included in a label.
  2. Fixed an issue where text that should appear after an image was showing above the image when generating a report with Smart Report.
  3. [UI Fix] The check box and label options in the ‘Multiline’ config pop up are now space properly.
  4. Fixed an issue where reports that were renamed or deleted in the ‘Designer’ tab were not displaying correctly in the ‘Report’ drop down.
  5. Fixed an issue where Test Case steps were not showing correctly when selected in the ‘Group By’ dropdown in the ‘Designer’ tab.
  6. Fixed an issue where the ‘+’ symbol was not displaying in the report part name on opening the file again.
  7. [UI Fix] Fixed an issue where label of smart report tabs “Report” and “Designer” were not center aligned.
  8. Fixed an issue where table were not displaying correctly after being saved as Word/PDF document when using “Form as table” option.
  9. Fixed an issue where extra spacing was showing in between numbered list/bullets and text in a generated Word document when using the ‘Save as Word’ option from Smart Report.
  10. Fixed an issue where numbered list/bullets were not showing indented in the generated Word document when using the ‘Save as Word’ option from Smart Report.

Baseline

  1. Performance Optimization:
    1. Large data support on Create Baseline: Users can now perform ‘Create baseline’ operation on 100,000 work items.
    2. Large data support on Copy Baseline: Users can now perform ‘Copy work items’ operations on 5,000 work items on Azure DevOps Server and 2,000 work items in Azure DevOps Service.
    3. Large data support on Difference report: Users can now generate ‘Difference Report’ on 10,000 work items on Azure DevOps Server and 3,000 work items in Azure DevOps Service.
    4. Large data support on Rollback work items: Users can now perform ‘Rollback work item’ operation on 10,000 work items.

Bug Fixes

  1. Fixed an issue where CPU utilization was maxing out to 100% on performing Copy/Reuse operation on bulk data i.e. more than 1000 work items.
  2. Fixed an issue where an error message “Rollback work item(s) failed” was showing during performing the rollback on baseline when there is a work item in that baseline not yet saved on Azure DevOps Server.
  3. Fixed an issue where the scroll bar was disappearing and continuously loading while comparing two baselines with large data sets.
  4. Fixed an issue where an error message “Rollback work items failed” was showing while performing the rollback on baseline. This issue occurred after deleting a work item from Azure DevOps Server while it still existed in a baseline.
  5. Fixed an issue where the error message “An error occurred while sending the request undefined” occurred when performing the ‘Copy/Reuse’ on a Baseline having bulk data.
  6. Fixed an issue where an error message “Some error occurred in creating baseline”occurred when creating a baseline using the TFS query in which iteration path is set to “@currentiteration” keyword.
  7. Fixed an issue where the incorrect time appeared under “Rev. Date” column during baseline creation when work item selected using “As of” feature.

Admin Panel

  1. Synchronize MR data to Azure DevOps Server/Services Source Control: In the case of Single-Sign on build deployments, Modern Requirements data will be synching to source control of Azure DevOps server/services automatically, if admin/collection level credentials are provided in ‘General’ tab of admin panel. If credentials are not provided in admin panel, then a notification message will be displaying on user’s screen to notify them. The Modern Requirements data will be synching with both GIT & TFVC projects.

Diagram

Bug Fixes

  1. Fixed an issue where the asterisk sign was showing beside the name of diagram file which is already in checked-in mode.
  2. Fixed an issue where the diagram file was not showing upunder Diagram module tab when it was created from Smart Docs using the special characters in title.

Reporting

Bug Fixes

  1. Fixed an issue where “steps” field of a test case work item was not retrieving from TFS and showing as blank in a generated Report. If a Test Case’s Steps cannot be retrieved for any reason when generating a report, a notification message will be shown instead of the Test Case Steps under that Test Case work item.

Use Case

Bug Fixes

  1. Fixed an issue where Continuous loading appears on applying same smart tag twice on the details/steps tab.

Alice (BA ASSISTANT)

Bug Fixes

  1. Fixed an issue where question mark was appearing for the text written in any language other than English in the exported MS Word document.

Impact Analyzer

Bug Fixes

  1. Fixed an issue where user was unable to edit the work item in impact analyzer window.

Appendix A: Hardware Requirements for Redis

According to Modern Requirements4DevOps, approx. memory usage per user is 477.8495 KB (0.4666 MB). Maximum hard drive space required is 1.5 * (memory size). For instance, in case of an 8 GB RAM, the maximum hard drive space occupied by Redis would be 12 GB.