Barracuda – Plutora Production Release Notes January 2015

Features Included in Barracuda

Regional Release Schedule

Region Schedule
US 6th February 2015
AU 2nd February 2015
UK 6th February 2015

 

Major Functionality Enhancements

Permissions to View Modules

  • New permissions have been added to restrict the access to the following places:
    • Release Manager
    • Environment Manager
    • Deployment Manager
    • Report Manager.
  • The new permission can be set under Settings > User Management > Manage Permissions.
  • Once the access has been restricted for a particular role, the corresponding modules will not be displayed in the navigation menu.
  • And the Drill through will also be disabled if the permission has been set.
    • If a user does not have the permission to access the Deployment Manager, the Linked Item under Releases will also be disabled.
  • The restrict items will also be excluded from the Top Level Live search and Recent Items.

My Environment Bookings

  • A tab called “My Environment Bookings” has been added to the Environment Requests Grid.
  • By default, the user will be able to see all Environment Allocations for which they are a Stakeholder in the associated System.
  • The user can see all Environment Allocation by turning off the switch “Show by My Env Bookings”.

Child Push Functionality for Phases and Gates

  • A green Child Push button has been added to the Phases and Gates grid under Release.
  • By multi-selecting first new Child Push column in the Phases/Gates Grid, users can do a Child Push based on the selected Phases/Gates.
  • The corresponding Start Date and End Date of the Enterprise Release will be pushed to the Child Releases.

Manage User Groups

  • The User Group has been added to the “Assigned To” field under Environment Change/Booking Request, and the User Group will be marked by a group icon.
  • The email notification will also be sent out to the users’ individual email.

 

Functional Enhancements in Barracuda Release 3.0.105

Deployment Manager

Importing of Application column in Deployment Plan

  • Users will be able to import applications in the Deployment Plan with XLS.
  • The Applications’ name need to match the System Name accordingly.
  • Systems that are not associated with the Deployment Plan can be added through importing.

Master Deployment Plan – Overdue Indicator

  • A new column that displays whether or not the Deployment Plan is On Time or Overdue has been added to the Master Deployment Plan.
  • If any Deployment Tasks within the Deployment Plan is Overdue, then this Deployment Plan will be displayed as Overdue, otherwise it is displayed as On Time.

 

Environment Manager

Environment Group View

  • Added an Environment Group pop up window in Manage Groups when users click the Environment Group Name.
  • Users have the ability to add a WYSIWYG description and stakeholders for a particular Environment Group.
  • The Additional Information Functionality has also been added for this Environment Group Window.

Environment Change Request Layer

  • When users choose a Release or Environment Group from the field above, one validation message will be displayed at the bottom of the Environment Change Request.
  • This message will show the count of Environment Layer cards that will be added and ask whether or not to load all environment layer cards.

Reject Statement for Environment Allocation

  • Users can now Reject Environment Allocation Requests and the allocation bar will be displayed as red on the Schedule.
  • The original pending statement will be displayed as yellow on the Environment Schedule.
  • The corresponding status will be displayed in the Release Manager > Environments Tab.
  • Users can also add comments for the particular Allocation Request by clicking the comment icon.

Environment Map – Bi-Directional Environments

  • By selecting the directional arrow under connectivity under Environment Groups window, users are now able to represent a bi-directional relationship between environments.

Environment Booking Approvers

  • A new tab called “Env Booking Approvers” has been added to the System Window.
  • If a user has been added to the ‘Env Booking Approvers’, then only those users can approve an Environment Allocation that is associated with the system.

Reminders for ECR

  • New Email Notification Settings under Environments called “Send out reminder email notification each day post due date if the status is not completed” has been added.
  • As the name suggests, when this option is turned on, every 24 hours post due-date, it will send out an email notification.

Linked Change/Booking Requests for Environments

  • A new tab called “Linked Items” has been added to the Environments Window, the associated Environment Change/Booking Request will be displayed in this tab.

Environment Booking Request

  • Environment Booking Request made via Release Pop-up will also appear in EBR grid.

Live Search for Environment Groups

  • Two Live Search boxes have been added to the Environment Groups window.
  • Users can live search the environment groups by utilizing the Search box on the top of the Environment Group window.
  • Based on the selected the Environment Group, the user can live search for the Environment within that Environment Group.

Save Button for Environments

  • One extra Save button has been added to the Environment window beside the original Save and Close button.
  • So users can save the window during the editing.

 

Release Manager

Additional Information for Release Grid

  • Additional Information for Releases and Capacity Management can be added to the Release Grid.
  • By clicking the Action button > Select Columns, a popup window will be brought up and the user now has the ability to select which custom fields will be displayed on the Release Grid via this list.

System Impact Matrix Reports Improvements

  • Users now will have the ability to view the System Impact Matrix based on two conditions:
    • Number of Changes – This will count how many Changes belong to a particular Release.
    • Number of Applications – This will count how many Systems belong to a particular Release.
  • The Number of Applications Category has been further divided into two parts:
    • The top left is the number of impacted systems marked in green.
    • And the bottom right number is the number of regression systems marked in orange.

“Release Status” Filter for Release Schedule

  • A new filter “Release Status” has been added to the top panel of the Release Schedule.
  • By clicking the “Filter off” button under Release Status column, users can filter the Releases that will be displayed in the Release Schedule based on the Release Status.

Gates & Approvals – Improvements

  • The Date format that is used for the Release Date/Implementation date will correspond to the date format that is set in Customization.
  • The colour of the phases in the Gates & Approvals page will correspond to the colour set by the user.

Soft Delete Release without Removing the Linked Items

  • Users can delete a Release without deleting the items that have links to this Release.

 

Query Builder

System Impact Matrix

  • Searching for Releases based on the System Portfolio.
    • For instance, if Systems A, B belong to a Portfolio Association named PA, then when user search for “System Portfolio equals to PA” by using Query Builder, then the Query Builder will search for those releases that have impacts/regressions against System A, B.

‘Not Contains’ Condition

  • Users now can exclude some particular condition by using the “Not Contains” field under Query Builder.

Release Portfolio Association with EBR/ECR

Capacity Management Custom Fields

 

Common

Avatar Functionality

  • Users can add avatars for themselves in Plutora.
  • The avatar can be added or edited by clicking the User Name on the top right corner of the Application > User profile.
  • The avatar will be displayed on the stakeholders across application including:
    • Commenting System
    • Stakeholders Lists
    • Deployment Plan.

Ordering of the Custom Fields Tabs

New Custom Field named “List Select”

  • In the Additional Information tab, when the user clicks the drop-down of this “List Select” Custom Field type, users will be able to select multiple values from the drop-down.
  • This value can be set under the Custom Lists window, by marking a ‘List Field’ as ‘List Select’.

User Groups

  • One new functionality item called User Groups has been added to the User Management.
  • An individual user can be assigned to a particular User Group by editing the User Group/s under this user.
  • And user will have the ability to do a bulk update in the Manage Group window.
    • By clicking the green Add button, the user will have the ability to add multiple users or delete multiple users by using this window.

Audit Type Filtering Option

  • Users can filter the Audit history based on the Audit Type including: All, Modified, Added and Deleted.
  • The extra Live Search field has also been provided for the Audit History window.

 

Bug Fixes

Release Manager

Problem Fix
If the user removes an activity or criteria from a phase or gate, the progress bar does not refresh correctly, leading to an inconsistent % in the progress bar. The progress bar will be updated correctly once the activity or criteria have been updated.
Users using IE9 were not able to see the comments section in the Changes module. IE9 users are now able to see comments made by themselves and from other users.
The Blockout Period validation rules for the Date Picker would carry over to new Blockout Periods when the ‘Save & Add New’ button was used. When adding multiple Blockout Periods using the ‘Save & Add New’ button, the validation rules will not carry over and are now independent of each other.

Environments

Problem Fix
Users were not able to delete an Environments Group even all the associated Environments have been removed. Once all the Environments within the Environments Group have been delete, the Environments Group can be deleted correctly now.

Deployment Plan

Problem Fix
Users were not able to delete the Release within the Deployment Plan. The releases can be deleted by clicking the “x” under the Deployment Plan.

Common

Problem Fix
Users were not able to remove the Custom Field Tab. Custom Field Tabs can be removed as before.
Users were not able to remove all the text within a Free Text under Custom Fields. All text can be removed from the Free Text field.
Top-Level Live Search did not display the correct search result occasionally. The Top-Level Live Search will work properly under any circumstances.

 

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