Posts Tagged 'Strategy'

Spotlight on Spira 7.5 - Multiple Requirement Approvers

February 27, 2023

We are excited about the upcoming release of Spira v7.5!

The new version includes, amongst many other features, a brand new SpiraApp called Requirement Multiple Approvals. This new plugin for SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan (not SpiraTest, sorry) will allow you to conduct multiple parallel approvals of a requirement in the system. This much-awaiting feature has been asked for by many of our life sciences customers who need to be able to conduct parallel approvals of requirements.

Spotlight on Spira 7.5 - Customizable Requirement Statuses on Boards

February 21, 2023

We are excited to announce that, following on from the redesign of the main planning board in Spira, we have listened to your feedback around requirements' status. In our new version 7.5 release of Spira coming out shortly, we have changed how the requirements statuses work to give you greater flexibility and control on whether a status appears in the board, and crucially, the order they are displayed in.

Spotlight on SpiraPlan 7.2 - Project Charters

September 19, 2022

We are excited about the upcoming release of SpiraPlan 7.2 next month, it will have many enhancements and security fixes (following our most recent pen-test) as well as two major planned new features - product/project custom properties and an integrated spreadsheet editor. In this article we will be discussing the new project / product custom properties and how you can use them for creating and managing a project charter.

Spotlight on SpiraPlan 7.2 - Project Portfolio Management

September 15, 2022

We are excited about the upcoming release of SpiraPlan 7.2 next month. It will have many enhancements, security fixes (following our most recent pen-test), and two major planned new features - product/project custom properties and an integrated spreadsheet editor. This article discusses the new project/product custom properties and how to use them for project portfolio management (PPM).

Spotlight on Spira 7.2 - New Integrated Spreadsheet Editor

September 6, 2022

We are excited about the upcoming release of Spira 7.2 in the next couple of months, it will have many enhancements and security fixes (following our most recent pen-test) as well as two major planned new features - product/project custom properties and an integrated spreadsheet editor. In this article we will be discussing the new spreadsheet editing functionality. If you need a place in Spira to manage data, your wish has been granted!

Spotlight on Rapise 7.3: New Selenium Based Recording for Chrome and Edge Browsers

June 23, 2022

In December of 2020, the Google Chrome browser team made a major announcement - the release of Google Chrome Manifest 3. This new version of Chrome is designed to radically improve the security and safety of web browsing. Specifically:

With the introduction of Manifest V3, we will disallow remotely hosted code. This mechanism is used as an attack vector by bad actors to circumvent Google’s malware detection tools and poses a significant risk to user privacy and security.

However this new manifest version has an unfortunate side effect for the software testing industry, it will prevent the Chrome extensions used by many popular test automation tools such as Rapise, Ranorex, TestComplete, UFT and others from working. Luckily in the case, of Rapise, we have new web browser recording solution ready for you to use in Rapise 7.3. This will be released six months before Google formally switches over to Manifest V3.

Spotlight on Spira 7.0 - Data Synchronization Usability Enhancements

June 14, 2022

We are very excited about the upcoming release of Spira 7.0 in July 2022. In previous articles we've described some of the new plugins and integrations coming to SpiraTest, SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan in this release as well as the new SpiraApps extensibility framework that lets us create in-app extensions for the first time. However in addition to this new infrastructure, we have also updated our existing data synchronization platform to improve the ease of use and simplify the setup process for administrators and users.

Spotlight on Spira 7.0 - New Plugin Architecture With SpiraApps

May 23, 2022

We are very excited about the upcoming release of Spira 7.0 in July 2022. In previous articles we've described some of the new plugins and integrations coming to SpiraTest, SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan in this release. However even more exciting than that is the actual plugin architecture itself. To differentiate it from the other plugins we already have (data-synchronization plugins, RemoteLaunch engines and other add-ons), this new plugin architecture will be known as SpiraApps. Initially the available SpiraApps will be created by Inflectra, but the future plans are to open up the SpiraApps architecture to allow technology partners, solution partners, and customers write their own Apps to further customize Spira to better suit their needs.

Spotlight on Spira 6.16 - Workspace Navigation Enhancements

April 13, 2022

We have made some nice usability enhancements in the upcoming release of Spira 6.16 to improve the workspace (products, programs and portfolios) and artifact selection. With this new release, you will be able to filter the list of workspaces and also navigate to recent artifacts more quickly and easily.

Spotlight on Spira 6.16 - Custom Reporting Dashboard Enhancements

April 11, 2022

One of the great features of Spira, is the ability to create custom graphs and charts and have them appear in the various project/product reporting dashboards. We have been working to improve this feature, and in the upcoming version 6.16 release we have improved the user experience associated with adding custom graphs to your dashboard.

Speak Peek on 2022: Teams Come to SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan

December 16, 2021

As we start preparing for 2022, we will be providing some information on our plans for 2022, including some previews of planned functionality in our Spira and Rapise platforms. One of the key plans for SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan in 2022 is the addition of a new artifact called "Teams". These teams will be available across the system to make assignment of work easier as well as improving the usability and configurability of the agile planning boards.

Spotlight on Spira 6.14 - Single Sign On with OneLogin & OpenID Connect

November 29, 2021

In Spira version 6.4 we added support for Single Sign On (SSO) using the industry standard OAuth 2.0 protocol. In our upcoming v6.14 release of Spira we have extended the range of SSO providers we support to include both the popular OneLogin service and also generic OpenID Connect providers, opening the door for any company that has an OpenID Connect compatible authentication system to use it with Spira.

Spotlight on Spira 6.13 - New Rich Text Editor & Swimlanes in Diagrams

November 8, 2021

The upcoming release of our Spira platform includes a major overhaul of the rich text editor we use throughout the application. The new editor improves the user experience and features of the text editor, letting users more easily add and view links, create checklists, highlight text, and strike-through text. In addition, it opens the door for adding popular, requested features for adding artifact #tags and @mentions.

In addition, the built-in diagram tools get even more powerful with additional shapes and options. You can now make diagrams that group individual shapes together to form Kanban board diagrams and swim lane diagrams.

Spotlight on Spira 6.13 - SAFe Support for Requirement Types

November 4, 2021

The upcoming release of our Spira platform includes a major change in how requirement types work, specifically when you have multiple levels of parent requirements and you want/need control over what the type is for those requirements. Previously, parent requirements were forced to be either Package (Spira versions 5.4 and earlier) or Epic (Spira versions 6.0 and later). Recognizing that we need more flexibility for different methodologies such as Scaled Agile (SAFe), Waterfall and Agile/Scrum/Kanban, we have completely revamped how this feature works.

Spotlight on Spira 6.13 - Additional Custom Property Types

November 3, 2021

The upcoming release of our Spira platform includes a new set of custom property types in addition to the eight existing types already in the system. These new types are designed to increase the flexibility and security of the system. We have introduced a new password custom property type that lets you securely store test data in the system for use in manual and automated testing. In addition, we have added release and automation host custom property types to assist in common use cases.

Coming Soon to Spira - Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

July 28, 2021

Security is always a critically important topic, and if you have been following the news recently, it seems there is a different cyber attack every week. Having a well-developed cyber security program is a must, and as part of that, it is important that multiple layers of defense are employed to prevent a potential cyber-attack or data breach. Therefore, we are pleased to announce that we have just upgraded the Inflectra website to support Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), also known as 2-factor Authentication (2FA) and that similar functionality will be coming very soon to SpiraTest, SpiraTeam, and SpiraPlan.

Spotlight on Spira 6.11 - Diagrams, Drawing and Flowcharts

July 26, 2021

Many of our customers use SpiraPlan to design and manage requirements for complex systems and products including aerospace, automotive and industrial systems. Accordingly, a common need is to be able to create requirements and associated documentation that includes diagrams, flowcharts, and mind-maps. We are excited to announce that we have added free, built-in diagram support to SpiraTest, SpiraTeam, and SpiraPlan version 6.11 that is being released next month (August 2021).

Spotlight on Spira 6.10 - Agile Planning Board Enhancements

May 19, 2021

The last release of Spira was instrumental in updating the new requirements document view, to improve the interactivity, configurability and add inline editing. Following on from these updates, we are planning some major updates to the various agile boards available in SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan. In our next release (6.10) we have focused on some of the 'low hanging fruit' and improved the display and usability of the boards, as well as added inline editing for the first time.

Spotlight on Spira 6.9 - OData Reporting API

April 26, 2021

One of the old adages about reporting is that however many reports you create, you will always need one more! With that in mind, Spira has for many years had a powerful and flexible reporting engine built-in that lets you create custom reports and custom graphs using the Entity SQL (ESQL) query language. However users have asked us if there was a way to use their favorite reporting tool (e.g. Excel or Microsoft PowerBI) to connect to Spira to create reports. With the latest version of SpiraPlan that is now possible, for both cloud and on-premise customers using our new OData API.

Spotlight on Spira 6.8 - Inline Content Editing of Rich Text and Markdown

January 25, 2021

We are excited about the next release of Spira 6.8, due to be released in March. This new version includes major enhancements to the documents management module to allow users the create and edit inline content directly in Spira. Customers have asked us for ways to make authoring the unstructured, freeform content easier in Spira, similar to how they could use a Wiki, Google Docs, or Confluence page. This new functionality lets you write plain text, rich text, and markdown inside Spira and have all of the versioning and workflow capabilities at your disposal. Of course, you can link this content to your requirements, test cases, and other Spira artifacts.

Spotlight on Spira 6.7.1 - CI Build and Source Code Diff Enhancements

January 13, 2021

We are excited about the next release of Spira 6.7.1, due to be released in early February. This new version includes some usability enhancements for viewing the differences between changes in large source code files as well as a major overhaul of the continuous integration (CI) build details page. These enhancements streamline the viewing of CI builds and verifying the code changes included in each CI build.

Spotlight on Spira 6.7.1 - Source Code Pull Requests & Code Reviewing

January 11, 2021

We are excited about the next release of Spira 6.7.1, due to be released in early February. This new version includes new source code Pull Requests functionality that lets development teams leverage the existing tasks feature in Spira to more easily track the different code branches. The Pull Request tasks are used to help teams review the code before they are merged into the main development branches (develop, master or main depending on your branching and merging methodology).

Spotlight on Spira 6.7.1 - Generating Documents from Reports

January 7, 2021

We are excited about the next release of Spira 6.7.1, due to be released in early February 2021. One of the key new features is the ability to automatically save generated reports from the Reports center into the Documents Management module, where they can be archived and versioned.

Spotlight on Spira 6.7 - Markdown Preview & Rendering Capability

November 17, 2020

We are excited about the next release of Spira 6.7 that is due to be released in early December. As mentioned in the previous article on the new release, a key area of focus in this new release is improving the experience and functionality for developers and development teams. With that in mind, we have revamped the source code management and documents management module, and for the first time, there is now a way to view rendered markdown files directly in Spira.

Spotlight on Spira 6.7 - Integrated Source Code Difference Viewing

November 10, 2020

We are excited about the next release of Spira 6.7, due to be released in early December. As mentioned in the previous article on the new release, a key area of focus in this new release is improving the experience and functionality for developers and development teams. With that in mind, we have revamped the source code management module, and for the first time, there is now a native code difference viewing capability in Spira.

Spotlight on Spira 6.7 - Enhanced Source Code Management

November 3, 2020

We are excited about the next release of Spira 6.7 that is due to be released in early December. This new version has lots of general enhancements, bug fixes, and improvements to baselining. However, a key feature of this new version is a completely revamped Source Code Management module. Our company's mission is to enable Harmony between developers, testers, and managers, and this new release is focused heavily on the needs of Developers.

Spotlight on Spira 6.6 - Project Baselining Enhancements

August 7, 2020

One of the focus areas in the new release v6.6 of SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan is completing the initial support for baselining. This is an exciting new piece of functionality that makes SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan especially well suited for managing requirements, test cases and artifacts on more complex systems and engineering projects.

Spotlight on Spira 6.5.2 - Manual Testing Customization Enhancements

July 8, 2020

Over the past few years, we have collected many enhancement requests for the test case execution page, to make it easier to show and hide certain options, make specific data required, and allow the settings to be configured differently for different products. Well we are happy to add these long awaited features to our upcoming v6.5.2 release.

Spotlight on Spira 6.5.2 - Requirements and Test Case Baselining

July 6, 2020

One of the focus areas in the upcoming release v6.5.2 of SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan is support for baselining. This is an exciting new piece of functionality that will make SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan especially well suited for managing requirements, test cases and artifacts on more complex systems and engineering projects.

Spotlight on Spira 6.5.2 - Visibility of User Stories through the DevOps Toolchain

July 1, 2020

One of the focus areas in the upcoming release v6.5.2 of SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan is to streamline and improve the process for managing code within Spira, and providing better traceability between source code revisions, CI builds, DevOps pipelines, and Spira artifacts such as requirements, user stories, tasks, defects and change requests. In this article we describe some of the enhancements coming in the next version.

Spotlight on Spira 6.5.1 - Program & Portfolio Enhancements for DevOps

June 10, 2020

As we get ready for the upcoming release of SpiraTest, SpiraTeam, and SpiraPlan, we'd like to introduce some of the new functionality that will be available in this release. This release builds on top of the new program and portfolio management views in v6.5 and adds some new features and reporting widgets.

Spotlight on Spira 6.5 - Portfolio & Program Management Enhancements

April 23, 2020

As we get ready for the upcoming release of SpiraTest, SpiraTeam, and SpiraPlan, we'd like to introduce some of the new functionality that will be available in this release. This release includes two main features, plus lots of smaller enhancements and bug fixes. The two main marquee features are Portfolio and Program Management Dashboards, and new additional views of the release and task pages, including a Gantt view that will enhance our support for traditional waterfall and hybrid projects.

Spotlight on Spira 6.4 - Single Sign On with OAuth and Reports Enhancements

February 12, 2020

As we get ready for the release of SpiraTest, SpiraTeam, and SpiraPlan 6.4 early next month, we'd like to introduce some of the new functionality that will be available in this release. This release includes two main features, plus lots of smaller enhancements and bug fixes. The two main marquee features are support for Single Sign On (SSO) using the industry standard OAuth 2.0 protocol, and some major enhancements to the Reports dashboard.

Spotlight on SpiraTeam 6.2 - New Requirements Management Views

August 8, 2019

As we get ready for the release of SpiraTest, SpiraTeam, and SpiraPlan 6.2 later this month, we'd like too introduce some of the new functionality that will be available in this release. In the first installment of this series, we're excited to announce the new requirements management views that have been added to SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan 6.2. They are designed to better serve the needs of the Business Analyst community who often need different views of requirements than the project teams and project managers.

SpiraPlan 6 is Coming: Upgrading to Templates

April 23, 2019

In a recent post, we highlighted new templating functionality in SpiraTest/SpiraTeam/SpiraPlan 6.0. Templates let you have multiple products (formerly known as projects) that all share the same workflow configuration, types, priorities, and more with each other. If you change the template, all the products based off of that template immediately change too. This post will explore how templates will work. A more detailed post about how to plan your migration to templates will be out soon.

Spotlight on Rapise 6.0: UI Redesign, Dynamics Unified Client and SAP Fiori

February 26, 2019

Our automation group is wrapping up the final testing and documentation for our next major release of Rapise, our powerful and easy to use codeless test automation tool. With the new 6.0 version getting ready for release in the next couple of weeks, we thought it would be useful to highlight some of the major changes and new features you can expect with the new version.

Spotlight on SpiraPlan 6.0 - Enterprise Risk Management

February 5, 2019

As we're in the final countdown for the release of the latest version of SpiraPlan v6.0, we are going to be highlighting some of the most important new features in this version to help you get ready for the release. In this third installment of the blog series on the new version we'll be discussing the new enterprise risk management features, including support for risks, mitigations, tasks and risk cubes.

Spotlight on Spira 6.0 - Document Management Workflows

January 28, 2019

As we're in the final countdown for the release of the latest version of SpiraTest, SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan v6.0, we are going to be highlighting some of the most important new features in this version to help you get ready for the release. In the second installment of the blog series on the new version we'll be discussing the new document management features, including workflows, and check-in / check-out functionality.

Spotlight on Spira 6.0 - Project Templates & Customizable Fields

January 18, 2019

As we're in the final countdown for the release of the latest version of SpiraTest, SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan v6.0, we are going to be highlighting some of the most important new features in this version to help you get ready for the release. In this first installment of the blog series on the new version we'll be discussing the long-awaited project templates feature, together with the new customization options that templates will bring.

Agile Testing Days, PTA, Effimag and Inflectra European Summit - a Retrospective

November 27, 2018

The past two weeks have been a bit of a blur for #teamInflectra, we had the great fortune to attend four events back to back - Effimag's anniversary event in Switzerland, Agile Testing Days in Potsdam, Germany, PTA's winter seminar in Stuttgart, and our Inflectra User Conference in Mannheim. During that time we learned a lot, met great people, and also got to see how testers and quality assurance professionals in Europe see the world.

Spotlight on KronoDesk 3.0 - New Reporting Functionality

September 20, 2018

Our development team has been working feverishly on the next version of KronoDesk, our acclaimed help desk solution for SpiraTeam. There are many new features and improvements as part of KronoDesk 3.0, and this article focuses on the enhancements to the reporting system.

Spotlight on KronoDesk 3.0 - Tickets, Knowledge Base and User Groups

August 30, 2018

Our development team has been working feverishly on the next version of KronoDesk, our acclaimed help desk solution for SpiraTeam. There are many new features and improvements as part of KronoDesk 3.0, and this article focuses on the enhancements to the help desk and knowledge base modules.

System Administrators Are People Too!

August 29, 2018

One of the unfortunate realities of software development is that the system administrators are usually the last people to get new features. When products are adding new goodies, improving usability or looking to streamline workflows, the administrators are usually an afterthought. Well, as we're working on the new templating and program management features in Spira 6.0, we have made sure to improve the experience for system and project administrators at the same time.

Extend Your Project Management Strategy Beyond The Dev Team

July 5, 2018

When it comes to project management strategies, most people think of development teams.
Whether they’re focused software, websites, inventory, or any number of items, the intricacies of successfully developing a viable product require stringent tracking. There are many phases between brainstorming and product launch, most of which generally consist of numerous smaller tasks, which can be broken down into several more specific tasks. With so many hands in the honey pot, disorganization quickly leads to sticky situations.

This post, however, is not about development teams. It’s about introducing project management to the rest of your company to help clear up and prevent sticky situations.

Spotlight on SpiraTeam v5.4.0.4 - Security & Performance

June 5, 2018

We will be releasing the latest version of SpiraTest, SpiraTeam, and SpiraPlan v5.4 this week - v5.4.0.4. It's probably the last release of Spira v5 as we now change gears and focus on Spira v6.0. We shall be updating the roadmap shortly, for those who have been asking. But first, what's in the latest version.

Updated Product Roadmaps for SpiraTeam, SpiraTest, and SpiraPlan Released

October 30, 2017

We are pleased to release the updated Development Roadmaps for our SpiraTeam application lifecycle management platform. The development roadmaps outline the functionality enhancements planned for later this year and 2018 and covers the features planned for SpiraTest, SpiraPlan and SpiraTeam.

Spotlight on SpiraTeam v5.3 - What's New?

October 18, 2017

We are excited with the new release of SpiraTeam v5.3 (also including SpiraTest and SpiraPlan in case you were asking!). In this article we are going to highlight some of the enhancements in the latest version. The full list of enhancements, bug fixes and new features can be found in the release notes.

Updated Product Roadmaps for KronoDesk and Rapise Released

September 26, 2017

We are pleased to release the updated Development Roadmaps for our KronoDesk help desk system and Rapise test automation platform. The development roadmaps outline the functionality enhancements planned for later this year and 2018.

Spotlight on KronoDesk 2.1: Support for Organizations and Digital Signatures

July 24, 2017

We are busy bees this summer, and we will be releasing the next version of our KronoDesk help desk system (v2.1) in the next month. In this article we describe the two main new features in KronoDesk 2.1 and what you can expect from the new version.

What's Coming Up This Summer at Inflectra

July 4, 2017

Our development teams are going to be avoiding the sweltering summer heat here in Washington, DC by staying inside and cooking up some amazing new features for our products. In this blog, I thought it would be good to highlight some of the key new features coming to our product families this summer.

Saying 'No' to Innovation

February 7, 2014

Sometimes the hardest thing you can do is to exclude innovative ideas from your product, but success requires focus, and focus requires you to say 'no'.