SpectrumSCM is the first truly integrated, platform independent, full-featured (Version Control, Issue/Defect Tracking, Change Management, Process Management, Workflow, Release Management, Parallel Development) Source Configuration Management system in the market place. SpectrumSCM brings in the best practices for Project lifecycle processes through unified configuration management, change management and automation. SpectrumSCM provides full CM functionality with one truly integrated SCM system and not as a suite of bundled applications. SpectrumSCM makes it efficient to undertake comprehensive source configuration and change management for any ‘e-Asset’ (software code, text, binaries, engineering drawings, images, web pages, documents, excel, powerpoints, contracts, proposals, training docs, curriculum material, SAS program files etc.), from origination through delivery, maintenance, and support.

One of the significant features introduced along with this release is a project performance and metrics dashboard tool.  With the Graphical Dashboard you can track, analyze,  and measure trends as change requests/tasks progress through your project life cycle phases as part of your business workflow. This module will enable tremendous improvement in project management and the decision-making process by providing PMs, team leads, QA engineers, release managers, and other project stakeholders the project status and trend information they need to measure progress so that application development projects meet their goals.  Furthermore, this tool provides the ability to display and personalize these powerful graphs and charts for accelerated productivity.

This SpectrumSCM Graphical Dashboard 1.0 will be working in conjunction with the SpectrumSCM 3.0 version. The SpectrumSCM Graphical Dashboard is designed to provide the following four organizational Effectiveness Measures: Project Efficiency, Process Efficiency, Team Efficiency, Quality Efficiency. The graphical dashboard display will help managers to easily correlate vital information within the same project, across branches/workspaces, and across multiple projects.

“With the addition of the Graphical Dashboard and other enhanced functionalities, on top of the already powerful and comprehensive existing SCM feature sets, SpectrumSCM offers corporations, that spend millions of dollars on enterprise CM solutions an attractive alternative and a solid investment. For small and medium companies, many high-end CM tools are cost prohibitive. SpectrumSCM has time and again proven to be a powerful alternative to get the full functionality of a high-end  tool but at the price of a simple version control or issue tracking tool, a value that cannot be matched by any existing CM tool”, said K.R.S. Raghavan, Vice President, Spectrum Software, Inc.

Two other significant features added in this release are the Project/Workspace views and the Drag-N-Drop feature.

 “The release of SpectrumSCM 3.0 is yet another reflection of our continued commitment to our customers and the confidence in our CM product strategy. We believe SpectrumSCM is truly unique in providing such a rich set of functionality and limitless versatility to meet the ever demanding challenges of enterprise wide configuration management and change management all within one single tool, without having to doubt their investment. “ added  Raghavan.

SpectrumSCM 3.0 new feature list.

Graphical Dashboard:  This feature is available as an additional optional module (SpectrumSCM Graphical Dashboard 1.0). The graphical dashboard is a project performance and metrics dashboard which gives software managers, team leads, QA engineers, release managers, Configuration managers, and Auditors quick insight into project risk, status, and trends by presenting the Change request/Tasks progress and status in the form of powerful Graphs and Charts. These displays are available individually or as up to 4 panels within a single Graphical screen.  The Dashboard provides an array of views with color-coded status to be able to quickly spot trends and take corrective actions.

The Dashboard provides solutions for measurement and metrics, collecting data from one or more projects, one or more branches/generics, one or more users, one or more releases, or based on CR attributes. Data can also be collected over periods of time. The charts and graphs present intuitive summaries of key information in a single view so that users can analyze trends, perform management by exception, and drill down for more information when necessary.

Furthermore, the Dashboard can display up-to-date project status information in a graphical multilayer format, allowing managers to focus on decision making rather than manually gathering data and compiling reports to help ensure the success of their business. Project Managers and Stakeholders need not deal with an increasing amount of data, sorting through hundreds of reports and project communications in search of bottlenecks or areas not meeting project expectations.

Project Views and Branch/Generic views: Another major set of enhancements has been the introduction of “views”. Under SpectrumSCM 3.0, enterprise users with a significant number of projects and/or configuration items (generics/branches and/or folders) can now specify views to filter the displayed items to just those desired items. For example, if you have 100 projects to which you need access in general, but you are only working on 3 or 4 at any one time, you can define a view to show only those 3 or 4 projects.
 
Similarly with generics/branches and folders, you can define a view to constrain the display to just those frequently used items. Multiple views can be defined and saved so that the user can select the appropriate view at the appropriate time. A visible icon (a pair of binoculars) indicates when a view is active, so the user knows that they might be seeing a restricted set of data. The "View All" option is always available too, to cancel the current view and show all the items.

Drag-N-Drop of files and folders: This new feature will further enhance the user experience and their productivity.  Users will now be able to simply drag and drop files or folders between the CM repository and the desktop or filesystem.  Basically some users prefer the ease of drag-N-drop type operations over the traditional workspace based operations. Most importantly these actions preserve and utilize the core strength of SpectrumSCM, i.e all check-ins will always be automatically associated with a Change Request (CR, issue, task, problem statement) thus preserving the auditability and trace-ability for these check-ins).

This new feature will also make it easier to undertake source repository migrations from other CM tools - migrating product baselines, product builds, and SCM repository structures becomes more intuitive using the drag-N-drop capabilities instead of setting up the local root directory/workspace definitions.

Essentially, the addition of the drag-N-drop feature futher enables the user to really look upon the SpectrumSCM repository as a virtual file-store or “networked” drive. In this manner, simply copying files into and out-of the repository facilitates the version control and issue management. And because of SpectrumSCM integrated nature, the source file changes are automatically tied to the issue statement, further facilitating your business processes.

Drag-N-Drop functionality has also been added to the CR Creation screen so that a user can easily create a new issue from an incoming e-mail, or make an attachment from a log file, screen shot etc.


Some additional SpectrumSCM Version 3.0  feature items.

• Enhancements to workflow features 
Progression recipient on workflow arc – Enhancement to allow conditional assignment of automatically processed tasks. By using this new feature you can further refine your business process control and enhance the automation of tasks flowing through SpectrumSCM.
 
• Improvements to the Microsoft-Source Code Control Integration - To better handle offline working and “unable to connect” situations (network disconnects).
In todays varied network topologies and with many workers connecting wirelessly and using laptops, handling disconnected situations under the Microsoft-SCCI plugin needed some enhancements. These enhancements include better user messages and better handling or recovery from those situations.

• Enhanced colorization on the main screen
To further facilitate team working the colorization of elements in the main screen repository tree have been improved. These improvements distinguish between files being edited by yourself, files being edited by someone elses and concurrents edits (files being edited by more than one person simultaneously).

• Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) improvements
With the increased use of the WBS features of SpectrumSCM to help businesses manage the ever-more complex tasks a number of enhancements have been performed.
i. WBS text added to main screen message area – so a simple single click on a Change Request will display whether it has any dependencies or not.
ii. WBS column added to Assign/Mod screen – so the project managers/team leaders can easily view/sort CRs by whether they have WBS relationships or not.
iii. WBS tab added to Assign/Mod – so the full details of the work-breakdown-structure can be viewed in report form.
iv. Improve cross-generic (parallel development) of WBS items – Due to the increased complexity in business environments today this functionality needed better reporting and trackability.
v. Introduce new parent-as-peer WBS option to further tighten (at customers request) work-breakdown definition.

• Other significant enhancements

i. Disable user – Add the capability to disable a user so that their full identification is maintained but yet they would not be able to login to the SpectrumSCM system.
ii. Rename user-id – Add the capability to rename an existing user-id while maintaining full tracability of all the CRs that would transition from the old user-id to the new one.
iii. Custom report viewer extended to support history – To support a more varied user environment where multiple custom report viewers might be used.
iv. Extend hyperlinks to activate/show CR attachments directly from reports – As an extension to the popular hyperlink feature introduced under release 2.6.
v. Allow multiple choice (checkboxCombo)  - a new UI element introduced under the Graphs feature to allow the selection of multiple list elements (but not necessarily “ALL”)
vi. Exclude files capability added to Eclipse Work-Sync – A customer requested enhancement to extend the SpectrumSCM-Eclipse plugin with the capability to exclude files either individually or by patterns.

Availability

SpectrumSCM, is available directly from Spectrum Software, Inc. For pricing, demos and sales information, please contact Spectrum sales representative (email: sales@spectrumscm.com) at 770-448-8662 (North America).

About Spectrum

Spectrum Software, Inc. is a 15 year old, proven software systems design and services firm providing cost-effective, efficient and quality software products and services to large, medium and small businesses. Spectrum Software has three divisions: Software Services, which focuses on outsourcing and leading software development projects for clients; Software Products division, which engineers software tools and products and Spectrum Multimedia, which creates multimedia-based software products for children. The SpectrumSCM product is seen as a very attractive alternative to many of the existing market leading competitors. Because of its unified source configuration management and change management architecture, combined with a tightly integrated Process management and release management, SpectrumSCM has been repeatedly acknowledged to be one of the most economical, full-featured enterprise SCM tool that offers the best combination of value and functionality by its customers. SpectrumSCM provides High-end CM capability at the price of a competitor’s single function tool. Fully integrated solution implies that users do not have to use different applications with different interfaces to relate change requests with the files that are being affected. Administrators are no longer responsible for maintaining "bridging" software or scripts to relate different applications such as version control and issue management, to enforce process compliances steps, validate release artifacts etc. SpectrumSCM is a true task/change based source configuration management system with change management being an integral part of its architecture.  In May 2006 SpectrumSCM was Voted Top Java Product – 2006 JavaPro Reader’s Choice Award, as the Best Pure Java Packaged Client/Server or Distributed Application. For more information on Spectrum Software and SpectrumSCM, check out the company’s Web site at www.spectrumscm.com or email info@spectrumscm.com or call 770.448.8662.

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