Creating Categories

Analysis Tools and Sets

Chapter 9: Group Working

This chapter describes the functions that can be shared across a project and how they are shared.

9.1 Introduction

Group working requires a consistent approach to policy and standards, especially where you have several projects in one enterprise.

Projects may be independent of each other, or may be related, for instance, if a very large project has to be divided into sub-projects. Each sub-project is treated as a separate project.

The ability of several users to group work is essential in meeting the stringent timetable in Year 2000 work. In recognition of this fact, SmartFind Plus offers the ability to share information and techniques between users working on the same project or across projects.

You can share the following:

Projects - A shareable Revolve project can be accessed by multiple users across a network at the same time.
Worksheets - When a group worksheet is created, the group users are allocated POIs from the group worksheet by the administrator.
Analysis tools - SmartFind Plus enables you to share analysis tools, composite tools (a sequence of tools) and custom tool settings.
Categories - SmartFind Plus offers the capability of sharing customized category definitions.
Year types and their assignment rules - Year Types and Assignment Rules can be shared for a project as well as across a network.
Macros - Macros can be shared for a project as well as across a network.
Metering - The administrator is responsible for authorizing one or more users to meter code.

9.2 Projects

Multiple users can access a shareable Revolve project across a network at the same time. Once a project is shareable (Make Shareable in the Project menu), multiple users can open the project simultaneously to perform their individual analysis tasks. Only an administrator has the ability to change the project through adding/deleting components, loading, completing the project, etc.

The administrator:

Creates a project

Loads the source code for the project into the Revolve database

Makes the project shareable

Makes it accessible to the users

When make a project shareable a duplicate copy of the project is created. The duplicate copy has an .sha extension and is stored in a separate directory from the initial project. The documentation refers to the copy is as the Shadow Project and enables the administrator to perform updates to the project without interfering with other users.

All users need access to the shared project and require its name and location. Users cannot update the source files directly. They pass changes to the administrator to load into the project.

See also the Managing Projects chapter.

9.3 Group Worksheet

When a group worksheet is created, the group users are allocated POIs from the group worksheet by the administrator. Group users do not work in a group worksheet but can view it.

A group or local worksheet is completely tied to a project. If the project's source files are modified the worksheet will become out of step with the source files. SmartFind Plus recognizes this and alerts the user. Do not edit or change the version of source files within a project after you have created a worksheet. If you do, then you will probably need to discard the original worksheet, create a new one and repopulate and analyze it again.

If you change to an upgraded version of SmartFind Plus, you can reload unchanged source files into a project without having to create a new worksheet.

SmartFind Plus enables you to share a worksheet with a group of users. This enables the sharing of information gathered during the verification and fixing processes.

A group worksheet requires that:

A group worksheet administrator sets up the group and local worksheets, and allocates the work to the group members (users).

The user works in the local worksheet on the candidates allocated from the group worksheet. You can view a local worksheet singly or combined with a group worksheet. Analysis and changes can be performed on the local worksheet. Information in the group worksheet is not directly changed. Candidates in the group worksheet can be copied to the local worksheet and edited there.

The administrator merges the changes from the local worksheet into the group worksheet. The administrator resolves conflicts between users' worksheets, for example, one user requests that a data item is removed and another wants it kept.

9.3.1 Managing a Group Worksheet

Only the administrator can manage or change a group worksheet, although other users may view it. The main areas of responsibility for the administrator are:

Defining a strategy and process for group working. See the chapter Verification and Remediaton Process.
Setting up the group and local worksheets and allocating the work to the group members.
Merging users' changes into the group worksheet.
Resolving conflicts between merged entries and the entries already in the group worksheet. An alert is issued if a conflict arises. You are given options to resolve the conflict.
Backing up and restoring the group worksheet. Monitoring the activity log, to determine who is changing which entries in the worksheet and when to merge the changes into the group worksheet.
Producing reports on the group worksheet. To do this, the administrator has to open the group worksheet as a local worksheet and then produce the required reports.

Your need to decide who should take on the various responsibilities. One or more people can take responsibility. For some tasks, the administrator needs the authority to delegate work and enforce consistent procedures, and for other tasks, the technical knowledge to handle conflicts in the group worksheet.

To access the worksheet administration functions:

In the worksheet click Options
Click the Worksheet tab and check Enable Administration Tasks. The worksheet administration button appears in the tool bar.

Note: The administration function in SmartFind Plus is not protected. Unauthorized users should not access it.

9.3.2 Setting Up a Group Worksheet

As administrator, you are responsible for creating the project and the group worksheet and for initially populating the group worksheet with the data items and statements from the Verify tools, analysis tools or candidate wizard. The difference between group and local worksheets is that only the administrator can update a group worksheet. Users have read-only access.

Creating a group worksheet

After you have used an analysis tool such as Verify - all research a worksheet with all the POIs found is displayed. This is still a local worksheet and you must now merge those POIs into a group worksheet:

In the worksheet click Options .
In the Worksheet tab check Enable Administration tasks.
Click Administration
Select Create a new group worksheet.
The group worksheet is now empty and has to be populated with POIs. See the Merging POIs into the Group Worksheet section.

Allocating worksheet points of interest (POIs) to group users

Select the POIs in the worksheet that you want to assign to a user.
Click Administration and then Assign items to owner. Select a user from the drop down list. You can choose to have the POIs just assigned, or assigned and copied immediately to the local worksheet.
Copy the relevant POIs to the users' worksheets.
Ownership of the group worksheet is only nominal. Any user can access the group worksheet, unless there are system restrictions.

We recommend dividing the work by source file. You can divide the work any other way. Note that data items in working storage copyfiles are likely to be shared by more than one program. To avoid conflicts each common data items should have only one owner.
Inform each group user:
- The filename and location of the project file and group worksheet
- The filename and location of the user's local worksheet, and the programs or files and POIs allocated to that person
- The strategy, such as verify the date data items first, checking that they are all included in the worksheet and that they have the correct year types assigned
- The schedule for repetitive merging of changes from the local worksheets

9.3.3 Viewing the Group Worksheet as a Group User

As a group member, when the administrator tells you where the project and worksheets are, you can proceed as follows:

If the administrator has created a worksheet, click Load from file and selects the relevant file.
The name of the local worksheet is shown in the title bar. If the administrator has not created a worksheet, take a copy of the project locally. A local worksheet is automatically created for the project. We do not recommend accessing over a network as it can be very slow.
Click Options and in the Worksheet tab check Enable Group Worksheet.
Now the group and local worksheets are displayed together in one worksheet. You can differentiate between a group and local worksheet POIs:

The Worksheet column in the worksheet states whether POIs are in the group or local worksheet.
At the top of the worksheet is a toggle to Show group items. Checking this on and off enables you to view just your local worksheet, or both worksheets combined.
The icons on the left of the worksheet are different for group and local POIs.
In a SmartFix window, a blue circle next to POIs means the POIs are in the group worksheet. A red circle means they are in the local worksheet. POIs without a circle have not yet been assigned a year type.

We recommend that while you are working on a group project, you keep group working enabled in Options, even if you do not want to view the group worksheet. This ensures that the administrator's log is current with any changes made to local copies of group POIs.

9.3.4 Updating the Worksheet Entries Locally

Group users work on the POIs in a local worksheet.

Group users do not directly change information in the group worksheet. Users can copy POIs from the group worksheet into their local worksheet and change them locally.

To copy a group worksheet entry, right-click the POIs in the worksheet and click Copy local.

Note: There is no locking process. In theory, you can copy any POIs from the group worksheet and update them in a local worksheet. However, in practice, you should copy only the POIs assigned to you.

9.3.4.1 Saving changes

When you change your local worksheet, the changes are automatically saved. The group administrator can then take your worksheet and merge it into the group worksheet without any action from you. If you need to save the worksheet separately, click Save to File. The worksheet is saved in Microsoft Access (.mdb) format.

9.3.4.2 Updating the worksheet view

The administrator can update the group worksheet with changes while you are working. If you want to be notified of any changes, click Options and in the Worksheet tab, check Notify when group worksheet changes. To update your view of the worksheet, right-click in the worksheet and click Refresh.

9.3.5 Merging POIs into the Group Worksheet

When the administrator merges POIs from a local worksheet into the group worksheet, SmartFind Plus deletes the local worksheet POIs. If, for any reason, POIs are not merged, they are left in the worksheet. This means that users should check their worksheets after they have been merged and investigate any POIs that remain.

This step is also required to merge POIs into a newly created group worksheet.

Users should be advised to keep group working enabled in Options, even if they do not want to view the group worksheet. This ensures that the administrator's log is current with any changes made to local copies of group POIs.

An administrator is responsible for merging users' local worksheets into the group worksheet. Depending on the procedures in your organization, you merge the local worksheets:

At a set time, using predefined filenames and locations for the users' worksheets.
When the users request changes and pass their saved worksheets to you for merging.
When you determine from the activity log and the user log that users have made changes.
The activity log is created automatically when the users make changes, while they are connected to the group worksheet. This log has the filename worksheet-name.cng, and is created in the same directory as the group project.

Before merging in users' changes, you must backup the group worksheet in case you decide to restore the previous version.

You use the Merge items wizard in the Administration menu, to merge the information from the users' local worksheets, or to a group worksheet, and to resolve any conflicts between the new POIs and existing ones. When you merge the worksheets:

You can merge either the data items or the statements or both. If you use the process that Micro Focus recommends, you initially only merge data items. When you are confident that you have all the date data items and that their year type are correctly assigned, the users can start investigating statements and you can merge those in.
Any POIs that are successfully merged into the group worksheet are deleted from the user's local worksheet. This means that if all the user's POIs are successfully merged, the user's worksheet is empty.
Any POIs that are in a user's removed list are treated as conflicts if they exist in the group worksheet (but not its removed list). You can accept the user's POIs, so that the corresponding POIs in the group worksheet are removed and put in the group worksheet's removed list.
Any merges or changes you make are immediately saved in the group worksheet, and are immediately available to users when they refresh their worksheets.

9.3.6 Backing Up and Restoring the Group Worksheet

As administrator, you should backup the group worksheet before making any changes. To do this manually copy the worksheet project-name.mdb to group-file.bak.

You might need to restore a previous version of the worksheet if, for example, the new worksheet has some incorrect information or if there are many conflicts when merging. To restore a worksheet, close the project and copy the backup file group-file.bak to project-name.mdb.

9.4 Sharing Tools and Tool Settings

SmartFind Plus enables you to share analysis tools, composite tools (a sequence of tools) and custom tool settings. The administrator must decide on who can customize tools and settings. These must then be made available to other users before group working starts.

Note: When you create a composite tool, the settings active at the time become the default setting of the new composite tool. If you distribute the composite tool you do not have to distribute a settings file if you are only going to use the default settings. If you wish to use different settings for the same tool, you must distribute the other settings file(s) with the tool.

You can define fresh tool settings each time you run a tool, although this does not guarantee a consistent method of locating POIs, especially if you are working on a group project.

You share customized individual tool settings by manually copying the tool settings file (.dts) onto each user's computer. The .dts files are created by the Configuration Wizard.

You share a composite tool (.ct): over a remote directory to which the users' computers have access rights; for all projects on a given machine; for one project only.

Note: If you do not use the Configuration Wizard to customize the tool settings, they are active only until you close the project. If you have used the Configuration Wizard to customize tool settings, they are saved as a new settings group, and will not be lost when the project is closed.

9.4.1 Copying Individual Tool Settings to Another PC

When you have customized the settings, they are automatically saved, as a <Settings>.dts file, in a directory bearing the name you have given to the settings group in the configuration wizard.

The directory path is: Sfplus\Revolve\Fixlib\Settings\Sfplus\Newgroup.

You must then copy the Newgroup directory to the other client machines. See the Summary of Sharing Files section.

To access the settings once they have been loaded: Year 2000 menu, select Settings and chose from the drop-down list.

9.4.2 Composite Tools

How others can access shared composite tools depends on the scope of the tool. The scope defines the visibility of the tool to individual users as detailed below.

Type	Scope	Description
Share	Available to all users and all projects	A remote fixlib directory is specified. Shared composite tools will be read from and written to this directory. The correct permissions have to be granted. This directory is checked first by SmartFind Plus.
User	Available to all projects on a given computer	Shared composite tools will be read from and written to a composite tools subdirectory (\fixlib\tools). This directory is checked second by SmartFind Plus.
Project	Available to only one project	Composite tools will be read from and written to the current project directory. This directory is checked last by SmartFind Plus.

If more than one directory contains tool files with the same name, the tool file in the first directory to be loaded becomes active. Any file with the same name in directories subsequently loaded, do not become active. An alert is displayed.

SmartFind Plus scans the directories for tools in the following order:

Share
User
Project

Note: It is only possible to create tools if you have write permission for the appropriate directory. A tool file has a .ct extension and you can store more than one tool in a .ct file.

Information on how to create a composite tool can be found under Composite Tool in the Help index and in the Configuring Tools and Settings chapter.

9.5 Sharing Categories

When categorizing POIs, it is important in a group project, that all users use the same category definitions to ensure consistency. Each installed version of SmartFind Plus have the same default categories. SmartFind Plus offers the capability of sharing customized category definitions in two ways.

Single project. The customized categories are saved as projectname.fct in the project directory.

Across projects. The customized categories are saved as default.fct in the revolve\fixlib\cateory directory. This overwrites the existing category file. To share this file with the others in your work group, copy it using the same filename, to the same location on their computers.

See also the Categories chapter and the Summary of Sharing Files section.

9.6 Sharing Year Types and Assignment Rules

How a data item is expanded depends on the:

Logical date format (for example, yymmdd)
Physical format of the data item (for example, PIC 99)
Pivot year which defines the 100 years from which the century is derived (for example, a pivot year of 60 gives a window of 1960-2059)

You must assign a year type for each data item before SmartFix can automatically window them. If you need consistent remediation you must assign year types to data items in a consistent way throughout a project and any sub-projects. The Macros and assignment rules you associate with a given year type must, likewise, be consistent.

Year Types and Assignment Rules can be shared for a project as well as across a network. When loading, SmartFind Plus will check the project directory first. If a year type .fxt file is found it loads this and ignores any in the shared directory.

Note: If you want group users to share Year Types and Assignment Rules, there must NOT be any .fxt files in the user's project directory.

See also the Year Types and Assignment Rules chapter and the Summary of Sharing Files section.

9.7 Sharing Macros

Macros specific to a project are kept in the project directory. If a .fxm file is found it becomes the project's active Macro file.

Macros applicable across a group are kept in Macro libraries. A macro library is a directory containing a complete set of macro and year type files. For example, SmartFind Plus includes two standard macro libraries, one for use with ANSI85 COBOL source and an alternative for ANSI74 source. When SmartFind Plus loads a worksheet or the analysis tools for a project, it first scans the project directory for any project-specific macros, it then scans the directory representing the current macro library for any general macros. If you are working on a shared project, you automatically get access to the customization for that project.

Note: If you want group users to share Macros, there must NOT be any .fxm files in the user's project directory.

See also the the Customizing Macros chapter and the Summary of Sharing Files section.

9.8 Metering

The administrator is responsible for authorizing one or more users to meter code. Authorizing users includes enabling usage counters for those users and giving write access to the metering control file.

All the users need access to the metering control file, since this file confirms that the code has been metered. Non-authorized users require read access only, and they do not need usage counters.

See also the Metering Lines of Code chapter.

9.9 Summary of Sharing Files

The table below lists a summary of how to share the files associated with particular functions. The individual functions are explained in greater detail in the remainder of the chapter.

Function:	Option:	Located in:	File ext:	Action:
Tool settings	Analysis Tools, Configuration Wizard	Sfplus\Revolve\ Fixlib\ Settings\Sfplus	.dts	Manual copy

Composite tools	Analysis Tools, New Composite Tool, saved as Shared	Specified remote	.ct	Automatic, checks this directory first
	Analysis Tools, New Composite Tool, saved as User	Sfplus\Revolve\ Fixlib\Tools	.ct	Automatic, checks this directory second
	Analysis Tools, New Composite Tool, saved as Project	Current project directory	.ct	Automatic, checks this directory third

Categories	Edit Categories, Save to current project	Current project directory, overwriting any .fct file there	.fct	Manual copy, checks this directory only
	Edit Categories, Save definitions as	Specified, not in hierarchy	.fct	Manual copy to project directory

Year type assignment rules	Edit Year Types, Save to current macro library	Specified, can be remote or local	.fxt	Automatic, checks this second
	Edit Year Types, Save to current project	Current project directory	.fxt	Automatic, checks this first

Macros	Customized macros are written in a text editor	Current project directory	.fxm	Manual copy to current project directory
	Customized macros are written in a text editor	Macros library	.fxm	Manual copy to directory specified in Worksheet Options, Fix Options

9.10 Consistency and Coding Standards

You have a range of options for the style of the fix code, such as whether it is inserted in-line with the original program code or out of line, how the fix code is formatted and labelled, and whether it is stored in copybooks.

Your organization might want to prescribe the options so that the fixed code conforms to your coding standards and is consistent throughout the project.

9.11 As a User in the Group

As a user, you work on the worksheet POIs which the administrator has allocated to you. You can view the group worksheet as necessary but cannot change it.

The nature of your work depends on whether you are verifying or fixing. You should have access to all related data items, statements and data files.

Note: An administrator is responsible for the preparation and generation phases. Both the administrator and the users are involved in the analysis phase.

As a user in a group, you then:

Copy the the POIs allocated to you to your local worksheet
Analyze the POIs and categorize them
Add relevant notes to the worksheet
Finally, you save your worksheet as a separate worksheet.

When your POIs are merged into the group worksheet, those changes are deleted from your local worksheet. If any POIs are not merged into the group worksheet, they are left in the local worksheet. This means that you should check your worksheet after is has been merged and investigate any POIs remaining.

Creating Categories

Analysis Tools and Sets