Version 2013 (GA)

This is a major release with significant new features, improvements, and enhancements as well as issue fixes. Polarion Software practices Agile development. Some features have been introduced to customers in service releases and improved throughout the version 2013 development cycle. The aggregation of these features, plus some newly released features comprise the version 2013 release.

New Features

• Diagramming: Create and edit many types of diagrams right in your LiveDoc specification documents, or in the Description field, or rich-text custom fields of any type of Work Item in the tracker.
• Formal Testing Procedures: Define test steps tables within your Test Cases to capture explicitly how to conduct tests. Import and round-trip using Excel^®; execute online, or off-line with results re-imported and logged in Polarion.
• Test Planning: Enhanced flexibility for when planning tests: plan via live query results or hand pick the test cases that should be executed. Select any option from 5 possible choices.
• OLE Support: Significant improvements in connecting Polarion technology with proprietary Microsoft OLE^® objects. To ensure that OLE objects (including the new version of OLE objects with EMF thumbnails) can be converted well, the conversion must be done on the Windows Server platform only.
• Easier than Ever for Users: Features that have been in Polarion since version 1.0 revisited: Query Building and Work Item Linking.
  • New in-place Query Builder helps users construct simple to complex queries visually, with project-specific elements and options.
  • New Easy Linking enables visual linking between Work Items in LiveDocs or the tracker across any number of browser windows.
• Connectors: Custom data exchange and synchronization between Polarion and Atlassian JIRA^®, and/or HP Quality Center™ enabling teams using Polarion to collaborate with others who prefer to keep using these tools. Connectors are integrated into the Polarion platform, than developed as extensions.
• Mobile Access: A new iOS app ALM2GO, released concurrently with version 2013, delivers all the functionality of Polarion^® REVIEWER™ on the Apple iPhone^®. The app is free on the Apple App Store for iPhone. At least one low-cost Polarion REVIEWER license must be present on the Polarion Server in order to use the app.
• Attachment Content Search: The content of attachments is now indexed so users can find attachments via their content type: PDF, WORD, EXCEL, RTF, TXT, etc.
• Browser Support: New versions of Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer are supported. See the Supported Browsers section of the README.html file bundled in your distribution.
• OS Support: Polarion now supports Microsoft Windows Server 2012, RHEL 6, Debian 6 and Ubuntu 12. See the Installation Guide (PDF) document bundled with your distribution for the latest system requirements and supported operating systems.

Version 2012 SR3

This is Service Release #3 for version 2012. It delivers ongoing bug-fixes, usability and other improvements, plus some new features and significant enhancements. Note: you may find this article on the Polarion blog more useful: Polarion 2012 SR3 - New and Noteworthy.

• Import from Microsoft Excel^®. You can now import Excel Sheets that contain not only test cases, but which have additional rows containing discrete test steps.
• Execute Tests with Test Steps off-line. When you describe the steps of your manual tests as trackable 鈥淭est Steps鈥� you can now export test cases that have such Test Steps associated with them to Excel for offline execution. When testers execute the steps offline, they can record the result of each test step as well as the overall result of each test case in the Excel workbook.
• Customize Test Steps table. New Test Steps topic in Testing administration enables administrators to customize the table of Test Steps rendered in the Test Steps field of Test Case type Work Items. Add columns to track any needed information with each Test Step defined. Change default column heading labels to use teams' own terminology.
• OLE Objects. Possibility to import Microsoft Word documents that contain OLE Objects. Configure Polarion to automatically convert OLE objects into PNG images.
• Import Multi-valued Fields. When importing Work Items from Excel spreadsheets, users can now configure the import to map multiple field values in Excel cells to Polarion multi-valued enumeration fields.
• New Custom Field Types. Several new field types are introduced for use when configuring custom fields in projects: user, timepoint, project, build, and test run.
• Rich Text Toolbar Always Visible. When editing a Work Item's description, the field's toolbar now remains static and no longer scrolls out of view when the field content increases.
• Custom Logo for Each Polarion Instance. In multi-instance setups, visually differentiate each Polarion server instance by specifying the URL to an image file in a new system property: com.polarion.logoURL. The specified image replaces the Polarion logo in the Navigation panel on the configured server.
• Internet Explorer Compatibility Mode Check. Although Polarion will allow users to run the latest Microsoft Internet Explorer, they should not use the so-called "compatibility". If run in this mode, a warning appears on the login page.
• Restructure LiveDocs Using Tree Table. Although the most common way to restructure content of a Document is to use the Document Editor, users now have the option to use new operations in the Tree Table view of the Document to move content around.
• Saved Configurations for the Work Items Table. Users can define, save, and reuse multiple Work Items table configurations, and can easily switch between different table layout and content without having to configure the columns for each different view they want.
• PDF Export for LiveDoc Comparison View. When a user compares 2 LiveDoc documents, the Document view of the comparison result can now be exported to a PDF file. PDF header/footer customization support now recognizes 2 additional parameters:
  • documentName1 – name of first compared Document
  • documentName2 – name of second compared Document
• Browser Support. Service Release 3 adds support for Firefox 17.

Version 2012 SR2

This is Service Release #2 for version 2012. It delivers ongoing bug-fixes, usability and other improvements, plus some new features and significant enhancements. Note: you may find this article on the Polarion blog more useful: Polarion 2012 SR2 - New and Noteworthy.

• Manual planning of Test Runs. You can now plan Test Runs by manually selecting the test cases to execute. The action 鈥淪elect test cases鈥�is available to Test Runs created from Test Run templates having planning type: Manual, By Query on Create, or From LiveDoc on Create.
• Easy Linking: Click the new quick-link icon of Work Items in LiveDocs or the Tracker in one browser window, go to another window, select the target there, and the link is established.
• Graphical Query Builder: You no longer need to type queries in Polarion query language (although you still can if you really want to). Nor do you need to open a separate Query Builder dialog to build queries visually. Now you can specify the search criteria quickly and easily just with few clicks directly in the various Work Item views, as well as dialogs in which you query for Work Items. This feature is disabled by default in the SR2 update but can be enabled by adding the following property to the system properties file polarion.properties: com.polarion.ui.useQueryBubblePanel=true.
• Easy portal searching: Press Shift+Enter to search the entire portal when searching in left Navigation panel. (Pressing just Enter searches just the current project, as before.)
• Hide and Restore Navigation: You can easily hide the left side navigator panel by clicking a new closer icon. (A click on the left edge of the screen restores the panel to view.)
• Create Work Item menu: The Create Work item menu button in the Table view of Work Items now lists all the configured Work Item types, including the two types shown as icons on the toolbar.
• "Compact" UI Mode: There is now an option to display the UI in "compact" mode which renders content with less surrounding white space. Available from the View menu of Navigation.
• Work Item Text Wrapping: You can enable text wrap to adjust the Work Item Table's row height to display all the content. Right-click the table header and select Wrap Text on the menu to toggle text wrapping on or off.
• Tile Work Item Table panes: There is now an option to tile the table and Work Item detail panes horizontally to display them side by side. Useful for widescreen monitors.
• Document History includes Baselines: Baselines are displayed in a Document鈥檚 history view so you can easily compare the Document between baselines. Baselines that were added to the revisions list, and in which the Document was not changed in revision, are now identified by use of Italic font style.
• Language Configuration: The release adds a graphical user interface to the Portal > Languages administration page to make configuring support for different languages easier.
• Table rows in Rich-test fields: a new quick action makes it more convenient to add a new row to a table contained in a rich-text field in Work Items... Description, for example..
• Hyperlinks open Repository Browser: When the hyperlinks point to a Subversion resource, it allows users to open Polarion鈥檚 Repository Browser instead of opening the native SVN repository.
• Firefox Support: the release adds support for Firefox 15.
• {includeForm} improves over #includeMacros: You can now use the {includeForm} macro in wiki pages and the included macros are loaded immediately. No need to use #includeMacros any longer. This prevents an issue with the macros not loading after server start-up.
• Connect to SQL Layer with ODBC: It is now possible to connect to Polarion鈥檚 SQL layer both with JDBC and ODBC drivers. For the ODBC connection you can use the Postgres SQL ODBC drivers. You should configure the Postgress server port via property com.polarion.platform.sql.pgPort. See the SDK documentation for details.
• PDF Export Improvements:
  • The formatting styles applied to Polarion LiveDocs and Wiki pages exported to PDF have been improved so the results look better.
  • Linked work items are nicely rendered when a LiveDoc is exported into PDF.
• TestWebService is fully documented: The SDK Web Services documentation now describes the test management features exposed by TestWebService to the full extent.
• SVN Access and deleted projects: When you delete a project, the project-specific settings are also deleted from the Subversion repository's access control file (鈥渁ccess file鈥�. This is an important improvement, because when the settings were kept, as previously, Polarion would not allow you to create a new project in the same location.
• Support for non-Latin Alphabets: The release incorporates a number of improvements for people using languages with non-Latin based alphabets.
  • Site Searching: Searching by entering Japanese or Chinese characters does not automatically start the search action.
  • Commenting in Documents: The comment marker in a Polarion LiveDoc is placed just after the selected Japanese, Chinese or any other non-Latin character. However, your administrator must configure Polarion to enable this behavior by adding the following property to the system properties file polarion.properties: com.polarion.placeCommentsDirectly=true.
  • History Compare: The release adds support for Document comparison with languages that do not separate words by spaces. (Applies not only for Documents, but also for Work Items, notifications, baselines, etc.) However, your administrator must configure Polarion to enable this behavior by adding the following property to the system properties file polarion.properties: com.polarion.customWordSpacingCharacters=\u3000\u3001\u3002\uff08\uff09\uff0c\uff0e\uff61\uff64.

Version 2012 SR1

This is Service Release #1 for version 2012. It delivers ongoing bug-fixes, usability and other improvements, plus some new features and significant enhancements:

• Test Steps feature. When enabled (optional), then for manual/formal testing, a table of Test Steps can be added to Test Case descriptions. The table is rendered in a test execution widget during test runs. Testers can record results of each test step, marking steps Passed, Failed, or Blocked, in addition to marking the overall result for the Test Case. Execution time for each Test Case is now part of test records.
• Translation feature for Work Items. Optionally enable multiple human language translations for Work Item titles and descriptions. Create custom fields to store translation texts to support any number of language translations. Configure different languages for different Work Item types. When Work Items are contained in LiveDoc documents, users can switch to view them in their preferred language, and print or export to PDF in the preferred language.
• Remote connection to SQL database layer. Connect from a remote client when Polarion is running. New documentation for the database layer is now part of the SDK and includes schema diagrams, remote connection how-to, SQL query examples and more.
• Browser support: Google Chrome and Firefox 12. Internet Explorer 8 is now supported in native mode (i.e., not in IE7 compatibility mode).
• Handling of concurrent changes in LiveDoc documents is significantly improved. Most concurrent modifications are automatically and safely merged. Any which cannot be safely merged are tracked and reported to users, who can review conflicting changes and decide what action to take to resolve them.
• Work Item editor shows workflow transitions that are not allowed, with information about what is needed to enable blocked transitions.
• You can now export results of Document comparisons to PDF.
• It is now possible to query Work items by comment author.
• Comments field can be set as a required field, requiring users to add a new comment before saving changes to Work Items.

Version 2012

This is a major release with significant new features, improvements, and enhancements as well as issue fixes. Polarion Software practices Agile development. Some features have been introduced to customers in service releases and improved throughout the version 2012 development cycle. The aggregation of these features, plus some new never before released features comprise the version 2012 release.

A list of specific tracker issues addressed in this release is provided in the Resolved Work Items file, bundled in the same folder as this file. This is mainly for the benefit of current customers who are interested in knowing if specific issues have been resolved in the release.

New Features

Quality Assurance and Test Management

• New technology supporting test specification, planning, execution and reporting
• Test specification and test execution are separated in the data model
• Automated test cases as "first class citizens"
• Out-of-box test automation support and integration with any 3rd party test automation tool that can export test results to xUnit format
• Offline testing support via round-trip for Microsoft Excel®

Polarion Live-Branch™

• Exclusive new technology for managing document variants is introduced.
• Maintain a single "master" Document for shared specifications; reference master artifacts in new Documents "branched" from the master.
• Maintain variant-specific Work Items in branched Documents.
• "Freeze" a variant Document at a specific revision of the master. Changes in master's Work Items will not propagate to the branched Document.
• Unfreeze a branched Document to make the branch "live" and propagate current and subsequent changes in master's Work Items to referenced items in the branched Document.
• Freeze individual referenced Work Items in a branched Document at a specific revision of the item. Unfreeze to propagate current and all subsequent changes in the master item to the referenced item.

Polarion Time-Machine™ Navigable Baselines

• New Baselines created with this version (and later) can be browsed in the same way as the current project state.
• All artifacts (Documents, wiki pages, Work Items, Test Runs, etc.) appear in the state they were at the time the Baseline was captured.
• Search queries only operate on and return data from the Baseline.
• Reports reflect the state of the project at the time the Baseline was captured.

Integration with External Repositories

It's now easy to use Polarion to manage project tasks and content, and automate project workflow while using existing Subversion and/or Git repositories to manage source code.

• Configure Polarion to work with external Subversion and Git repositories in new administration topic Repositories.
• Easily create traceability links in Polarion by simply citing a Work Item ID in commit messages of configured external repositories.
• Optional manual linking of any Polarion Work Item to an external repository revision.

Import and Round-trip for Excel^®

In version 2011 we introduced import and round-trip for Microsoft Word. Now we have similar functionality for Microsoft Excel:

• Create new Work Items (test cases, etc.) by importing Excel workbooks.
• Rule-based import, with customizable rules and import configurations that can be reused when importing similar workbooks.
• Easy graphical Excel column - to - Work Item field mapping during import.
• Round-trip: export Test Cases to Excel, log test results externally, re-import to Polarion automatically creating traceable test records and auto-assigned defect artifacts for failed tests.

Social Media-like Features

This release introduces several features inspired by currently-popular social media platforms.

• Activity Stream: Render a stream of portal activities in any wiki page with new {activity-stream} macro.
• Limit streamed activity to just the type(s) that are most interesting or useful for a given context. Keep abreast of activity without having to go read email notifications.
• New "My Polarion" personal dashboard page for every user. User-customizable Work Item information and activity stream to facilitate current work situations.
• Personal avatar images. Upload directly to user profile, or automatically pull an image from gravatar.com that is associated with the email in the user profile.

Embedded SQL Database Layer

This back-end addition does not replace the primary data storage and management still handled by the Subversion repository. Rather, it creates and maintains a read-only index of information in the primary storage, which can be queried to facilitate certain kinds of reporting (Traceability reports, for example) for which the Lucene query engine is ill suited. For example, an outer-join query isn't practical with Lucene, but it quite simple with SQL.

• Embedded SQL database maintains index of Work Item data and historical information. Database is read-only.
• New parameter 'sqlQuery' is introduced for the {workitems} macro which can take almost any standard SQL query as its argument.
• New Work Item query function TEST_RECORDS, usable in the query bar in Work Item views, accesses the SQL layer, and enables users to search Work Items according to test records.

Fresh, Easy-to-Use Web Interface

This release introduces a major new look-and-feel, inspired by social media platforms, and developed in close contact with current users.

• More screen real estate devoted to data presentation, with infrequently-needed information out of the way, but still quickly accessible.
• Multiple Navigation views: Tools and Topics. New Tools view has all the information and links contained in the Header and Footer areas of previous versions.
• User-adjustable Navigation: user's project-level Favorite shortcuts appear first in Navigation. Default Favorites are provided by project templates. Users can easily remove defaults and add current context as a Favorite shortcut. (Portal-level User Shortcuts are still present and usable in the Topics section.)
• Collapsible Topics section: the feature topics enabled by license and configuration appear in a new section beneath user Favorites, and can be expanded or collapsed.
• Integration of new UI libraries and update to newer web standards versions (CSS, XHTML, etc.) for compatibility and improved performance in browsers.

New Documentation

There is a new PDF manual for customers who want to use Polarion with multiple native or external repositories: Polarion Multi-repository Setup Guide. The main focus is on configuring multiple concurrently-running instances of the Polarion server. Because this configuration is needed by relatively few Polarion users, the information in this guide was removed from the existing installation guide documentation for Windows and Linux. These guides now focus on installing and configuring a single instance of the Polarion server for production use.

Another PDF manual, the Polarion Trial Guide, supports trial downloaders who want to get a trial installation up and running quickly. Again, the information has been separated from the existing installation guide documentation, making those more approachable and focused on production installation and configuration.

Both new documents can be downloaded from any Polarion product download page, or the Documents resource page.

Significant Improvements and Enhancements

• Possibility to delete a Work Item
• Bulk-copy multiple Work Items in a single operation
• Link Work Items using an opposite role
• Cut/copy Work Items in the Document Editor via context menu
• Restrict a list of approvers by some role
• Bulk-edit large number of Work Items at once, in several "chunks"
• Preserve project history when moving a project (to archive, for example)
• Import-from-Word Field Extractor: "Match style"
• Ability to include the Work Item title in a Work Report
• Deprecated enumeration values - keep all values, but hide some in drop down lists
• More operations (not just sum) for calculated fields
• Option to save edited Work Item without confirmation
• Support for Mozilla Firefox versions 9-11
• Update of bundled Java and Subversion to latest released version.

Version 2011 SR3

This is Service Release #3 for version 2011. The release delivers the following new features and enhancements:

• Support for Firefox version 8.
• Possibility to restrict Work Item approvers according to user role. New roles introduced: global role approver, and project role project_approver.
• Document related:
  • New Document sidebar pane: Document Outline. Renders a hierarchical view of the heading structure of a Document.
  • Possibility to Cut or Copy an entire Work Item via new items on the icon menu of each Work Item in the Documents.
• Work Item related:
  • Possibility to Bulk Edit more than 100 items without reformulating a query. If a query retrieves more than 100 items, users can process them in multiple "chunks" of (max.) 100 until all items selected by the query are processed. There is no need to reformulate the original query.
  • Bulk copy: The Duplicate operation in the tracker now works with multiple selected Work Items, enabling duplication of multiple selected Work Items in a single operation.
  • New Delete action for Work Items in the Tracker (Work Items > Table > Editor pane > Actions > Delete). Bulk Edit is supported for the action. Users must have permissions allowing the action in the scope. See new Help topic: Deleting Work Items for best practices suggestions.
  • Possibility to import images contained in Excel worksheets. Images in supported formats appear in Work Items. Images in unsupported formats are imported as Work Item attachments.
• Project related:
  • Possibility to move projects and preserve their history to support archival of completed projects under some location in the repository.

The release also contains ongoing bug fixes and improvements in usability, stability, and performance areas.

TOP ^

Version 2011 SR2

This is Service Release #2 for version 2011. The release delivers the following new features:

• Import from Microsoft Excel: Users can now import Excel workbooks containing requirements, test cases, or other types of artifacts, creating an equivalent Work Item in Polarion for each artifact defined in the Excel document. Users can optionally import artifacts as tracker-based Work Items, or Document-based Work Items. Users can define custom import rules and save them as Import Configurations for reuse with similar Excel documents on subsequent imports.
• Round-trip for Microsoft Excel: Polarion users can export Work Items to an Excel workbook, controlling which Work Item fields are included in the export, and whether or not they are locked in Excel. There is also an option to allow the Excel user to modify the structural hierarchy of Work Items. External users can edit the allowed content, after which the modified workbook can be imported back into Polarion, updating the Work Items in the portal from the changes in the Excel document.
• Interactive Report Pages: A new set of page parameter macros enables page authors to easily create visual fields that let page users input different values and vary the information reported on the page. For example, a page might show a burn-down chart for a sprint. By using the new macros, the author can enable page users to select which sprint. It is also possible to allow page users to make a persistent change in the default value of a page parameter. For details, see the Wiki Syntax Help for the {parameter} and related macros, and the Help topic Creating Interactive Report Pages (User Guide > Using the Wiki > Introduction to the Wiki > Adding Dynamic Content to Wiki Pages).
• New Browser Support: The release delivers support for Mozilla Firefox version 5 and version 6. The latest 6.x version is recommended.

The 2011-SR2 release also delivers some significant improvements or enhancements to existing functionality:

• Improved stability of the Document Editor.
• Unlimited heading levels in Documents, configurable by a new system property, with 9 levels supported by default.
• Possibility to sort the Work Items Table on Outline Number (when Work Items are Document-based).
• Custom variables in Wiki pages can be referenced in the PDF header/footer configuration (Administration: Wiki: Export) providing the possibility to conditionally display some value(s) in the header/footer of pages exported to PDF.
• Improved handling of 鈥渞angy error鈥�in Document Editor (most commonly seen when using Internet Explorer). New option for 1-click save and reload of the Document.

The release also contains ongoing bug fixes and improvements in usability, stability, and performance areas.

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Version 2011 SR1

This is Service Release #1 for version 2011. It delivers ongoing bug-fixes, usability and other improvements, plus some new features and significant enhancements:

• Browser support: Firefox 4 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 are now supported.
• Single Sign-on (SSO): Polarion recognizes when users' login credentials are provided in the HTTP request header and passes the user name (and optionally some predefined password) to Apache, without showing the user interface for authentication. See Help: Administrator's Guide: Advanced Administration: Configuring Single Sign-on (SSO).
• External repository revision linking: Polarion can now be optionally configured to support linking of revisions in external SVN and Git repositories to Polarion Work Items. Any Work Item ID(s) cited in external repository commit messages will auto-link the revision to the item(s) in Polarion. The default SVN repository is always used to track Polarion artifacts (Work Items, Documents, pages, etc.). If this repository is used to manage some source code, it can be used in conjunction with external repositories in the configuration. A new topic Repositories is provided in project and Repository administration where you can configure external repositories.
• New SDK documentation servlet: The SDK Javadoc is fully browsable on the Polarion server without requiring a login. Simply access the URL. For example: http://localhost/polarion/sdk/doc/javadoc/index.html
• Fix erroneous auto-linked revisions: if a commit message contains the ID of a Work Item, the revision is automatically linked to the item. In the past, if the wrong ID was accidentally specified in a commit message, there was no way to remove the incorrect revision link from the Work Item. It is now possible to remove an auto-linked revision from the table in the Linked Revisions section of the Work Item detail form (Work Items, Table tab).
• Added support for Document move/rename: Documents can be renamed or moved to a different space within the same project. Links to derived Documents are automatically updated. If the user invoking rename doesn't have permission to modify derived Documents, the action fails with an appropriate message.
• Page-break control in PDF export: You can now explicitly specify where a page break should occur in PDF output of Documents and Wiki pages exported to PDF. This has previously been possible in Wiki pages using the {pagebreak} macro. A GUI control for inserting a page break is now provided in the Document Editor toolbar. Page-breaking is also supported in Word Import and Work Round-trip.
• Improved Custom Field modification: If the type of a custom field is changed, there is now consistent mapping and conversion of values and notification in the UI of any incompatible value(s) remaining in a Work Item. Also, clearing of caches after custom field type change is now automatic.

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Version 2011

This is a major release with significant new features, improvements, and enhancements as well as bug fixes. The major new items are described below.

A list of specific tracker issues addressed in this release is provided in the Resolved Work Items file, bundled in the same folder as this file. This is mainly for the benefit of current customers who are interested in knowing if specific issues have been resolved in the release.

New Features

Live Documents

A whole new implementation of Polarion's LiveDoc_SM technology, these new online documents have an easy word processor-like user interface, but can contain one or more types of Work Items. Live Documents replace the Modules and LiveDoc features of previous versions. (These can still be used if they exist in projects, but migration to Live Documents is recommended.)

Importer for Microsoft Office Word^®

Live Documents may be created by importing Word documents in .docx format. During import, you can create rules for recognizing Work Items contained in document content. Recognition can be based on a wide variety of factors including keywords in document text, styles in the text, and regular expressions. Rules can be saved and reused when importing other Word documents with similar characteristics.

Round-trip for Microsoft Office Word^®

Live Documents may be exported to Word's .docx format for sharing or offline work. The level of change allowed in the exported document can be set during the export operation. Changes in the exported document may be limited to comments only, or comments and field value changes, or full change capability may be allowed.

Changed Word documents may be re-imported to the portal via the Word Round-trip Import Changes feature. The import may be restricted to comments only.

Merged Navigation

As Polarion Documents are in essence a special type of Wiki page, the former Wiki topic in Navigation is renamed Documents and Wiki. Documents and Wiki pages co-exist in spaces and are differentiated by icons in the Navigation pane.

Dynamic Content

Due to their Wiki page ancestry, Live Documents support many of the same macros as Wiki pages, enabling embedding of dynamically rendered tracker, user, project, and other data in Live Documents. Access point: Document Editor toolbar: Insert > Wiki Content.

New Administration Features

• Graphical User Interfaces: Most Administration topics now have graphical user interfaces and no longer require knowledge of XML in order to configure and customize Polarion. There are a few exceptions for less common customizations... notification email layouts and building, for example. But the most commonly requested Administration topics now have a GUI.
• Permissions Management: New Administration topic makes it much easier to configure role-based user permissions. Administration > User Management > Permissions Management.
• Access Management: New Administration topic provides capability for administrators to control access to the Subversion access file. The feature is essentially a graphical front end for the SVN access file. Administration > User Management > Access Management.
• License Management: New repository-scope Administration topic "License" provides a front end to the users file enabling administrators to specify license assignments from within the portal, as well as view current license usage.

Test Case Management Support

A new project template QA Project is provided. Projects instantiated on this template have a special Testing space containing a default Test Case Specification Document for defining test cases, and templates for creating test runs which track test case execution, and for which history is tracked. Specially configured workflow automatically creates linked Defect type Work Items when a test case fails to pass during execution of the test. To see the features, create a sandbox project and select the QA Project template during the project creation process.

There is extended parameterization of the Work Item form to enable access to the History tab of a Work Item or pre-populate some fields of the Work Item editor directly via a URL. For example:

http://portal.your.com/polarion/#/project/MyProj1/workitems?query=%28type:userstory%20AND%20CUSTOM_FIELDS:backlog%29%20AND%20NOT%20status:%28closed%20OR%20verified-done%20OR%20verified-rejected%29%20&form_field_testRun=X

Customizable Login Page

The portal login page can now be customized via simple HTML/CSS edits. An image such as a corporate logo can be added beside the Polarion logo, and the color of the background can be set to any color hex value — #FFFFFF for example. (You asked for it!)

Significant Enhancements

Multi-repositories on Multiple Hosts

Previously, slave instances of Polarion had to run on the same physical machine as the Master instance. This limitation is removed, but the following caveats should be noted:

• Limited to LAN — assumes high speed and absence of firewalls and similar restrictions
• Requires an additional port open for inter-Polarion communication
• Master cannot start Slaves, and cannot request reindex. It can send a shut-down request.
• Every Polarion instance (slave or master, local or LAN) requires its own hostname (existing limitation)
• A remote (LAN) Slave can only be alone on a machine, or live on Master's machine (where also other Slaves may exist)
• Master and all his Slaves must run the same build ID
• Only one Master in the network

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Version 2010 SR2

This is Service Release #2 for version 2010. In addition to ongoing bug-fixes, usability and other improvements, the release delivers the following significant enhancements:

• Possibility to require user to enter a password when executing workflow action or approving a Work Item. The goal is not security, but rather an attention flag for the user that the action represents a sign-off and that it is important. The following system properties are introduced:
  • secure.actions - takes a list of action IDs, and the specified actions will trigger a password dialog.
  • secure.approvals - false by default. If true, end users are prompted for password when executing an approval.
  • secure.dialog.title - Stores the title of the password dialog.
  • secure.dialog.message - Stores the message presented in the password dialog displayed in response to a secure action or approval.
• Bundled Maven is updated to version 2.0.11
• New API to query permissions via Web Services. See hasPermission, hasCurrentUserPermission, and canCreateInstances in the Javadoc.
• Possibility to move Work Items within a Module structure via Web Services.

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Version 2010 SR1

This is Service Release #1 for version 2010. In addition to ongoing bug-fixes, usability and other improvements, the release delivers the following new features:

Polarion Installed as a Windows Service

Polarion server is now installed as a Windows service by default on Windows^® systems. This is optional, controlled by a checkbox option in the Windows installer program. A new script $POLARION_HOME$\polarion\service.bat can be used to install or uninstall the Polarion service. Run service.bat -install or service.bat -uninstall.

The installer creates and configures shortcuts for starting and stopping the server. The command line call for starting the server is different from that used to start the server as a console application and parameters from polarion.ini (memory settings etc.) are not taken into account when Polarion is started as a service. Please see the Installation Guide for Windows PDF document (bundled in the distribution) for more details.

Multiple Link Roles in Work Item Trees

In the Work Items topic in the Table view (when the Tree mode is selected) and in Multi Edit view (in Tree mode when a single work item type is selected in Navigation), it is now possible to specify multiple roles for the query. The dropdown list for Role contains checkboxes enabling selection of one or more link roles.

The default role selection is also changed from parent to all. IMPORTANT: This changes the behavior of the view when accessed by URLs such as /project/playground/workitems/requirement?resolution=unresolved&table_mode=tree&tab=multiedit. Such URLs used to display the tree using the parent link role... now it displays the tree using all roles. If you have shortcuts to such views, their behavior will be different now. You can change these shortcuts back to the original behavior with these steps:

1. Invoke the shortcut.
2. Modify the Role setting in the Search bar, selecting the role you originally had.
3. Save the shortcut with the same name.

(NOTE: Work Item Trees are a feature of Polarion ALM and Polarion Requirements.)

New "Load All" action for Table view

This action appears as a link in the footer area of the Table view (Work Items topic). In cases where not all work items found by a query are loaded into the work items table, this action will load all found items up to a maximum limit specified in the system configuration.

A new configuration option loadAllLimit is added to polarion.properties. The value specified controls the maximum number of work items that any user may load in a work items table. The default value is 3000.

Update Scripts Check License Validity

Scripts that update an existing installation to a new release now check the validity of the license for the version being installed and display a message if the license is not compatible. (Installation is halted.)

Create Work Records via Web Services

A new method is added to the Web Services API which enables creation of work records, including comments and type, via web services.

com.polarion.alm.ws.client.tracker.TrackerWebService.createWorkRecordWithTypeAndComment(String, User, Date, EnumOptionId, String, String)

See the Javadoc for more information.

Polarion Waits if Repository Not Available

Polarion server now waits and rechecks connection every 10 seconds if repository (repositories) is not available when the server starts up. The server can be shut down normally while in the waiting state. This also means it is possible to restart Apache Service without restarting the Polarion server.

Updated Browser Support

• Mozilla Firefox version 3.6 is now supported.
• Mozilla Firefox version 2.0 support is discontinued.

Updated Bundled Component Versions (Windows installer)

• Bundled Apache is now version 2.2.15 (previously 2.2.13).
• Bundled Subversion is now version 1.6.6 (previously 1.6.5).
• Bundled Java is now version 1.6.0_19 (previously 1.6.0_16).

Improved multi.job Configurability

Previously undocumented multi.job (a job that can spawn other jobs) has some extended configurability. See Help, Administrator's Guide: System Maintenance: Topics: Creating Scheduled Jobs: Spawning Multiple Jobs.

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Version 2010

This is a major release with significant new features, improvements, and enhancements as well as bug fixes. The major new items are described below.

A list of specific tracker issues addressed in this release is provided in the Resolved Work Items file, bundled in the same folder as this file. This is mainly for the benefit of current customers who are interested in knowing if specific issues have been resolved in the release.

New Features

Improved Navigation

The first thing you'll notice is the simplified navigation. A single Navigation pane provides all resources and shortcuts for a project or repository. New Open button and dialog, with Windows 7 style Favorites, make it quicker and easier to open the project, project group or repository you want to work with.

Even More Robust Modules

• Outline numbering: You can now optionally add automatic outline numbering to work items (e.g. Requirements). These appear both in the portal and in PDF exports.
• Multiple Module reuse: reuse multiple modules at once, establishing cross module links in the new modules. For example, you can manage a requirements specification module and system test module (with test cases) in one place, and reuse both of them at once when implementing some variant of the base specification. In the new modules the test cases will be linked to requirements.
• Move items within Modules: New buttons in the Designer view let you move an item before or after, or as the first or last child another item in the module structure.
• Bulk Move to Module: Now you can move work items from any module (or from normal storage) to another module. If you ever import work items from a Word document, you'll appreciate this capability.
• Export Home page revisions to PDF: Module revisions are in effect baselines. By rendering module work items on e.g the Module's Home page, you can export any revision of the page to PDF. (Revision export works for other wiki pages too.)
• Web Service API: Modules can now be operated using Web Service API

(NOTE: Modules are a feature of Polarion ALM and Polarion Requirements.)

Multiple Repositories

With a license for this Polarion ALM feature, you can have multiple Subversion repositories (including the possibility to update your current single-repo system to multi).

Rich Text Work Item Fields

• Rich text custom fields: This popular request is now fulfilled. You can create custom fields with the same rich text capabilities and the Description field. Great for translations of the work item Description and other text-intensive needs.
• Tables in rich text fields: Also by popular demand!  

New/Improved Configurations

• Read-only work item fields: Configure some work item fields as read only, depending also on the work item status. So you can mark fields like Title and Description as read only for e.g. approved, closed, verified statuses.
• Customizable email notifications: Include custom fields in the top section of notifications, hide some fields from appearing in notifications, limit sending of notifications by use role.
• Link role rules: Define which kind of link roles can exist between work items to ensure that users cannot create inappropriate relationships between linked work items.
• Time Points on project group: For example: if you have multiple projects that share the same release date (e.g. one for requirements, one for defects and changes), you can set a time points for the project group rather than repeating for individual projects.
• Custom icons for enumerations: A new GUI in the Enumeration Designer makes it easy to upload and select your own icon images for enumerations.

Wiki

• The Dashboard (Polarion ALM only) is now implemented as a Wiki page. New macros that show dashboard content can be used in any other wiki page to create other dashboards for a specific user role, domain, etc.
• API and Scripting: For Polarion ALM users, there's a new public Wiki API (it's read only in this release). Also, you can deploy your own services to the wiki velocity context.
• New macro {pages}: Query and list references to other Wiki pages, for example recently updated pages in a Wiki space.

And More!

• New and updated demo project and data
• Internet Explorer 8 fully supported
• Automated installer for Ubuntu available
• Unified location for log files -- polarion/data/logs
• Possibility to rotate log files and delete old log files to conserve disk space
• Possibility to have old project builds automatically deleted to conserve disk space
• Improved support for new users with additional information or help in tooltips everywhere

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Version 3.3.3

This was a maintenance release, planned in our iterative development process. No new features announced. The release was aimed at bug fixes, performance enhancements, and usability improvements.

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Version 3.3.2

This was a maintenance release, planned in our iterative development process. No new features announced. The release was aimed at bug fixes, performance enhancements, and usability improvements.

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Version 3.3.1

This was a maintenance release, planned in our iterative development process. No new features were announced. The release was aimed at bug fixes, performance enhancements, and usability improvements.

One improvement worth mentioning is rotation of log files to prevent overloading disk space.

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Version 3.3.0

This was a major release with new features and significant improvements as well as bug fixes and ongoing improvements.

New Features

• Rich Text Editor in Wiki
• Calculated fields, with values derived from aggregated values of other fields
• New project templates:
  • SCRUM Projects
  • Extreme Programming (XP)
  • Test Case Management
• Module work item structure comparison
• Move work items out of a Module
• Export work items to XML
• Hyperlinks to other work items in work item Description field
• New UI control to copy work item ID, ID + Title, or URL to clipboard

Significant Improvements/Enhancements

New LiveDoc Engine

The LiveDoc subsystem has been completely rewritten for this release, and now utilizes a different XML parser. Memory consumption is significantly reduced and processing is significantly faster and enables more and bigger Live Documents to be handled by Polarion.

Notifications

Greater control over who received notifications when. Information is integrated into Help topic Administrator's Guide: Configuring Notifications.

• Possibility to exclude targets for a specific event
• Possibility to specify field(s) for updated work item event, limiting notification to only changes in the specified field(s)
• Possibility to restrict notifications on work item status change event to specified beginning ending states
• Possibility to configure custom notification email subjects for different events

New events around approvals: workitem-approval-added, workitem-approval-removed, workitem-approval-changed

New notification targets:

• comment-thread-participant: Users that commented in thread discussion
• new-assignee: When assignee field is changed then only new assignees will be notified
• old-assignee: When assignee field is changed then only old assignees will be notified
• affected-approvees: When approval field is changed then only affected approvees (added, removed, changed state) will be notified.

Module Reuse with Derived Modules

In previous releases, reuse of modules was limited to simple duplication. Now it is also possible to create a derived copy with specified work item fields marked as derived (and therefore read-only). Changes in the derived fields of the source Module will be reflected in the equivalent fields in the new derived module.

Moving Projects

It is now possible to move projects from one location to another from within the Polarion portal. See new Administrator's Guide topic: Moving Projects.

Conflict Detection

Polarion now detects potential conflicting access to work items and wiki pages and notifies users.

Watched Items on Demand

Users with many watched items previously could experience slow performance in the user profile viewer/editor because all the watched items were loaded. Now the user form does not contain users' watched items, providing rather a button which will load the items into the work items Table view on demand.

Work Item Designer and Wiki Page Usability

• In Designer/Multi-Edit the last edited work item is still selected after save (exact cursor position is not kept)
• In Wiki there are 2 buttons: Save, which saves without closing the editor, and Save & Close
• Attachments are hidden by default on wiki pages. New attachments button shows the number of attachments and on click displays the Attachments portlet from which attachments can be accessed.
• New Backlinks button displays hidden by default Backlinks portlet which provided a hyperlinked list of other wiki pages that link to the currently viewed page.

At-a-glance status of child work items

In tree view mode, child work items that are resolved appear in strike through font. This can optionally be disabled with a new system property: disableTableIdDecoration.

Enhanced module work item query in wiki pages

It is now possible to reference an item root in wiki AND add a query AND be able to specify to filter all levels. For example:

{module-workitems:moduleName=Business Requirements|project=library|display=table|root=WI-57|expand=yes|query=status:open AND customfield:x}

Work Report and Time Reporting Enhancements

• Work Record locking date: Work Records on/before the configured date cannot be modified.
• Possibility to report negative time values for Work Records and other time fields (can be used to balance time reporting in next reporting period after Work Records are locked)
• New Comment and Type fields in Work Records, with administration option to make them required fields.
• New system property useDecimalHoursDurationFormat enables display and input of decimal time values (e.g. .50 instead of 1/2 h).

Project roles for "My Hats" feature

This feature (a.k.a. role-based or user-configurable user interface) now supports project-scope roles. E.g. project_developer, project_user

Improved Wiki page export

Wiki pages exported to PDF now have informational page headers and footers with project-specific header/footer content.

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Version 3.2.3

This was a maintenance release, planned in our iterative development process. No new features announced. The release was aimed at bug fixes, performance enhancements, and usability and other improvements.

Version 3.2.2

This was an internal non-public release. (You didn't miss anything!)

Version 3.2.1

This is a maintenance release, planned in our iterative development process. No new features are announced. The release is aimed at bug fixes, performance enhancements, and usability improvements.

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Version 3.2.0

A major release with some significant new features and continued performance and usability improvements, and bug fixing. The new/improved things in the release include:

• Significant new features in Requirements Management:
  • New Modules: containers for work items (mainly for Requirements) which ensure preservation of structure and sorting.
  • New Designer view in Modules facilitates creation of requirements trees.
  • New Module Library sample project which contains pre-fabricated modules with wiki content and work items, reusable in, and optionally linked from, other projects.
  • Possibility to reuse content from any Module in other Modules.
  • Wiki-based Home page for each Module.
  • Dedicated requirements management product, Polarion^® Requirements&trade> that provides an affordable solution for defining requirements, yet is fully integrated with the Polarion ALM platform enabling other parts of organizations to leverage requirements throughout the full lifecycle.
• Easily embed images in work item descriptions.
• Import MS Project Milestones to Polarion Time Points.
• Printing for the Multi Edit view's Tree mode
• Wiki features and improvements:
  • Extract wiki content into new work items.
  • "Sticky" Home page, customizable for every project and for the Repository. New "Home" topic leads to such pages.
  • "Sticky" Home page for Modules provides possibility of textual as well as data content for Modules.
  • Wiki pages can be of 2 different types: portal pages which are intended to be relatively static like a document, and content pages which are more like web pages and intended for collaborative work.
  • Expanded Wiki Syntax Help with description of all macros
  • More macros for easy embedding of tracker and system data in wiki pages
  • Improved wiki space index page
• Support for Subversion 1.5, Java 6 (runtime).
• New wiki-based Guided Tour for each Polarion product (appears by default in the Repository - Home topic)
• Optional on-the-fly creation of user accounts by new users. Disabled by default in this product, the feature enables new users to create a basic read-only user account on Polarion ALM systems. The feature can be enabled by the system administrator.

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Version 3.1.2

A regular maintenance release focused mainly on continued performance and usability improvements, and bug fixing. The new/improved things in the release include:

• Wiki available in free Community product. A limited version of the integrated Wiki is now available in the free Polarion ALM Community product. Basic content features are available. Advanced features such as macros and embedded queries are not available in the free Community product.
• Java 6 Support. While Sun Java 5 is still the recommended runtime version, if for some reason that version cannot be used (not available on target platform, serious performance problems are encountered, etc.), Sun Java 6 can be used. Note that OpenJDK 6 is not the same as Sun Java 6 and is still not officially supported.
• License usage. The portal footer now displays the type of license you are using when you are logged in. This is useful in situations where multiple license types are installed so that users and administrators can see which license is being used by a given user.
• Improvements to enumerations editor including a selector for icons which displays a dialog listing all images residing in the default icon location.
• Static list limit in combo boxes. To improve performance, a configurable limit of 10 is set on statically loaded values in combo-box (drop down) lists. When there are more allowed values for a given field, are loaded dynamically when user opens the combo drop down. The default limit of 10 values can be modified in a new property lazyAllowedValuesLoadLimit (root/polarion/configuration/polarion.proprties).
• Extended keyboard support. The following shortcuts are now implemented:
  • ALT+Q - focus work item query
  • ALT+E - edit button on all forms
  • CTRL+ENTER - save button on all forms
  • Focusing fields on Work Item form: CTRL+ALT+...
    • A - assignee
    • C - comments
    • D - description
    • E - initial estimate while creating, remaining estimate otherwise
    • G - categories
    • K,L - linked work items
    • N - time spent
    • P - time point
    • R - resolution
    • T - title, when in edit mode
    • V - severity
    • W - status (workflow)
    • Y - priority
  Shortcuts for Multi-edit view are unchanged. It is possible to disable all keyboard shortcuts (including those in Multi-edit) by setting JVM property -DdisableKeyboardShortcuts=true.

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Version 3.1.1

A regular maintenance release focused mainly on continued performance and usability improvements, and bug fixing. There are some new/improved things in the release that seem worth noting:

• Comment threads. Comments in work items can now have multiple threads to facilitate discussions on different topics related to the item. Each comment has an optional Title field.
• Work items of different types can be exported differently, with different fields etc. A the export XML schema now has a new workitem element which has a type attribute which can be used to specify export characteristics for a specific work item type.
• You can now print the Tree mode of the Multi Edit view to HTML (as other views) keeping the displayed tree structure.
• New license usage log. You can now check the usage licenses in a new log4j-licensing-TIMESTAMP.log log file.

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Version 3.1.0

A major release with significant new features, improvements, and enhancements. It probably should have been a 3.5 release, but by the time we pulled together the list of everything that's actually in the release, it was too late to change the version. So it's only 3.1, but we think you will find it well worth looking at and updating (if you are a current customer).

New Features

• New Enterprise SDK with open proprietary, Java™, and Web Services APIs, documentation, and examples. Can be downloaded on the Polarion ALM Enterprise download page Related Downloads section.
• New "Tree" mode in Multi-Edit, with quick create/edit of child and sibling items and fast navigation to linked items. Provides easy, document-like development of Requirements and other Work Item structures.
• Embed queries for work items or users in Wiki pages to show formatted, linked results right in the page. Also, a Wiki page can be displayed as Overview/Dashboard portlet.
• New 64-bit support for Linux platforms
• New online editing of XML configuration files. Make minor changes fast - no need to download, edit offline, and upload back to the server (although you still can).
• New Enumerations editor for graphical editing of many enumerations makes this configuration much easier to perform.
• New Polarion ALM Community - Free product with SVN-based version control and full-featured tracker.
• New Polarion ALM Pro - Replaces Polarion ALM Team with a more robust feature set that includes Wiki team collaboration.
• New licensing model for improved consistency and easier management of licenses. Note: 3.0.x license are not compatible – customers with current maintenance agreements may obtain an new license for version 3.1 without charge by contacting sales@polarion.com.

Significant Improvements/Enhancements

• Projects portlet filtering: show just your projects or only selected projects in the portlet
• Incremental search in combo-box lists is back, with an enhancement that enables you to enter a string in a popup text box after typing the 2nd character.
• Export of Matrix view to MS Excel.
• Tree view merged with Table view. Display mode is selectable in the Table view. Tree mode avoids duplicates and can apply the query filtering also on children
• New planning constraint option Start no earlier than provides possibility to control the start date of a Work Item in Live Plan, thereby enabling true time-boxing of work items.
• Overview filter for Timesheet view to show only items with work records
• Possibility to customize dashboard queries to show overdue items or items due at some specific time (e.g. today, tomorrow)
• Progress logging and console display for reindex with estimation of reindex time (after first reindex), and possibility to tell if the process is deadlocked.
• New possibility to configure which perspectives are available for each "Hat" via a new perspectives.xml configuration file.
• New possibility to limit access to "Hats" based on user role defined in repository + project.
• New $today$ constant enables queries for Work Items based on, or relative to the current date.
• New linkedWorkItems and backlinkedWorkItems query elements enable searching for linked Work Items according to link role.
• Possibility to use external Maven installation for building.
• New option to save the field selection in exported Work Item reports, and the report properties of Work Reports
• CSV and Excel Table exporters include work item backlinks (incoming links) and derived revision links (via commit message). Export of these linked items for Word and Excel template formats is optional.
• Tooltips are expanded to display information about icons and list items in the Work Item form.
• Possibility to convert work items stored in Live Document to XML storage in the portal repository.
• Fixed problem with Wiki authentication so that local data is not lost if connection times out and user must log in again.
• Fixed problem where portal URLs were truncated when clicked in some Microsoft email clients, resulting in inability to easily navigate from a notification to a work item in the portal.

The release also delivers significant performance improvements and improved usability in many areas too numerous to list.

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Version 3.0.3

A planned regular maintenance release. The focus is on bug fixes, general usability and performance, and Wiki improvements. (Wiki is only available to licensees for Polarion ALM Enterprise.)

At the request of customers, we now include a listing of all the work items fixed for the release in the distribution package. Please refer to the resolved_workitems.html file in the root folder of your installation (same folder as this file).

Version 3.0.2

A patch update to correct a defect found in version 3.0.1. Distributions can update other versions... see Update Options.

Issues Addressed

The main problem addressed involved adding Work Records in Work Items from Excel Live Documents. Such items were not shown in the portal, further work with the respective Work Item was blocked, an error occurred on opening the Time Sheet view, and report exports would no longer work.

Also fixed are known issues from v. 3.0.1 regarding printing and exporting of Tree Table, where only 1 level in a hierarchy was included in the output.

Update options

This update provides the following distributions:

• 3.0.2 Full Installation: Provides a clean installation of v. 3.0.2 or upgrades a v. 2.6.5 installation to v. 3.0.2.
• 3.0.0 Update: Updates an existing v. 3.0.0 installation to v. 3.0.2.
• 3.0.1 Patch: Updates an existing v. 3.0.1 installation to v. 3.0.2.

Updating older versions

If you have a Polarion version older than 2.6.5, you will need to upgrade to 2.6.5, and then to the latest 3.0.x. Please contact Polarion technical support for assistance with such upgrades.

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Version 3.0.1

A service/maintenance release for version 3.0.0. It is mainly a bug-fix release, but it also delivers one new feature.

New Feature: User Time-splitting between projects

This feature enables administrators or individual end users to configure a split of their regular working time between 2 or more projects. The configuration is available in each user's account profile. Administrators can access it in a user's account via the Administration - User Management topic. End users can access the configuration by clicking their user name in the portal header.

The configuration is taken into account by the Live Plan engine. By accounting for work time in this way, project planning accuracy in improved for the configured projects.

Update Options

Two distributions are provided for this release:

• 3.0.1 Full Installation: Provides a clean installation of v. 3.0.1 or upgrades a v. 2.6.5 installation.
• 3.0.1 Update: Updates a v. 3.0.0 installation to v. 3.0.1.

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Version 2.x