[news.eclipse.commercial] Spectrum Unveils Powerful Graphical Workflow a

["SpectrumSCM" <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Spectrum Unveils  Powerful Graphical Workflow and Process Management 
Features with its latest SpectrumSCM 2.4 release



Adds several productivity enhancements and features to manage distributed 
development environment





Atlanta - December 4th, 2006: Atlanta based Spectrum Software, Inc., a 
systems designer and developer of software productivity tools, announced 
today the availability of SpectrumSCM 2.4, the latest release of its 
flagship enterprise Source Configuration Management product.



SpectrumSCM is a flexible, process centric SCM tool that provides 
comprehensive source configuration and management for any 'e-Asset' from 
origination through delivery, maintenance, and support. SpectrumSCM? is the 
first truly integrated, platform independent, full-featured (Version 
Control, Issue/Defect Tracking, Change Management, Process 
Management/Control, Workflow, Release Management, Parallel Development) 
source configuration management system in the market place that provides 
full CM functionality with one fully integrated SCM system and not as a 
suite of bundled applications.



This latest version unveils a simple, yet powerful graphical workflow 
editor, to define your workflow and its business rules. With SpectrumSCM 
being a process-centric SCM tool, the graphical editor will make it very 
intuitive and easy to undertake solid process and business rule automation 
along with proper enforcement through out the application lifecycle. This 
will accordingly enable increased team productivity, reduces manual 
intervention and helps to improve quality by automating mandatory process 
steps (ex: task assignments, approvals, testing, deployment verification 
etc).



The graphical workflow editor is an enhancement and replacement for the 
existing Life-Cycle Administration screen. While you can still use the 
existing life cycle definition screens, its linear approach and XML 
definition of workflow and rules has been brought up into a user friendly, 
colorful, 2-dimensional representation. The graphical representation clearly 
shows what life-cycle states you have in your business process and what 
rules apply to the transitions between those states.



The graphical workflow editor will also encourage enterprises to implement 
and use SpectrumSCM more broadly across the enterprise. For example, for 
undertaking SCM for many non-software related project assets such as 
requirements documents, testing plans Change Control Board (CCB) activities, 
and records, etc. This new feature will also facilitate integration of 
external applications and actions with SpectrumSCM through the use of its 
callout mechanism. Callouts can be used to further automate your workflow 
business rules in your SDLC.  This can thus eliminate manual processes that 
can be time-consuming, administratively onerous, and potentially error 
prone.



"Enforcing mandatory process steps, meeting auditing and compliance goals, 
ensuring proper approvals, communicating and managing change across globally 
distributed teams is one of the biggest challenges that corporations face as 
they seek to deliver higher levels of quality with their product 
deliverables, " said S.Raghavan, Vice President, Spectrum Software, Inc. 
"Our goal is to enable users to fully utilize SpectrumSCM's strong process 
centric foundation in an easy efficient manner. This will now enable a 
SpectrumSCM user to visualize, define, adjust and immediately automate 
processes and workflows to enforce any project's lifecycle goals accurately. 
All of our customers can reap the benefit of their investment in 
SpectrumSCM, while inculcating the best CM practices, enterprise wide, 
across all project teams. The new enhancements further reflects our 
continued commitment to our customers, to keep SpectrumSCM as the best 
combination of value and functionality compared to any of the other peer 
process centric SCM tools in the market place." added Raghavan.



The new product version also includes a number of major enhancements 
designed to improve productivity, usability, facilitates branching 
comparisons & audits, traceability and status reporting to cater for 
business needs and to manage development assets throughout the application 
lifecycle.



 SpectrumSCM Version 2.4 feature list.



* Graphical Workflow Editor:  The key functionality points for the graphical 
workflow screen are:

- Graphical workflow editor enables teams to visualize, define, adjust and 
immediately automate processes and workflows.

- The capability to specify valid transition paths, so that normal 
assignment tasks are not complicated with unneeded options.

- The capability to automate transitions by specifying who is responsible 
for certain phases of the life-cycle.

- The capability to specify multiple transition paths, so that different 
types of Change Request can have differing life-cycle paths.

- The capability to register callouts so that external functions/business 
rules can be implemented. Very useful to define, automate and trigger 
controlled actions for Task/Issue/Change Request escalation based on 
business rules. Additionally enables quick remediation or reassignment to a 
different developer or user, keeping work moving and projects on schedule 
etc.

- Register custom e-mail triggers so that specific people or roles will 
receive mail about certain CR transitions but not others.

- Facilitates enforcement of approval process thus enabling smoother ways of 
managing internal and external Quality auditing and compliance needs. (i.e. 
ISO 9000, CMM, SOX, ITIL,  21  CFR Part 11 etc),





Generic/Branch Viewer:



This feature provides a graphical display of all the generics (i.e. 
branches, sandboxes, private work spaces etc) for a given project in a 
hierarchical view showing the branches evolution. You can place this screen 
side by side with your main screen, easily select the generic of interest, 
which will then accordingly refresh the contents of the main screen. This 
feature provides quick details of a branch, how it was formed etc, and 
actions to compare and audit the contents of two branches.



* Additional Enhancements include:



o Improved load source tree feature, allowing for preview and filtering

o Ability to multi-select files on the check-in  "New File" screen.

o Enhancement to report screens allowing for increased querying and sorting 
capability.

o Enhancement to existing reports with the inclusion of summary details at 
the bottom of each report.

o Addition of new and improved reports: CR File diff report (used very 
effectively during code review process) and File Status report.

o Enhancement for managing common, uncommon and recommon functionalities 
while resolving branching issues.

o Addition of Filelist, Description and improved module tabs on the main 
screen. The file-list in particular gives immediate access to the files 
edited under a specific Change Request, allowing edits to be continued 
easily.

o Add SCM diff and meta information management to command line functions.

o LDAP/Active Directory enhancements to handle larger environments with 
multiple Organizational Units.

o Improvements to release management screen

o Improvements to the dual editor which will now highlight inline 
differences in addition to the corresponding line differences. Very useful 
if you compare two long text lines to quickly note the difference.



Availability



SpectrumSCM, is available directly from Spectrum Software, Inc. For pricing, 
demos and sales information, please contact Spectrum sales representative 
(email: sales@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) 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 tightly integrated 
Process management and change management architecture, 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.  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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx or 
call 770.448.8662.