Track and Monitor the State of Software Development Projects Handily Using CA Application Lifecycle Conductor Reporting
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The document discusses the CA Application Lifecycle Conductor (CA ALC) and its reporting capabilities for monitoring software development projects. It covers the use of the built-in report designer to create interactive reports and dashboards, pulling data from various sources to provide comprehensive visibility into project milestones and delivery timelines. The presentation also includes technical details on report administration, data sources, and editing processes to achieve integrated views of the software development lifecycle.
Track and Monitor the State of Software Development Projects Handily Using CA Application Lifecycle Conductor Reporting
- 2. 2 © 2015 CA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.@CAWORLD #CAWORLD © 2015 CA. All rights reserved. All trademarks referenced herein belong to their respective companies. The content provided in this CA World 2015 presentation is intended for informational purposes only and does not form any type of warranty. The information provided by a CA partner and/or CA customer has not been reviewed for accuracy by CA. For Informational Purposes Only Terms of this Presentation
- 3. 3 © 2015 CA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.@CAWORLD #CAWORLD Abstract Learn how you can leverage the CA Application Lifecyle Conductor (CA ALC) built-in report designer to validate project milestone and delivery date projections by exposing tracked enterprise data. In this session you will learn how you can build interactivecustom reports and dashboards or extend existing ones to reveal data that highlights progress and identifies roadblocks within and among the toolset that comprises your application lifecycle. We will demonstrate how data can be pulled from the internal ALC database, as well as how data can be pulled directly from connected systems via ALC connectors and joined to create integrated views of work going on across the enterprise. By conclusion of this session, you will learn how to achieve "One View" of your Software Development Lifecycle from change inception to implementation through ALC reporting capabilities. Vaughn Marshall CA Technologies Director, Product Management
- 5. 5 © 2015 CA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.@CAWORLD #CAWORLD Report Administration § Reports are all run using the BIRT reporting engine § Report editing is a combination of 2 different activities: – Creating/Editing the BIRT report design file – Uploading to the DB against a report definition (either new or existing) § Actual editing of design files takes place in the “BIRT Report Design” perspective – Full documentation and tutorials on designing reports with BIRT are available online and in the help files distributed with designer
- 6. 6 © 2015 CA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.@CAWORLD #CAWORLD Report Data Sources § When coding design files, you can incorporate data from any number of sources – Flat text files, JDBC databases, XML files, Web Services, etc. § Data can be joined between 2 different data sources § For DB backed data sources, a typical source is a JDBC database connection – The problem is that connection details for the JDBC database are coded into the design file
- 7. 7 © 2015 CA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.@CAWORLD #CAWORLD The CA ALC Data Source § That means if you want to use reports generically across CA ALC instances, you have to update the connection details for all the reports § This problem is solved by using a custom ODA called the “CA ALC Data Source” – This data source connects report to the database via the server the client has configured – Connection details are not needed in report design files and they are portable across instances
- 8. 8 © 2015 CA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.@CAWORLD #CAWORLD Report Editing § Report editing generally consists of – Defining one or more Data Sources (CA ALC DataSource) – Defining one or more Data Sets (Queries) – Dragging and Dropping Fields from the Data Sets into the report page using various controls: § Labels, Lists, Tables, Charts, etc. – Formatting everything § Other advanced features offered: – Scripting reports, Master-Detail reports, Joining Data Sets, Interactivity
- 9. 9 © 2015 CA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.@CAWORLD #CAWORLD Report Interactivity § Interactivity is achieved using JavaScript functions in HTML elements in the report – Exposed functions in the report container can interact with ALC § Available Functions are: – openItemById: opens a detail Item view in the client – setSelectedObject: controls what context is displayed with right click – executeRule: executes a workflow when called (can be tied to an HTML link or button) – can be used to achieve drill down by running another report
- 10. 10 © 2015 CA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.@CAWORLD #CAWORLD Publishing Report Changes § Once you have a report design file created, you can upload it against a report definition back in the CA ALC Administrator perspective § To make new reports available outside the Admin, you must publish it against an Application
- 11. 11 © 2015 CA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.@CAWORLD #CAWORLD CA ALC Database Structure § CA ALC database tables for dynamic fields are not stored in a “flat” table structure – Good for app operations, not so good for intuitive reporting § To make this task easier, views are automatically maintained for each Item Type
- 12. 12 © 2015 CA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.@CAWORLD #CAWORLD CA ALC Database Structure § Three flavors of each view: – RPT_<ITEMTYPE>_<ID>: The item type with flattened fields for foreign keys NOT expanded and UTC dates left in UTC – RPT_<ITEMTYPE>_<ID>_EXP: Same as above but with foreign keys expanded and UTC dates translated – RPT_<ITEMTYPE>_<ID>_FULL: Same as above but with multi-value fields expanded so there are duplicate rows for each value in the MV table
- 13. 13 © 2015 CA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.@CAWORLD #CAWORLD CA ALC Database Structure § Other handy views: – SYS_RELATIONSHIP: “directionless” view of ITEM_RELATIONSHIP – SYS_RELATIONSHIP_TYPE: used to join above to expand the relationship type name with a directionless view – SYS_ORG_ENTRY: used to join to Person/Group fields without worrying about whether the entry is person or group