General Principles

Please note that this section refers to the EVStarter system as it is initially delivered and installed. Your administrator may have altered some of these steps, some of the fields, or added additional steps to the workflow, depending on the needs and requirements of your customizable system.

Getting Started

When you first install EVStarter, you will first sign on with the ADMIN user account. The sign on details will have been provided to you in an email from ExtraView Corporation. It is important that you do not use this account for normal operations, as it has special properties, and is primarily there to allow you to sign on for the first time, so that you can create your own user account.

  • First, alter the ADMIN account, by click on the ADMIN button on the navigation bar at the top of the screen, then click on the Operational Tasks tab, then click on the User Account Maintenance option. Next click on the Edit button by the ADMIN user. Enter a new Primary email address, and enter your Company Name in place of Superior Software Corporation. You should also change the password on this account. Click the Update User button.
  • Now create a new user ID for your own usage. Click on the Add button at the top of the screen

    Add Yourself as a User
  • Complete the fields. Note that you can select the Company name to be the same as the one you chose for the last operation by looking within the list. Fields displayed in red on the screen are required.

    Adding Basic User Information
  • You should give yourself the minimum privilege of being an Administrator by checking this option under the Security Information section on the screen
  • Click the Submit button
  • Sgn off with the button on the main navigation bar and sign on again with the user ID and password you just created

Add and Edit Screens

Click on the Add button on the main navigation bar at the top of the screen to add a new issue to your installation. Other key navigation functions are Home, Query, Report, Help and Sign Off. You access all these functions through buttons on the navigation bar at the top of the browser window.

The Add and Edit screens for EVStarter are divided into three business areas, Bugs, Customer Issues and Knowledge Base. Commonly accessed information is organized into areas of the Add and Edit screens where you can enter information such as Titles, Customer, Details, Comments, Related Issues and History.


Example of an Add Screen

Required Fields

All required fields are highlighted in red. Required fields may be added by your system administrator in order to suit your needs, and you may place as many required fields on your layout as deemed necessary. Fields may also be made required based upon values of other fields, by altering the field's attributes layout within the administration Design Center.

Parent-Child Relationships

Parent-child relationships allow you to take two fields and make the values visible in the second field (the child) dependent upon the selection the user makes in the first field (the parent). These relationships are maintained by the administrator in the Allowed Values utility. No allowed value relationships have been put in place in the system as delivered. Here are some typical examples of how you might want to configure allowed values in your system:

  • The Product field is implemented as the parent of the Module field. Each product has several modules, some of which are in common across the different products. Depending on which Product is selected from the drop down list, the list values of the Module field become available that have a relationship created with that particular Product
  • The Assigned To field value is dependent upon the selected value of the Module field. When you select a combination of the Product and Module, a user is automatically selected as the Assigned To for the issue
  • The Requested Release field and the Committed Release fields are dependent upon the Product field.

All of the valid combinations of allowed values are maintained by the ExtraView administrator.

Field Permissions and Visibility

These have been implemented for specific roles as broadly shown below

  • Administrators – have full access to all fields and all screens
  • Guests – have limited access to add new issues and run reports
  • Engineers – have full access to add and edit issues, and run reports, but no access to administration menus

As you can see, depending on what role the user currently is in, the screen and layouts can vastly differ.

User Roles

User Roles are the functional teams of your company or the external users that will be using ExtraView. User Roles are assigned specific privileges based on what you want each of them to be able to see and do. Example user roles may be:

  • Administrator
  • Engineer
  • Guest

Additional user roles may be created at any time, and individual users may belong to any number of user roles. When a user is given the privilege of belonging to more than one user role, they are automatically given a selection list in the navigation bar of the screen that shows their current role. A user may not change their role during the add / edit issue process, or during the process of preparing a report, as this change may significantly alter their permissions, leading to unpredictable behavior and results.

Users have the ability to change their role as long as they belong to more than one. This allows each user to wear a "different hat." By changing roles, they can perform different functions within a company. For example, a user may be both an Administrator and an Engineer.

ExtraView automatically adapts and presents the various screens and reports that have been customized for your current user role.

Home Page

This is typically the landing page when a user signs on. A user may place saved reports on this page so that they see an up-to-date picture of their important information each time they sign on or click on the Home button on the navigation bar.

Queries

Queries allow you to interrogate the database using filters. For example, you might want to get a list of Customer Issues that are Open, or a list of Bugs Assigned to a specific user. The combinations are endless and it is simple to create and execute any query.


Query Screen

Reports

Reports come in many types, such as column reports, matrix reports and charts. The user may set up a report, save it, and then run it at anytime in the future. In addition, they may place many types of reports on their Home Pages.


EVStarter Reports