The Plugin Manager for Polarion (ALM): Enhancing Efficiency and Insight 

By Intechcore GmbH and Garantis IT Solutions Ltd.

Intro­duction

In the fast-paced world of software development, efficient management of tools and exten­sions is crucial. Enter the Plugin Manager for Polarion (ALM)—a powerful solution designed to streamline the admin­is­tration and enhance the function­ality of Polarion Server. In this article, we delve into the key features, technology stack, and benefits of this innov­ative project.

Project Overview

Project Subject

The Plugin Manager for Polarion (ALM) focuses on managing exten­sions within the Polarion ecosystem. It aims to simplify the instal­lation, monitoring, and mainte­nance of these critical components.

Project Duration

From November to December 2023, a dedicated team of three—comprising a product owner and skilled developers—worked diligently to bring this project to life.

Motivation

The project emerged as an independent initiative following the successful extension project in 2023. Recog­nizing the need for a centralized management tool, the team embarked on creating the Plugin Manager.

System Require­ments and Adoption

To harness the benefits of the Plugin Manager, ensure the following prerequisites:

  • Polarion Version: Compatible with Polarion 22R2 and newer.
  • Operating Systems: Supported on both Windows and Linux platforms.

Technology Stack

The Plugin Manager leverages a robust technology stack, combining the strengths of various tools and frameworks:

  1. Java: The core language for devel­oping the Plugin Manager, Java ensures relia­bility, scala­bility, and cross-platform compatibility.
  2. Rest API: The Plugin Manager commu­ni­cates seamlessly with Polarion Server using RESTful APIs. This enables real-time data exchange and efficient extension management.
  3. Svelte: The frontend of the Plugin Manager is built using Svelte—a light­weight JavaScript framework. Its reactive nature and component-based archi­tecture enhance user experience.

Key Features

1. Visibility of Installed Extensions

The heart of the Plugin Manager lies in its ability to provide a detailed overview of all exten­sions installed on the Polarion Server. Admin­is­trators can easily track function­al­ities, assess compat­i­bility, and manage exten­sions from a centralized dashboard.

2. Extension Status Monitoring

Real-time updates are essential for smooth opera­tions. The Plugin Manager keeps admin­is­trators informed about the opera­tional status of each extension. Whether an extension is active or requires attention, the dashboard provides clear insights.

3. Compre­hensive System Infor­mation (Server)

Efficient server management begins with under­standing its health. The Plugin Manager displays vital system infor­mation, including memory usage, CPU load, and available disk space. Admins can proac­tively optimize server perfor­mance based on these metrics.

4. Detailed Polarion System Insights

For Polarion-specific details, the Plugin Manager offers deeper insights. From config­u­ration specifics to memory utilization within the Polarion environment, admin­is­trators gain valuable data. Additionally, monitoring log file sizes aids troubleshooting and ensures system stability.

Obstacles and Challenges

  1. Role Access Correc­tions: The team acknowl­edges the need for fine-tuning role-based access controls. Future updates will address this aspect to enhance security and usability.
  2. Polarion Log File Analyzer: While the Plugin Manager excels in system insights, adding a log file analyzer would further empower admin­is­trators in troubleshooting and optimization.

Advan­tages for Admin­is­trators and End-Users

  1. Time Savings: The Plugin Manager signif­i­cantly reduces the time spent analyzing slow system perfor­mance. Admin­is­trators can swiftly retrieve infor­mation about installed exten­sions and assess their availability.
  2. Visibility and Acces­si­bility: With a centralized dashboard, admin­is­trators gain a compre­hensive view of all exten­sions. This trans­parency ensures efficient management and informed decision-making.

Customer Feedback

One of our esteemed customers exclaimed, “What an amazing extension!” Their positive reaction validates the Plugin Manager’s impact and motivates us to continue refining and expanding its capabilities.

Conclusion

The Plugin Manager for Polarion (ALM) empowers organi­za­tions to maximize their investment in Polarion Server. By simpli­fying extension management and providing crucial system insights, it contributes to a more efficient and reliable ALM environment. As software landscapes evolve, tools like the Plugin Manager become indis­pensable for success.

What is the Purpose of Prelim­inary Project Assessment

The prelim­inary project assessment (PPA) is the process that is aimed at evalu­ating the technical require­ments and approx­i­mating the cost of a given project. Besides these estima­tions, PPA’s goal is to answer some of the key business questions that arise before the development even starts:

  • How can we ensure the timely delivery of an application?
  • What potential roadblocks can we encounter mid-development?
  • Can the project be scaled to meet increasing consumer demands?
  • What are some major steps towards deliv­ering a high-quality product?
  • How can we ensure that our product has a compet­itive edge?

Why PPA is Important?

First of all, the prelim­inary assessment allows you as a business owner to estimate the potential ROI (returns on invest­ments) and it gives you a clear under­standing of what can be done as well as at what cost.

Second, it provides trans­parency between a software development company and its client. Having a trans­parent process is crucial, for a variety of reasons, both strategic and in terms of publicity. It allows IT companies to spend less time on research, gives a clear customer focus and involves the customer in the development process.

The PPA also gives a software developer company the chance to commu­nicate require­ments related to additional deliv­er­ables and leverage the experience gained from similar projects.

How is PPA Structured

In most cases the PPA can be broken down into several stages, let’s move through each step by step, shall we.

  1. Initial contact. It is a starting point for practi­cally any project. You approach a IT firm with a request to assess a project.Probably, you’ll be asked to fill in an appli­cation form with very typical and straight­forward questions. This is where your input ends, and a software development company takes over.
  2. The first thing that a company will do is decide on the technology stack for your project. Or in simpler terms, what kind of tools, operating system, and related support programs are necessary to deliver this particular project.
  3. Then it’s time to draw a component diagram that will logically map out all technology parts.
  4. After the map is completed the cost of each component can be estimated, which is usually happens during an expert meeting of senior staff.

The next step is not is not always the same, because it assumes that either there are still some blanks in developer’s under­standing and additional infor­mation from the client is required or if a customer asks for a more accurate estimation.

  1. In both cases, the company presents its estima­tions to you and arranges a follow-up questions meeting, where two parties go back and forward trying to eliminate any remaining uncertainties.
  2. Finally, the detailed cost breakdown can be delivered.

Following Up on Project Assessment

Very rarely, the prelim­inary assessment stands on its own. Typically, in the industry of IT, it is followed by a detailed evalu­ation. The PPA gives client under­standing of how the project will be delivered, while the second assessment usually elabo­rates on it and takes a look at entire endeavor in higher resolution, so to speak.

The nice thing about prelim­inary assessment is that it is doesn’t really require a great resource input and can be given within a really short timeframe.

If your company is inter­ested in a project assessment, then you can contact us at Intechcore. We offer a completely free prelim­inary project assessment for your IT project.

What is the most compet­itive niche that you can think of?
What comes to mind immedi­ately is something along the line of real estate business, adver­tising and of course legal practice. Lawyers are compet­itive by the very nature of their occupation. Think of it, their job consists of preparing the case (whatever that may be) and directly competing with opposing side to defend the interest of their client.
We tend to think, because of movies and TV shows, that most action happens in the courtroom. But nothing can be further from the truth. Most of the time is spent on a research of similar cases, preparing the case, reading through the endless legal codes nights after nights and making up best strategy.
While the charisma of a lawyer plays a major part in the job, we often overlook the sheer data processing that goes behind the scenes. Today, the technology can be a great resource to step up your game and improve existing workflows that are not up-to-date

Document system­ati­zation

Email systems, shared drive or other typical legal practice software solutions, utilized widely in other indus­tries, are not a good pick for law firms. Simply because you have a vast amount of documents for each case. Plus you need an organized database of all the legal codes and case history. It’s a lot of files. Back in a day, when there were no DMSs (document management system), big law firms had entire libraries at their disposal. And of course, manual files fall into chaos very quickly.
Modern DMS allows seamless system­ati­zation, tagging documen­tation, hierar­chical structure and logical indexing. Every­thing that a library would have, only now.

DMS provides easy search & quick access

In order to organize the case, you need to pull data from many different sources. Transcripts, past cases, you name it. Organi­zation of documents together with the ability to search and retrieve any document is one of the greatest demands for law organizations.
But again, if you just found a 3,000-page document with current “healthcare code”, there are still over 3,000 pages to look through. Well, that’s where filtering results through metadata and optical character recog­nition (OCR) conversion come in handy. This allows you to drill down to your database and find a very specific piece of infor­mation very quickly.

High security through legal practice software

Now, we all know that security and privacy are not a joke in the world of legal practice. Disclosing your client’s private infor­mation inten­tionally or otherwise will end your business, no questions asked. Having an insecure document system puts you in a position, where clients cannot trust you. Therefore any decent DMS needs to have multiple levels of security as well as document reduction backup.
Furthermore, having an advanced digital security lets law firms perform audit more efficiently. All the questions like who made changes to the file and when? Who emailed it and to whom did it go? Knowing that, allows you to comply with internal and external regulations.

Cloud technology allows seamless collaboration

If you are running a law firm, chances are good that your employees cannot be at the office at all times and therefore don’t have access to documents. And sending files via email is one of the highest security risks you can take. Document management program will give you alter­na­tives for a secure client and employee communications.
DMS can be set up to require authen­ti­cation of the recipient to retrieve any document. By using a cloud-based portal solution, you can exchange and collab­orate on documents quick, inexpensive, easy, and safe.

Automated time and billing with case-management software

One of the problems that many law firms face is billing overtime hours since lawyers spend sleepless nights going through all the case infor­mation and strate­gizing. On average, any lawyer in the US spends over 8 hours a month on admin­is­trative and non-billable tasks. Case management solution integrated with DMS in a single IT infra­structure can signif­i­cantly reduce the loss of valuable time and convert it into billable hours.

Why Choose Custom Solution?

There are many ready out-of-box solutions out on the market that are aimed at helping law firms to better manage their document assets as well as improve overall management process. However, such software very often proves itself to be ineffi­cient, for a couple of reasons.

  • First, small and mid-size law firms are usually very sector-oriented. Meaning, that they focus on a specific judicial field such as criminal justice, insurance, taxes and so on. Because the judicial system is so vast, law firms have to focus on a very specific part of it. And these different parts have their own set of regula­tions and specific require­ments. So, you either would have to look for a software that was built for your practice or utilize a sub-optimal technology.
  • Second reason. Depending on your country of operation, the law which you practice would be very different, which leads again to either endless search for a very specific solution or using something that may be not coherent with laws of your country.

That is why we at Intechcore are special­izing in the development of DMS and case management systems for law firms and corporate legal depart­ments. Our software solutions are built specif­i­cally to comply with specific regula­tions requested and to facil­itate your existing assets, improving overall produc­tivity and creating a cost-efficient IT infrastructure.

Software Quality Assurance (also abbre­viated as SQA), can be defined as a systematic process which ensures that the developed software meets and complies with the standardized quality speci­fi­ca­tions. It keenly checks the adherence to the software product standards, proce­dures and processes all throughout the software development life cycle and also the test cycle. The evalu­ation is done through product evalu­ation, process monitoring, project management, and more. Read more

Defin­ition of the term “Proof of Concept”

Before talking about the use of Proof of Concept in Software Development let’s talk about the Proof of Concept in general.

The Proof of Concept is usually a process of verifi­cation if certain ideas or methods are viable. The Proof of Concept usually is kept incom­plete and small for cost and time efficiency goals.

Reasons to use Proof of Concept by Software Developers

Early Development Cycle

A Proof of Concept can generally be used in early development cycle of a software or to sell the concept of the software. Validation of technical feasi­bility, identi­fi­cation of the possible expec­ta­tions from a platform, identi­fi­cation of potential stumbling blocks and deter­mi­nation of the scope and customization level required neces­sarily to complete a project are some of the concepts of early development cycle of a software where PoC can be used.

Perfor­mance Issues Identification

Software devel­opers can also use PoC to identify perfor­mance issues of the project. These days most of the software devel­opers assemble various appli­ca­tions and solutions by using the functions and services offered by other appli­ca­tions and using certain integration methods. These integration methods are used in the overall context of the software to test them with trial products. It also helps in validating the assump­tions regarding the possi­bil­ities provided by the framework or platform.

In this way the results provided by the use of Proof of Concept include the confi­dence factors of technical feasi­bility along with the factors influ­encing the overall estimate of the efforts as well as the scope of efforts.

Tips to create an effective Proof of Concept Project

While creating an effective PoC Project you need to prepare documents similar to tradi­tional Software Development project  covering the functional and technical require­ments. Here are few tips below:

  • The software devel­opers who are going to use Proof of Concept to develop their Software later should prepare and display the same archi­tecture in the PoC project
  • If security is one of the main issues for a project then there shall be concept shall include a member area GUI with a login screen
  • All necessary menus and tabs including search, home-page with logo and the links for the other sub-functions of the project shall be included in the concept
  • The devel­opers can use different pages to show the interface of the PoC project after login depending on the roles of the users
  • Include a dashboard UI if required for PoC
  • PoC can be used to show the scope of inter­linking of one or two pages or modules. Make sure only the most important sections of the appli­cation are included
  • Create a sample report with an exciting UI to illus­trate the processes and KPIs
  • Include a sample graph, if your project is aimed to use graphs

Creating PoC Documentation

The entire design of the software should be also thoroughly explained in the documen­tation of you PoC. Following points with brief description can be included in PoC documentation.

  • The details of archi­tecture to be used in software development
  • The third party tools and all the technologies to be used in software development can be added to this documen­tation, explaining the reasons of choosing them
  • All the modules to be developed can be included in PoC documen­ta­tions with brief details of its functionality
  • The methods used for ensuring the security of the project can also be included in this documentation.
  • Each and every menu used in the PoC project can also be explained in it.

How Intechcore can help

At Intechcore we have a vast experience of executing PoC for our clients. Take a look as our service offer Proof of Concept in Software Development and do not hesitate to get in touch with us. Our service repre­sen­ta­tives would be glad to answer any remaining questions and get your software project started the right way, guaran­teeing the smooth ride without risks and obstacles.

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