As the general public becomes savvier regarding computer and internet usage, many Information Technology customers have requested an increased role in managing the day to day operations of their web applications. One vehicle to facilitate this request is a Content Management System (CMS), which provides a role based platform for administrators to, not only, add or update content, but to also implement new features. One such CMS is DotNetNuke (DNN), which describes itself as the Leading Web Content management System and Application Development Platform for Microsoft .Net, or in layman’s terms, DotNetNuke is a prime CMS platform for developers using the .Net Framework.

During 2009, Segue Technologies implemented a DNN 4.9 solution for the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Segue chose DNN for a host of reasons, but the primary factor was the built in security framework. This framework not only includes stable user administration modules (registration, login, manage users), but also allows administrators to utilize role-based content. In other words, administrators can easily assign certain pages for anonymous users, other pages for registered users, and even more pages for custom roles.

DNN is also ideal for an organization such as UNCF in that a single platform can host multiple web applications, called portals. In this instance, Segue created portals for three programs within UNCF: UNCF Merck Science Initiative (Merck), Institute for Capacity Building (ICB), and Association of UNCF-Merck Fellows (AUMF). In general, the three portals shared similar functionality; but DNN contains enough flexibility to make each web application unique. This uniqueness was accomplished by applying different Skinning, Pages, and Modules.

Skinning

DNN provides the ability for each portal to maintain a completely different look and feel. This is accomplished by using templates that are simply .Net user controls. Each skin control contains a header, footer, and body section and each of these sections can be sub-divided into smaller pieces. The developer and even content manager can adjust the display by modifying portal specific Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) files.

Pages

DNN is completely database driven so that a DNN portal does not need many static aspx pages in order to display a rich user experience. Using the Administration Control Panel, administrators can add any number of pages to the portal and designate which roles are able to view and/or edit that page. For the AUMF portal, almost every page is public facing so there was no need for adjusting the security settings. However, both the Merck and ICB portals contain both public and private pages, which provide a completely different user experience for anonymous and registered users.

Modules

DNN utilizes modules in order to display all content and fortunately the platform provides several in the base installation. The most commonly used one is the powerful Text/html module which not only displays simple text or html markup, but can also be engineered to execute javascript or other scripting languages. This module also includes the FCKEditor, a WYSIWYG Rich Text Editor that provides common word processing functionality. Other common – out of the box – functionality includes a Document module, an Events module, a Links module, and a Reports module.

Segue created and implemented several custom modules that enhanced the user experience for each UNCF portal. Both the Merck and ICB portals contain a News and Blog module, which allows users, in designated roles, to post or comment on articles. Each of these modules were based on templates which allowed us to design a different layout for each portal. The Merck site also includes a Photo Gallery module, which allows an administrator to create events and users to upload photos as well as a Private Messages module. This module is a cross between email and chat services in which registered users can communicate with other registered users. Messages are displayed to a logged in user in real time, like a Chat module. However, if a user is offline, any communication to them is preserved in the database and delivered at their next login.

Summary

This article described several benefits in utilizing a DNN solution, yet perhaps the greatest benefit that Segue Technologies and UNCF enjoyed was the ability to accelerate the project’s schedule. Since the security framework and content framework were generally available without the need for major customization, Segue developed and deployed three completely new web applications in a couple of months. This was facilitated by the framework’s inherent stability, where many user tasks quickly and painlessly passed quality control. Because of this stability, Segue will add more portals to the existing DNN implementation, as additional UNCF Programs migrate their existing websites over to DNN or ask Segue to generate a completely new web presence.

What type of person is a Quality Control (QC) Tester? There are many kinds of professions out there. For instance, some people are movie critics, video game testers, teachers, scientists, mystery shoppers, food tasters, and stockbrokers. All of these occupations have something in common; looking for the best quality in a product.

As a Quality Control Tester, one comparable occupation that comes to mind is an Exterminator. Both positions require someone who has just one goal in mind; to locate all types of bugs. In order to find all the bugs, the Exterminator has to test the premises, the surroundings, and numerous environments to see whether or not the bugs are spreading from one place to another. Of course, in doing so, all of this comes at a cost. Most Quality Control costs are associated with preventing, finding, and correcting defective work (bugs). These costs can range in price from low to high, depending on the customer’s specific needs. Many of these costs can be significantly reduced or even avoided based on the quality of the product and time constraints.

There are many ways of locating and eliminating the bugs in the QC world. Some customers like to bring in a highly decorated expert to identify and eliminate the defects. They have testing applications and software tools that will help locate the bugs from a system. In comparison to an Exterminator, a customer will call for an expert to get rid of all necessary bugs with their high-tech tools, to do all of the dirty work to ensure a safe and bug free zone.

The Exterminator and the QC tester both require a specialized toolset to do their work. For the Exterminator, some of these may include such materials as bug sprays, chemical mixtures, traps, and possibly baits in order to hunt down the bugs. The same goes for a QC Tester in needing various testing techniques, testing tools, and resources in order to identify and report the bugs (also known as defects).

The QC Exterminator’s job is to ensure the quality of the interface and its environment. He then validates the final product in order to meet the customer’s needs and requirements (to include no bugs!). This will help test the surroundings and guarantee the best quality.

In conclusion, in addition to a passion for hunting down and eliminating bugs, a person who is a good QC Tester requires both functional and technical knowledge. Provided with an ample amount of time and the proper set of testing tools, a person with precision, innate skills, methodical thinking, and a desire to solve puzzles in a scientific manner would make a great Quality Control Tester.

As a representative of Segue, I attended AFCEA West 2010 in San Diego, CA this past week and am very happy that I did. AFCEA, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, is a non-profit membership association serving the military, government, industry, and academia as an ethical forum for advancing professional knowledge and relationships in the fields of communications, IT, intelligence, and global security. I’ve always wanted to attend AFCEA West (no not because it is in beautiful San Diego –well that might be part of it) because it is one of the few AFCEA events where you get an opportunity to interface with government and industry in a panel session format. I took advantage of this opportunity by participating in a Web 2.0 session with other industry members and government representatives. A majority of the discussions involved policy and existing/potential usage of professional and social networking tools within the government. I was pleasantly surprised with the group’s understanding of the importance of these tools as information sharing and collaboration aids. It appears that the government is making real strides in making tools similar to Facebook and Twitter available to personnel in secure environments. In particular, Milbook, essentially a secure version of Facebook running behind military firewalls, is probably one of the most well-known Web 2.0 tools deployed in recent months. To take a look at how government is changing its tactics a bit, check out one of their promotional videos here.

The presentation that I enjoyed the most was given by ADM James G. Stavridis, USN who is the NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe Commander for U.S. European Command. He gave a very informative brief on existing Cyber threats and the U.S. capability to counter those threats. It was a chilling reminder that we have a lot of work to do in order to shore up our defenses but was also promising in the sense that there is a concerted effort by the government to focus on these weaknesses. This is particularly evident with the new Cyber commands that the services are standing up.

On a more social note, David Hart, the AFCEA Dayton Chapter President and one of Segue’s own, and I attended the “Midway Magic” dinner event aboard the USS Midway. The USS Midway is an Aircraft Carrier that was commissioned on September 10, 1945 and saw action in the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War and numerous other conflicts. Having been in service for 47 years it was the longest serving carrier of the twentieth century. The Carrier now serves as a museum and houses vintage naval aircraft, flight simulators, and multimedia exhibits. David and I had a great time networking with other industry members and checking out the cool toys.

AFCEA West 2010 was a fantastic event that I highly recommend to others in the Defense industry. I am already looking forward to AFCEA West 2011!

On behalf of the Segue Technologies Business Intelligence unit, I attended Kaleidoscope 2009, a conference organized by the Oracle Development Users Group (ODTUG, www.odtug.com), of which I happen to be a member. It was held during the third week of June at Monterey Bay California. This was the second consecutive ODTUG conference I’ve attended in addition to Kaleidoscope 2008, held in New-Orleans. Last year, a whole conference track dedicated to the Oracle Hyperion suite of products (with Essbase at the center focus of the track) was introduced, which saw a pretty good response. Also, the amount of knowledge transfer from industry experts last year was so valuable for real-world implementations, that this year’s overall conference attendees grew in number (much to my surprise given the current state of the economy). This is a true testimony of the word having spread far and wide that Kaleidoscope is a conference unmatched in its class by any other related technical conference in the Oracle Business Intelligence domain.

Kaleidoscope prides itself on maintaining a spotlight on developers, and that’s exactly what it achieved for a second year in a row. Attendees represented all walks of life and flew in from several different countries (UK, Germany, Belgium, and The Netherlands) either to present and speak about recommendations, or to just listen and learn. Company profiles varied from individual consultants, to mid-sized business intelligence vendor/consulting firms, to those as large as Wal-Mart, Google, and NATO even!

Kaleidoscope 2009 was held on the premises of the Hyatt Regency – Monterey Bay resort and most of us stayed on location in their luxurious and sprawling estate. There are many reasons why this might qualify as a great conference. Beyond the scrumptious food and drinks (it was manna indeed); the conference material, the delivery medium, the hands on classes and other aspects were all excellent. However, one of the most important factors for me personally was to know that all of the who’s-who in our respective industries attended, and for a week’s time allowed themselves to be riddled with questions, answering them all without the slightest twitch. Where else would you find midnight madness sessions where all the Oracle Ace Directors and other eminent personalities in the Oracle industry sit down after dinner and have a Q&A session extending past midnight!?! Being able to pick apart the brains of these mentors has only allowed me to bring back that much more value and insight into our own implementations at Segue – no other conference in this domain can claim this and then follow through at the same time!

Kaleidoscope 2009 boasted a hundred and fifty technical sessions + (yes, 150) and hands-on classes, spread over four different technologies viz. Oracle APEX, SOA, WEB and Oracle Hyperion. The first three tracks were under the Oracle Development Tools and Architecture category and the last one (the one I attended) was completely focused on Oracle Essbase, Hyperion Planning, and Financial Management, which also referenced a bit of Oracle OBIEE and BI technologies.

One thing that really sets Kaleidoscope apart from  other conferences, is that they dedicate the day prior to kickoff to *drum roll* community service! Yes, ODTUGGERS believe in giving back to the community. Last year at New Orleans, volunteers helped rebuild a school that was torn apart by Katrina, so that the community would get its school back. Work included everything from painting to actually building part of the school again. This year, the pure volunteer effort was given to a nature conservation effort. ODTUG volunteers joined forces with the Big Sur staff, and headed off into the Martin sand dunes by Monterey Bay to help clean up the weed and shrub infestation. Martin Dunes is California’s largest and most intact dune eco-system. The plants and animals living at Martin Dunes were being threatened by invasive plants that polluted the natural habitat.

The first day of the conference was more of a symposium with different eminent speakers talking about the future roadmap of the Oracle technologies that we use. This gave the Kaleidoscope attendees quite the insight into what we might expect in the near and long-term future. This provides an added advantage of knowing what to expect, allowing us to better equip our respective organizations to be ready when the changes come through, and be able to ride the wave out, maximizing our productivity and efficiency while remaining on the bleeding edge of the technology in our fields.

The rest of the conference was comprised of detailed presentations and hands-on classes exposing even some of the advanced folks in attendance to a new way of approaching things, such as better workarounds and small utilities built into the products and tools that we use that are often overlooked, but prove to be very powerful if used correctly.

If I let this blog go into the technical details of everything I learned at Kaleidoscope 2009 it would run forever. Therefore, I’ve focused on a high-level overview of what to expect from this conference, which is quite different – from the audience to the tone it sets right away from the word get go! All in all, Kaleidoscope is one extremely valuable conference that has helped me bring back a lot to Segue and the way we approach our work, and hopefully induce the right changes into our implementation methodologies, which in turn will result in better customer satisfaction. I highly recommend this conference for any reader who might see the content as relevant to their work, especially if their company budget allows them to attend only one over the coming year.

Go ODTUG! Go Kaleidoscope!

Good websites make it easy for users to find what they want, by implementing proper usability techniques. This is often a challenge for application-based websites with features like user logins, searching, shopping carts, and document archives. However, usability is also important for brochure websites, meaning those with limited functionality and a focus on showcasing an organization and its products or services. All websites with a customer focus benefit greatly from combining good usability with good marketing to achieve fantastic results.

There is a concept in marketing known as the “Call-to-Action”. When you are presenting your message to a prospective customer you should always provide a verb-based directive such as “Call Now” or “Order Today”. This is the reason that every infomercial on TV repeats these phrases several times. This subtle psychological nudge is a powerful tool to get people to act in a desired manner. In fact, to most marketers, if you don’t include a call to action, then you are essentially wasting your time.

Strategic use of verb-based directives is excellent from a usability point-of-view and enables a concept that I call “the narrative.” In contrast to navigation links such as “About Us” or “Careers”, narrative links are within a content body and identify specific next-steps for the user to follow. As an example, when someone is reading your “Our Services” page, you may have narrative links in the body text or at the bottom of the page like “Learn About eCommerce” or “Why You Need Search Engine Optimization”. Rather than expecting the user to scan the sub-navigation list in the sidebar and choose what to do next, the calls-to-action direct them to what YOU want them to see.

I like the word “narrative” for this concept, because the goal is to tell a story and get the user to turn the page, just like in a great novel. You incite the user with something they want and guide them to what’s going to happen next. When you provide a narrative and calls-to-action, you are accomplishing two fundamental goals:

1. You alleviate the work from the user. Think about how highway signs help you avoid reading a map, because they tell you where to turn. Good narrative links guide a user gently towards the destination you have in mind for them.
2. You are more accurate in providing the information that the user is seeking. When your calls-to-action are self-evident, they will naturally follow the path of greatest interest to them at that time.

A selection of calls-to-action can be a great way to “qualify” your customers. To “qualify” is a sales technique where you ask questions that allow you to control the dialogue and direct the customer towards the best options. For example, your website may have a pair of links such as “View Our Federal Government Services” and “View Our Commercial Services”. The visitor provides information about their interests through this selection, which allows you to customize the message and further calls-to-action that you will present to them.

When plotting your calls-to-action, it helps to think in three perspectives:

1. Ensure the visitor quickly learns that your organization provides the products or services they seek.
2. Prove that your organization deserves their consideration, and eventually their money.
3. Provide a function that results in a conversion.

For a simplified example of using the narrative technique, a homepage link might say “Learn About Our Range of Services”, then within the Services page there is a link for “Read the List of Awards We’ve Received”, and finally every page has a “Speak with a Consultant Now” link. This first sets up the visitor with the information they were looking for, then provides reinforcement that the company is well-qualified, and it always includes a call to your desired conversion activity.

Keep in mind that you do not need cross-referenced narrative links on every page, nor do these remove the need for well-organized primary navigation links. The point is to enhance regular navigation using directives that provide the user with a path to follow. Re-read every page of your site and if you ever think “what do I do now?” then you’ve identified an opportunity to use a narrative link or two. First qualify your visitor’s needs, then present your message, and finally ask them to perform an action. Implement this simple technique and you’ll be amazed by how quickly you can improve your website visitor conversion rate!

Nineteenth Century writer and critic John Ruskin said, “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.” In a modern corporate environment, this intelligent effort is a natural result of establishing repeatable activities and tasks that are supported by skilled and knowledgeable people. The goal of this article is to show how Process, Quality, and Innovation are strongly related to each other and cannot live independently.

Properly Defining “Process”

Processes are often viewed by workers as barriers to creativity. They are seen as corporate rules and regulations that cannot be bent. However, this understanding of the role of processes is actually the complete opposite of their true purpose. Processes are often confused with procedures and activities, which are also not the same things. Additionally, many people think that they are not innovative because they are not creative people. Again, this is a classic mistake, as being creative and being innovative are two completely different activities. These misconceptions surrounding process, procedure, activity, and innovation diminish their perceived value as inputs to quality. Before explaining how processes support innovation, it is necessary to spell out the following definitions:

• Process: A set of activities transforming an input (product or information) into an output (product or information)
• Activity: A group of tasks supported by tools and methods, requiring specific skills and knowledge to accomplish the purpose of a process
• Task: Also called a procedure, is a detailed instruction (Step-by-step) on how to perform specific actions composing an activity.

It is also very important to understand the concept of innovation. An innovation is not an idea; it is the result of a process that transforms an idea into a viable product or service. This product or service has specific attributes that dramatically differentiate it from the competition, creating a breakthrough effect.

Why Do We Need Processes?

A Process has two different uses, depending on who is looking at it. From a management stand point, a process helps to reduce the variability of the work being done, allows the transfer of knowledge from experienced to inexperienced workers, and creates an environment where the worker is an actor of change. A process also allows management to detach itself from the “expedited work product” and focus on other management issues, such as cost, schedule, and customer focus.

From a worker standpoint, a process is vital because it helps plan daily activities more efficiently and effectively. It allows the worker to anticipate next steps and prepare for action. When defining a process, the worker is in a situation where their creativity in finding better ways to perform activities can be expressed. Finally, as owners of their processes, workers are made accountable for the quality of their own products.

Regardless of which way you look at them, processes are always there, whether expressed or hidden. The expression or formalization of processes is just a way to recognize that the design and development of a product or service is not a random combination of actions from different groups of people. It is a joint effort to coordinate actions and thoughts to meet a goal. So where processes are not expressed or identified, you are unable to work on them to make them better.

From Process Deployment, to Quality, to Innovation

When a company starts thinking about processes, it is generally in response to an external requirement (i.e. CMMI, ISO). The first reaction is to create process documentation “by the book” to satisfy the requirement. Sometimes this is a good approach and fulfills the immediate need, but typically it’s the wrong one and it doesn’t satisfy the intent of having defined processes.

When the organization starts thinking about why and how they do things, they introduce the idea of Quality to the process focus. At this point, the organization starts to ask itself, “How can we do it better?” Initially, Quality is the process that is injected into the product or service to satisfy the customer.

Once the basic needs of the customers are satisfied, the organization begins to think internally about doing it better, faster, and/or cheaper. Again, the driving question is “how can we do it better?” At this stage Innovation is introduced because the organization must think outside of the common path and rethink the standards currently deployed. This use of innovation can lead to new ways of producing the same product, or identifying new products from solving challenges through an innovative approach!

How Do Processes Support Innovation?

As we discussed in the first section of this article, an innovation is not a lucky accident, it is the result of intelligent people following strong processes and continually seeking improvement to those processes. Some companies will focus their entire marketing and business approaches on Innovation, making it their primary process. Although one can argue that innovation may be a spontaneous act, there are actually ways to force it and make it happen. There are numerous techniques to engage innovative actions, and successfully nurture them from idea to final product. In order to do so, it is necessary to identify what is currently done – the current process and practice - that prevents the innovation from happening.

It is also necessary to train staff on creativity techniques, team work, etc. Of course, everybody knows about the brainstorming approach to innovation, but it’s not necessarily the best technique for all situations. There are upwards of 25 other approaches to innovation available, from systematic views based on matrices, to role playing. There are many different approaches to innovation, but in the end, there are only two key requirements: people that are open-minded enough to accept change and a process that supports change.

Conclusion

When a company focuses on defining processes they introduce the notion of Quality. Once the basic pillars of Quality (Processes, activities, tasks) are in place, the need for innovation is a natural next step, using existing processes as support and nourishment. The result of this approach is a company that will grow its business in a sustainable manner, and differentiate itself from the competition by its aptitude to respond to environmental pressures with the best approach.

Segue Technologies recently sponsored the Armed Forces Communication and Electronic Association (AFCEA) Northern Virginia NOVA chapter’s annual Naval IT Day. This event provided an opportunity for members of industry to meet with civilian and military leaders of the Department of the Navy, including NAVSEA, NAVAIR, SPAWAR, and the Marine Corps, and learn about their vision and plans in regard to employing technologies in their service branches. This allows members of industry to gain a better understanding of the direction that the DoN is headed in the IT realm and where they need support to achieve their goals. Some of the topics covered this year include operational trends and war fighter experiences and maritime strategies that underpin needed capabilities, such as:

• Maritime domain awareness
• Effective expeditionary coalitions
• Improved network capacities
• Enhanced multi-level security
• Information interoperability across government and non-government agencies

Prevalent throughout the Navy is the need to integrate applications into network-aware services, fuse data for robust situational awareness, and be smarter in using limited space, power, and cooling resources aboard ships and aircraft. These are the direct issues being faced by the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) and the Consolidated Afloat Network and Enterprise Services (CANES) program efforts, which were addressed by several speakers. These are not new efforts for Segue; we’ve been involved in NGEN’s predecessor, NMCI, through our work with the Marine Corps at Quantico, Twentynine Palms, and Camp Pendleton, and we are positioning ourselves for involvement in the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) aspects of CANES.

The biggest take away from this event for me was the keynote presentation by General James E. Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He addressed the need for the DOD acquisition process and industry to change their paradigm and respond quickly in supporting the war fighter. He emphasized this by explaining how quickly terrorist organizations can innovate and overcome our IAD counter measures. He went on to explain how terrorists quickly figured out they could ram a very heavily armored MRAP vehicle from the side and push it into deep sand, where it would quickly sink and immobilize the vehicle, making it more vulnerable. General Cartwright challenged everyone involved in driving innovation to the war fighter, to change the process to significantly shorten the reaction time to innovation implementation. In the next breath he acknowledged the reality and dysfunction deeply ingrained in the current DOD acquisition machine, which reinforced for me that Segue does support the war fighter. We may not do so directly through manufacturing weapons, vehicles, or equipment; we support the warfighter through the IT solutions that we provide, which allow our military to function effectively.

To learn more about this event, please go to:

http://www.afceanova.org/events/special-events/it-days/naval-it-day-fy09/naval-it-day

They are not big bad wolves!

Quality Assurance and Quality Control are often seen as loathsome corporate entities, assigning blame, slowing down the production process with excessive control measures, and creating tons of “useless” documentation. This perception is unfortunately the result of years of bad corporate QA and QC implementation, where upper management groups impose policy (without process user input) to define adequate “Controls”, untrained or unqualified personnel leading QA and QC activities, and  poor communication about vision and goals. It is far too common for companies to approach QA and QC the wrong way, thereby spoiling their staff on the concept and limiting the benefits that can be gained not only for customers, but for internal quality of work environment.

To effectively implement QA and QC, you must first properly define “Quality” and then the role that each (QA and QC) play in achieving quality.  There are two general views of Quality:

• The Customer view of Quality: Is the external view that means that the product or service they receive satisfies their needs
• The Producer view of Quality: Is the internal view that is based on whether or not a product satisfies the stated requirements

Quality Control

QC focuses on the product produced. This focus is two-fold, ensuring that both customer and producer share the same vision of quality, and that work is objectively reviewed to eliminate defects.

Unfortunately the two views of quality (customer and producer) are not always in sync; therefore QC’s first goal is to reduce the “Quality Gap”, the gap between customer expectations (not necessarily stated) and the development team’s understanding of the explicit requirements. By minimizing the quality gap, QC ensures an end product that matches the customer’s needs and expectations.

The second goal of the Quality Control entity is to find defects before they reach the customer. This effort maximizes customer satisfaction when the product or service is delivered. In a perfect world, every requirement analyst and developer would objectively check their work and communicate efficiently, both with the customer and with each other. They would therefore produce a perfect product for the customer the first time. Real world experience shows that self-checks are insufficient tools for discovering and rectifying errors and that breakdowns in communication occur in even the most in-tune organizations. As a result, Quality Control serves as an objective 3rd party entity to execute the proper checks at each critical point of the development process, thereby providing sufficient feedback to the producer (Analyst, Developer, etc.) to correct defects and avoid a cascading effect of negative consequences. In a word, Quality Control is the second look, the “spellchecker,” that helps to ensure that work is on the right track from the start through the finish.

Quality Assurance

QA focuses on processes and their continuous improvement. Its goal is to reduce variance in processes in order to predict the quality of an output (final or interim product), gather best practices for the company, reduce cost, and reduce time to market. QA is strongly linked to innovation and creativity. Quality Assurance neither imposes nor defines processes for other people, but it provides advice and support to the process owner, which leads to the ability to measure success and make decisions based on facts. A well-known approach to Quality Assurance is the PDCA (Plan Do Check Act) Cycle:

1. Plan: Define the mission, vision, and goals to be achieved by an activity or a process. Identify the procedures, methods, and tools needed to achieve the goals. Define the measures to be used to check the results of the process.
2. Do: Execute the plan, train users to methods, deploy products, and use tools to perform scheduled tasks.
3. Check: Evaluate whether or not the goal has been achieved by using measures, metrics, and facts.
4. Act: When gaps are defined, identify the origin of the problem and define an approach to correct or close the gap (Return to the Plan phase).

In conclusion, neither QA nor QC focus on people, as they do not care “whose fault it is” (although they do care when there is something valuable to be remembered!). The goal of a good QA and QC implementation, in any organization, is to make things better. It requires good communication between the QA/QC groups and process owners. It also requires QA/QC lead(s) to communicate and explain why, when, how, and what is being done. Key attributes for success of QA/QC implementation are:

• Participation: Both process owners and users need to provide their expert input on how things “should” work, and define it. QA should be a support function for process related questions.
• Transparency: Open communication and the ability to look at all aspects of the process are critical to fully understand and identify both what works and what doesn’t
• Clear Goals: The entire team should not only know how QA/QC is implemented, but also the intended results

Next topic: Testing and QC: how does it work?

I had been recently building a cfgrid with html format in my company’s ColdFusion application when I encountered a problem. For those not familiar, the cfgrid html format uses the ExtJS API. The intent of this blog entry is to describe a bug fix, but look here for more information on how to use cfgrid or for ExtJS. My problem occurred while using my Internet Explorer browser to do an inline edit in the cfgrid. The edited field had the red marker in the corner, but the whole cell turned white, making it appear blank.

After playing around with the code without success, I devoted some time to surfing for answers. , It turns out that the problem is a CSS rendering issue with IE and erroneous code in an ExtJS CSS file. One of the ExtJS CSS files has improper comments in a few of the classes and IE does not recognize the comments. Instead, IE turns fonts and background colors white. I came upon the solution on Ray Camden’s site in pieces throughout the comments and am consolidating it here.

To correct this problem, you need to replace the ‘//’ comments with the proper ‘/*’ comments in the ext-all.css file, usually found in \CFIDE\scripts\ajax\resources\ext\css directory. About midway down the CSS file, you will find the erroneous comments. Remove those ‘//’ and replace with ‘/*’ as follows:


.x-grid-row-selected td, .x-grid-locked .x-grid-row-selected td{
/*color: white;*/
}
.x-grid-row-selected div, .x-grid-row-selected div, .x-grid-row-selected b, .x-grid-row-selected strong, .x-grid-row-selected i{
/* color: white !important;*/
}
.x-grid-row-selected .x-grid-cell-text{
/*color: white;*/
}
.x-grid-cell-selected{
background-color: #316ac5 !important;
/*color: white;*/
}
.x-grid-cell-selected span{
/*color: white !important;*/
}
.x-grid-cell-selected .x-grid-cell-text{
/* color: white;*/
}
 
After making the corrections, save the file, refresh your browser and you will now see your text changes in the cell. One thing to note, however, is that all of the text in the highlighted rows, as well as the edits, will remain black now instead of white. I was unable to change the CSS without major effort to keep the text white when a row is selected, but have it turn black when a cell is edited; for me the simpler solution was to use a lighter select color.

“This is one of the most interesting and unique projects that Segue has undertaken. We are excited about revolutionizing the way MRC records and stores broadcast media. This effort will result in creating one of the largest and most sophisticated television monitoring operations in the nation. The SnapStream technology that we are integrating into this project is ideally suited for MRC and will keep them on the cutting edge of their mission.” Said Ron Novak, Segue Executive Vice President.

About the Media Research Center
The mission of the Media Research Center is to bring balance to the news media. Headquartered in Alexandria Virginia, MRC provides checks and balances on the public press through their successful implementation of the largest, most comprehensive media monitoring operation in the world. Through its divisions, programs, and a marketing effort that never rests, MRC has become an institutionalized machine on the issue of balance in the press.