The PPSD is responsible for the maintenance and operation of the Emergency Firefighters / Vendor Pay System, the Federal Personnel and Payroll System (FPPS), and Quicktime. Since January 2001, the PPSD has received an average of 348 Software Action Requests (SARs) per month-an average of 4,176 requests per year! SARs include requests to change the functionality of systems (CRs), requests to make data corrections (DRs), and problem reports (PRs). Change Requests can be initiated by customers or can be changes required by federal laws, regulations, or policies.

When dealing with so many requests involving systems that affect an individual's pay, effective software configuration management is critical. All SARs go through a software configuration control board for approval and assignment to a system release. Typical tasks associated with SARs include impact analysis (to estimate required hours of effort), full analysis, development, migration to test environments, testing, migration to a staging area, and finally migration into a production environment.

Traditionally within the PPSD, a packet of paperwork is prepared for each SAR. These packets are passed from person to person for signoff and the attachment of hardcopy descriptions, analyses, test results, etc. In the early 1990s, the division started using a UNIX based system called CMAS to keep track of the status of SARs. Early in 2002, the division began using Borland's StarTeam for support of the Quicktime system. In April of this year, the data for all systems in CMAS was converted to StarTeam. StarTeam provides integrated management of SARs, software version control, the assignment, management, and tracking of tasks, and a corporate knowledge-base to record problems encountered and solutions found. However, neither StarTeam nor other such products reviewed by the division fully met the division's needs. Therefore an add-on to StarTeam was needed. That add-on is QuickSAR.

QuickSAR serves as a web-browser based front-end to StarTeam. QuickSAR enforces the division's policies and procedures through fields and edits not available in StarTeam. It also provides electronic approvals and automated workflow. Whereas with CMAS paperwork was funneled to dedicated staff to update the SAR status and to record task information, QuickSAR allows the individual who completes a task to record hours and the completion date. QuickSAR automatically updates the SAR status. This provides for more timely and accurate reporting of SAR and Task statuses. When the individual who performed the work marks a task as finished, QuickSAR automatically generates the next task(s) in the workflow.

Workflow in QuickSAR is defined in a table external to QuickSAR.This table can be viewed online, which makes it self-documenting. Here is an example of using QuickSAR with the Quicktime project. Lets say that a user wants to submit a change request for Quicktime. Through QuickSAR the user enters data for the new SAR. The user is not allowed to save the SAR until it passes various edits. Once the SAR is saved, impact analysis tasks are generated for each of the division's team leads. As each impact analysis task is completed, a task is assigned to the team lead's branch chief. The branch chief reviews the impact analysis and either approves or disapproves it. When all impact analysis tasks have been completed, reviewed, and approved, the SAR is scheduled for a Change Control Board meeting. A task is automatically generated to record the results of the board meeting. Following this, the SAR is routed to the program manager for approval and assignment to a release. If the SAR is approved, a full analysis task is generated for various functional team leads. When these tasks are finished, reviewed, and approved, a development task is generated.

It is at this point that the difference between QuickSAR and a traditional document control and routing system becomes very obvious. When the development task is finished, a code review task is generated. If the code reviewer passes the code, a build label is assigned to the SAR. A build label represents a point in time snapshot of the source code configuration. QuickSAR determines the build label by talking to StarTeam. Next QuickSAR stages the SAR for the next migration for that build label. Following completion of migration tasks, testing tasks are generated and email notices are generated to the testing staff.

For those not familiar with the software build process, build labels are used to retrieve point-in-time versions of software and to migrate software into the various test environments and into production. The PPSD uses a public domain tool called ANT to migrate Quicktime source code. The system administrator who performs a migration tells ANT which build label to use. ANT talks to StarTeam and requests the source code revisions that have the specified build label. When the first migration occurs that uses an open build label, QuickSAR talks to StarTeam to freeze the build label and create a new build label that will be used for the next batch of SARs that are ready for testing.

To summarize, the goal of QuickSAR is to provide a user-friendly tool to more effectively manage the thousands of Software Action Requests that the PPSD receives each year. QuickSAR is a web-based add-on to a product called StarTeam. QuickSAR provides full life-cycle management of Software Action Requests and interoperability with the source code version control features of StarTeam. It pushes the recording of the hours of effort and completion dates of tasks down to the individual who performs the work, thereby improving the accuracy and timeliness of SAR and task status updates. Managers can have a more up-to-date understanding of the state of the various SARs being prepared for a release. This means they can take corrective action in a timelier manner. At the moment, the traditional paper workflow and QuickSAR are being used in parallel. In the coming months, the paper-based system currently used by the division will be phased out and replaced with the electronic based, automated workflow provided by QuickSAR. This cutover will start with the Quicktime project and then move on to the other systems managed by the division. The goal is to complete the cutover by the end of the calendar year.

For more information

Michael Colburn

Michael_A_Colburn@nbc.gov