Solution Blogs

How to Transition an Active Project From Waterfall to Agile Scrum - Posted 4/25/2013

Agile Scrum has been around for a number of years now. The adoption of Scrum (or other Agile methodologies) continues to grow in popularity as the approach continues to gain acceptance. In many cases, for companies who have not previously used an Agile approach, they will test the "new" methodology using a pilot project. If successful, then the company typically expands Agile to additional projects.

The Scope and Value of Business Analysis: Going Beyond Requirements Analysis - Posted 2/8/2013

Once upon a time…not too long ago…in lands not so far away…the role of business analysis lacked a widely accepted definition and set of expectations. With the maturity of the business analysis domain – driven in large part by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) – we now have a more common view of business analysis.

Should You Convert Universes From UNV to UNX in SAP BO 4.0? - Posted 5/13/2013

With the introduction of SAP BusinessObjects 4.0, SAP has introduced a new tool for building universes, the Information Design Tool. In just about every way, the Information Design Tool (IDT) is a big step up from its predecessor, Universe Designer. The IDT makes development easier by providing better tools for data profiling, testing, multi-user development, OLAP universes, data federation, security and many other areas directly in the tool.

Broaden Your Software's Reach - Posted 5/21/2013

Suppose you are developing software with a target audience of different unrelated organizations. Your software will fulfill a business need shared across the organizations, but there is nothing tying them together other than that shared need. How would you approach this opportunity?

Building Charts in SharePoint 2013 using JavaScript and REST - Posted 5/7/2013

In a recent project, we were tasked with building a custom dashboard with different types of charts. The Chart web part previously available in SharePoint 2010 is no longer available in SharePoint 2013. Excel Services and PowerPivot are good options, but wouldn't work on this project due to the need to summarize data from multiple lists. As a result, we decided to create charts via JavaScript querying the data using REST. The completed solution contains a pie chart, a bar chart, and a stacked bar chart.

Climbing the Windows 8 App Learning Curve - Posted 4/5/2013

ASP.Net developers face a learning curve when writing Windows 8 apps. Based on my personal experience ASP.Net developers represent the majority of all .Net developers, so that's probably an important audience from Microsoft's perspective. Not surprisingly, Cardinal Solutions has many ASP.Net developers on staff and quite few of them have helped build Windows 8 applications, including at least a few applications already deployed to clients. All of those apps were built using C# and XAML. Looking back, Cardinal developers identified a few areas in particular where they felt the steepest climb, starting with Windows 8 itself.

Is Your Project a Success? - Posted 3/14/2013

Many project managers will proudly declare, "This project is a major success – we are delivering on-time and within budget." When you take time to talk to some of the customers of these projects, you hear a much different story. In many cases, the customer's version describes a product that was delivered that does not meet their expectations. In other cases, the customer's version describes processes utilized to deliver the project that were not very collaborative or customer friendly. I refer to cases where you eventually achieve the goals of the project but stakeholders are generally not happy with the way you get there as "winning ugly". This post covers my thoughts on what should be considered when defining project success, as well as the project manager's accountabilities and responsibilities related to project success. What does success look like?

Designing the User’s Experience - Posted 3/25/2013

When describing my job, I often say I design digital experiences. However, technically designers cannot design a specific experience. We cannot force someone to enjoy what we have created. This is because everyone experiences life differently. One single experience relies on emotional, environmental, and social factors. No two users will have exactly the same experience. What designers can do is design for an intended experience. Collecting research, interviewing, observing, and planning extensively allows for designers to create the framework for delightful experiences.

Working with CQ5 Video Profiles - Posted 10/16/2012

In a previous post, I discussed why video content can be an important part of a site and why having a Digital Asset Management system like CQ5 DAM is helpful in creating the various renditions needed to deliver this content to your users. In this post, I will explain more about how to use CQ5 Video Profiles.