The focus of this last release of 2022 has been on OSLC based traceability from graphical models and textual content into source code, UI optimizations, improvements of the pages and a new self service portal for managing certificates.

Smartfacts Platform

Improvement of the Pages

The pages have been introduced in the 2022.11.1 release in November. This new release carries various improvements of this new concept.

• Hovering on a Smartfacts reference in a page opens a delegated UI of the reference and allows to navigate into the project tree.

• Pages can be opened from the project tree in any representation in the Smartfacts platform and in all Smartfacts plug-ins. This applies to all modeling tool plugins and the Jira plug-in.

• The following bugs have been fixed

  • It was not possible to delete a Smartfacts reference from a page if the reference was the last element on the page. This is now possible.

  • The opening of multiple master pages in the initialization process of Smartfacts produced incorrect representations of the tabs. The tabs are now loaded correctly.

New Navigation Options for External Project References

External Project References into requirements models link Codebeamer, DOORS Next or Jama Connect so far had to be dragged into the left or right compartment of the split view. All External Project references now have "load left" and "load right" local menu items to load them into the split view.

New C, C++, JSON Parsers for OSLC based Linking into the Source Code

Smartfacts supports to link model based content from modeling tools and textual content linke requirements or test cases directly into source code. Therefor we embed OSLC links into the source code and harvest. The Smartfacts platforms checks out the source code from GIT, harvests the OSLC links and synchronizes them into the link index. This allows the applications on the other side of the link to do link discovery against the link index and show the list of links also in authoring tools.

New parsers for C, C++ and JSON can now be configured in the Model Warehouse profile.

UI Adoption of the Model Warehouse Profile

The Model Warehouse profile is now a full-screen UI instead of a window.

The Root Services URL of the Smartfacts OSLC connector can now be found in the Smartfacts tab of the Model Warehouse profile.

Support for Technical User

The smartfacts platform now supports a technical user. The technical user is allowed to get full read access to resources in Smartfacts ( Projects, Models, Model Elements ), indendent of access rights.
However, the authorization for using it, must be gained by Basic Authorization, instead of OAuth2 (OIDC) Authorization which ist enabled by default.
The platform must be started with a JAVA VM option parameter (-D ), where the basic auth value is defined.

For example:

-DTechnicalUserBasicAuth=dGVjaG5pY2FsOnRlY2huaWNhbA==

which is the Base64 encoded value for “technical:technical”

Keep in mind, this features enables user for full access to the model data. Keep the value for this in a safe place to prevent misusage.

Implementation in the deployment

Available since Smartfacts Helm chart version 3.15.0 (Released 2023-01-26).

Auto generated username and password for basic auth api calls

If in the file values.yaml the property global.useBasicAuthForApi is set to true a username and password for basic authentication in API calls to the platform is generated.

The administrator can obtain the generated username and password with the command

Defining a custom username and password for basic auth api calls

The customer can override the generated username and password in the file “values.yaml” by setting the two properties global.secrets.smartfacts.basicAuthForApi.username and global.secrets.smartfacts.basicAuthForApi.password. If the property global.useBasicAuthForApi is set to false these two properties have no effect.

PTC Codebeamer

Codebeamer Views of requirements can be loaded into the plug-in grid

Views that are defined in Codebeamer can now be used in the modeling tool plug-ins. The user loads the complete requirements structure into the grid of the plug-in and can then activate any view that is defined on the codebeamer side. Views can be selected, activated and deactivated via the local menu of the requirements grid.

The list of columns shown in the requirements grid of the plug-ins can now be extended / reduced. The configuration of the grid is automatically stored in the personal preferences.

Jama Connect

Link Validity

OSLC Links between Jama Connect and modeling tools now support link validity. This means that as soon as a requirements changes the link to a model artifact is set to suspect. It is visible in the Jama Connect plug-in Ui and can be updated to valid or invalid manually.

The hash value of the source artifact, the has value of the target artifact and the link type are the basis for the link validity status. As soon as on of the values changes, the link status is set to suspect. If the change leading to a suspect link is reverted, also the link validity status is reverted back.

Dassault Systèmes, Cameo Systems Modeler / Catia Magic

Release of the Plug-In for version 2022x

The plug-in for Cameo Systems Modeler / Catia Magic is now available for release 2022x and can be downloaded from the Smartfacts platform via the main menu > get plug-ins.

Eclipse Extension

The Eclipse plug-in has been enhanced to identify OSLC links in C, C++ and JSON files. The configuration for these languages can be done in the Model Warehouse profile. All authoring tools supported by Smartfacts can be used to add links into the code.

As the JSON format does not support any comments, links are generated as additional nodes of the format “oslc”: [comma separated list of OSLC links] into the data structure.

Visual Studio Code Extension

The Visual Studio Code plug-in has been enhanced to identify OSLC links in C, C++ and JSON files. The configuration for these languages can be done in the Model Warehouse profile. All authoring tools supported by Smartfacts can be used to add links into the code.

As the JSON format does not support any comments, links are generated as additional nodes of the format “oslc”: [comma separated list of OSLC links] into the data structure.

Self Service Portal for Certificate Generation and Validation

Under https://smartfacts.com/customer-portal/ you have now access to various services to generate appropriate X.509 certificates and validate their compatibility with the Smartfacts platform. These services are intended to support our clients in generating appropriate certificates for the deployment of Smartfacts. You have access to the following services:

1. Generate an OpenSSL config file based on the data your enter into the web form
   You simply provide your company data via the web interface. For PoCs you must check the options Camp and Keycloak. If you want to manage traceability to Codebeamer or Jama Connect, you must also select the appropriate option. The resulting OpenSSL config file can be used to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request).

2. Generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) based on the data your enter into the web form
   You simply provide your company data via the web interface. For PoCs you must check the options Camp and Keycloak. If you want to manage traceability to Codebeamer or Jama Connect, you must also select the appropriate option.

3. Generate a CSR based on your own manually edited OpenSSL config file
   Via this service you can generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) based on an OpenSSL config file that has been compiled e.g. from your IT department.

4. Check your certificate if it is suitable for the Smartfacts platform
   This option allows to upload a certificate and retrieve feedback if this certificate is suitable with the Smartfacts platform. As this service does not have access to the private key, this is only a first check that provides insights on potential misconfigurations of the certificate.