IBM Rational Focal Point, Version 6.4.1 Release Notes

This document contains information about the new features and known issues in IBM® Rational® Focal Point™, Version 6.4.1. It also provides brief installation instructions and information about contacting IBM Rational Software Support.

Contents

Description

IBM Rational Focal Point is a portfolio planning solution that teams can use to make collaborative, objective decisions to deliver business value to customers. Teams can use Rational Focal Point to identify priorities, and then deliver products and projects with the highest business and customer value.

This release of IBM Rational Focal Point includes the following new features and enhancements:
  • New installation process: You can install Rational Focal Point by using IBM Installation Manager version 1.3.2. For more information, see the Installation Guide for Rational Focal Point.
  • Financier: Financier is a tool that can be installed as an optional feature with Rational Focal Point and is delivered as a technical preview in this release. With Financier, you can build models to assess the investment value of software projects. Financier builds financial models of expected cost and benefit estimates of projects over time. It can also represent the uncertainty that is associated with future cost and benefit streams. You can use that uncertainty to identify sources of financial risk. For more information, see the topics about Financier in the Rational Focal Point help system. http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/rsdp/v1r0m0/topic/com.ibm.help.download.focalpoint.doc/topics/focalpoint_641.html
  • Integration with Rational Project Conductor Version 1.0: You can export a project and related business needs from Rational Focal Point to IBM Rational Project Conductor. You can update project information and related business need information from IBM Rational Project Conductor for all integration attributes that are specified for the project.
  • Integration with Rational ClearQuest® Version 7.1: With this integration, you can import the records from IBM Rational ClearQuest and set the priorities. You can then export the records and the reports to ClearQuest. The ClearQuest integration with Rational Focal Point is based on Rational Synchronization Framework 1.4.
  • Users listed in the Display view: Users can now be displayed in a Display view. Regular users who have access to the view can now add new members.
  • Time grid enhancements: The time grid functionality supports printing, exporting, reporting, displaying summary columns, comparing sheets, configuring time interval display, and configuring default values for rows. The Time Grid attribute is accessed by using the REST API. Time grid expressions are referenced outside the attributes, and expressions for calculating the sums of a row, NPV, and IRR are also implemented. Expressions in Float and Integer attributes can reference time grid cells.
  • Extended size limits for file attributes: You can attach files up to 50 MB in file attributes.
  • Time Grid business rules: You can use new business rules, such as SumTimeGridRow, TimeGridNPV, and TimeGridIRR to perform complete financial calculations based on the Time Grid attribute.
  • Added browser support: You can log in to Rational Focal Point from Firefox 3.0 or Microsoft® Internet Explorer 8.
  • User and Add User global permissions removed: The User global permission and the Add User global permission are removed. Instead of having these permissions, you can create and add users in the Display view.

Installing Rational Focal Point, Version 6.4.1

For information about installing Rational Focal Pointversion 6.4.1, see the Installation Guide.

Known problems

Known problems are documented in the form of individual technotes in the Support Knowledge Base at http://www.ibm.com/software/awdtools/focalpoint/support/ As problems are discovered and resolved, the knowledge base is updated and maintained with new information. By searching the knowledge base, you can quickly find workarounds or solutions to problems.

The following links run customized queries of the live Support Knowledge Base:

Known problems for Financier

Financier is a technical preview that is integrated with Rational Focal Point to help teams rapidly build models to assess the investment value of software projects. Financier has the following known problems:
  • Changes made in Financier are not displayed in Rational Focal Point until the Rational Focal Point browser view refreshes. This can be achieved either by using the Refresh function of the browser or by selecting a different project and then selecting the project that the user just edited with Financier.
  • Changes made in Rational Focal Point to a time grid that is being edited in an open Financier browser view do not become visible in Financier until the Financier browser view is refreshed.
  • Financier computes the NPV probability-Financier, IRR-Financier, ROI-Financier, and Payback period-Financier project attributes, but these attributes are updated in Rational Focal Point only when you save the project in Financier.
  • In some browsers, Rational Focal Point launches Financier by using popups.
  • If a Financier view is launched from Rational Focal Point and left idle, the session expires. If this happens, to save changes from Financier to Rational Focal Point, you must enter your Rational Focal Point user name and password.

Contacting IBM Rational Software Support

IBM Rational Software Support provides you with technical assistance.

For contact information and guidelines or reference materials that you need when you require support, read the IBM Software Support Handbook at http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/guides/handbook.html.

For contact information and guidelines or reference materials that you need when you require support, visit our Telelogic support overview site at: http://www.ibm.com/software/rational/support/telelogic/.

For FAQs, lists of known problems and fixes, and other support information, visit the product support page for Rational Focal Point Software at http://www.ibm.com/software/awdtools/focalpoint/support/.

For product news, events, and other information, visit the product home page for Rational Focal Point Software at http://www.ibm.com/software/awdtools/focalpoint/.

Before you contact IBM Rational Software Support, gather the background information that you need to describe your problem. When describing a problem to an IBM software support specialist, be as specific as possible and include all relevant background information so that the specialist can help you solve the problem efficiently. To save time, know the answers to these questions:

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