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When a piece of software is being tested, (no matter what phase, the type or the purpose of the test : on the software or the installation guide) if the test fails, the tester will write a report with his observations called "Technical Fact Sheet" (TFS).
Based on the requirements and specifications, the project manager or the manager of the fact sheets will decide if it is a bug, in which case the sheet becomes a bug report, or if it's an evolution, so the sheet becomes a change request.
Every technical fact sheet follows a life cycle. When a problem is detected, a report is created with the description of the problem. This report will follow it's way through all the different people who might be able to bring precision or analysis to the bug or evolution. The report is the given to the corrector who will solve the problem and indicate on the report the modifications done. Lastly, the tester will verify that the problem has been corrected, and writes it on the report by closing it.
The wording "TFS management" means the management and the follow-up of all the reports of a given project.
The management of these reports can be done on paper, or in an electronic way. This second method has numerous advantages compared to the first:
Usage of this tool has proved that the Fact Sheets are heavily linked with the Test Sheets that the testers use to verify the correctness of the software. Therefore, although it was not the original purpose, this tool also integrates the management of test sheets.
This document describes a tool helping the Management though Intranet of Technical Fact Sheets (in French la Gestion par Intranet des Fiches de Faits Techniques, therefore GIFFT) and the management of the test sheets which are part of the verification phase.
GIFFT offers a friendly interface through intranet to manage fact sheets.
The tool is easily configurable and evolutive.
Each member of the project can connect to the Web server using a browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer) to
The members of a project are notified automatically by e-mail when changes take place on fact sheets that are assigned to them.
The project manager or the manager of the fact sheets also uses this interface to :
While writing specifications, the testing team can prepare test scenarios using the Web interface. If one of the scenarios fail during the testing phase the reference of the electronic test sheet will automatically lead the developer to the relevant scenario.
GIFFT was born on a very large project in the domain of telecommunications: the project employed up to 30 people working on two different sites: client site and development site.
On this complex project, the management of fact sheets on paper became very quickly rather difficult if not impossible.
The GIFFT tool has been developed for this project where it brought reliable change tracking, and considerable spare time.
The tool has the been distributed on other projects throughout the company to ease the lives of project managers.
The acronym has a French origin (Gestion par Intranet des Fiches de Fait Technique) and it is not really a pure coincidence that it reminds of an existing word in English and German.
2.4 Advice for an efficient use of GIFFTThis tool is not limited to large projects. Easy to install and customize, it can be used on small projects where it will replace paper reports and Excel sheets.
GIFFT can be installed at the very start of a project, since it provides good tracking of all changes.
2.5 Who to contact ?The GIFFT tool has been developed by Blaise Kiss (STMSI/AG) who tries to centralize the possible evolutions of the product.
For any question, send an e-mail to Blaise.Kiss@steria.fr .
Regular updates are available on the site http://ecwww.eurecom.fr/~kiss/gifft/ .
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