This document contains information about new features,
system requirements, installation, and known issues for IBM® Rational® Focal Point™,
Version 6.5.2. It also provides information about contacting IBM Software Support.
Description
Rational Focal Point is
a comprehensive portfolio planning solution that market-driven teams
can use to make collaborative, objective decisions in order to deliver
market, customer, and business value. Teams can use Rational Focal Point to
identify priorities, and then deliver products and projects with the
highest business and customer value. Rational Focal Point reduces
the chaos of managing information in emails, documents, and spreadsheets
by providing a collaborative environment for centralizing requirements,
products, and project data. You can ensure that the right balance
is maintained between resources, budgets, time to market, and business
value.
System requirements
For a list
of hardware and software requirements, see
System requirements in the
Rational Focal Point information
center.
New features and enhancements
IBM Rational Focal Point,
Version 6.5.2 includes the following new features and enhancements:
- Enhancements to Investment Analysis:
- Define the default variables and calculator tapes in the time
grid setup.
- Set the visibility level of calculator tapes.
- Document your assumptions as comments.
- Define units for streams.
- Launch investment analysis directly without going to the time
grid mode.
- New output attributes: Payback period as a distribution, ROI to
date, and ROI to go.
- Integration with applications that
support RESTful XML APIs:
- Retrieve artifacts from an application by using the GET method.
- Synchronize artifacts with an application by using the SYNCHRONIZE
method.
- Create artifacts in the application by using the POST method.
- Update artifacts in the application by using the PUT method.
- Delete artifacts in the application by using the DELETE method.
- Integrate with Rational Focal Point using
REST RDF APIs:Rational Focal Point can
be integrated with applications that support the Resource Description
Framework (RDF) format. Rational Focal Point makes
available its resources in the RDF/XML, RDF/Turtle, and RDF/N3 formats.
- Enhancements on Home page:
- Access the windows that you create, and the windows that you inherit,
through tabs provided on the home page.
- Arrange, show, and hide the windows that you create, and inherit.
- Use the home page setting to switch between the single tab layout,
and multiple tabs layout.
- Create, rename, rearrange, and delete the tabs that you create.
- Add, edit, move, and delete the windows that you create.
- Enhancements to Editable table:
- Edit the values of an attribute for the selected elements.
- Edit all the values of an attribute in a row.
- Filter the elements, and compare the elements side-by-side simultaneously.
- Use nested sorting in editable tables by sorting the tables concurrently
based on one or more columns.
- Enhancements to XY chart:
- Edit the attributes for all the non-selected elements.
- Display the XY chart bubbles with colors that are specified through
a choice or an indicator attribute.
- Resize the bubbles, and change the bubble style.
- Display bubbles in one size.
- Select multiple elements at a time.
- Toggle the selection of elements graphically.
- Copy the chart to clipboard without setting the login URL.
- Indicator attribute: Use
the indicator attribute to specify the display color, icon, text,
or all of these, based on threshold value. It is a read-only attribute
and is associated to an integer or float attribute. It can be used
as icon and color attribute of a module.
- Support to export contents to Microsoft
Excel 2010: Export the contents of a view in a table structure
to the Microsoft Excel 2010 format.
- Limited search option: Search
the elements in a large view faster by using the limited search option.
With this option selected, the search is performed against the Prefix
and Title attributes only. The preference for this option is saved
while performing the search operation. You can also search using the
asterisk (*).
Known problems and limitations
Known
problems and limitations are documented in individual technotes in
the
Support Knowledge Base. 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:
The following are the known problems and limitations in the
current release:
- Investment analysis:
- In Internet Explorer version 8, the graphs in the Stats tab overlap
with the other sections in the window, when the window is scrolled
up or down.
Workaround: Before scrolling, collapse the section that
has the graph.
- In Internet Explorer version 8, it might be difficult to enter
data graphically.
Workaround: Use a different browser, or enter
the data manually in the estimates tab, or by using calculator tapes.
- Integrate with Rational Focal Point using
REST RDF APIs:
- The HTTP, PUT, POST, and DELETE methods are not supported for
Workspace and Module resources.
- The RDF/XML-ABBREV format is not supported.
- Invalid URL values specified for URL attributes, Class URI, Property
URI, and Value URI are ignored in RDF representation.
- Home page enhancement:
- Indicator attribute:
- Indicator attribute cannot be referenced with a formula.
- Thresholds cannot be combined with version attributes and baselines.
- View rules and filters can be defined on the reference attribute,
and not on the indicator attribute.
- Icon for the indicator attribute is not displayed in the report.
Contacting IBM Software Support
IBM 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.
For FAQs, lists of known problems
and fixes, and other support information, visit the product support page for Rational Focal Point.
For
product news, events, and other information, visit the product home page for Rational Focal Point.
Before
you contact IBM Software Support, gather the background information
that you need to describe your problem. When you describe 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:
- What software versions were you running when the problem occurred?
- Do you have logs, traces, or messages that are related to the
problem?
- Can you reproduce the problem? If so, what steps do you take
to reproduce it?
- Is there a workaround for the problem? If so, be prepared to
describe the workaround.
Trademark acknowledgments
IBM,
the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks or registered trademarks
of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions
worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of
IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available
on the web at http://www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.