Validation

Introduction to validations

Thinkwise provides a comprehensive set of validations within the Software Factory. Validations are carried out on the model to check for errors. These errors are pre-defined and specified by Thinkwise in a base model. Consider, for instance, a requirement that a primary key always has to be at the top of a table and that each table has to have a standard sort sequence. You can also create your own company or product-specific validations.

View validations

Every step of the development process in the Software Factory has a Validations tab where you can execute the validations for that modeler. So, you can validate your application before synchronization to IAM or deployment.

You can choose to view all validation messages in the tree or in a detail tab to keep the tree more compact:

• If a validation contains more than 25 messages, a node to expand the list is added. Double-click the node (+) or use the Expand validation task to expand the list. It remains expanded until the validation is executed again.

  Validation screen with expandable tree

• To show all messages in a detail tab instead of the tree, select a validation and use the prefilter Hide messages . This Validation messages detail tab contains the same tasks, prefilters, and Related object tab as the validation messages in the tree. In addition, it provides more options to filter specific messages than the tree.

  Validation messages in detail tab

Execute a validation

menu Quality > Validations

You can conduct a validation at various levels using the following tasks. Multiple validation jobs can be active at once for a branch.

• Execute all validations.
• Execute group - Executes all validations of the selected validation group.
• Execute selected - Executes the selected validation.

Validation status

After execution, an icon indicates the status of each validation. Thinkwise strongly advises to solve all information, warning, and error messages.

menu Quality > Validations

Pictogram	Status	Description
	OK	No problems found.
	Information	Possible problem that is not breaking, but solving it will improve the user experience.
	Warning	Possible problem. Check the problem and solve it.
	Error	Problem must be resolved.
	Unknown	Validation not executed or subject to re-validation

Prefilters for validations

Prefilters are provided to filter the validation messages:

menu Quality > Validations

• Info, warning and error - Shows messages at the information level and higher.
• Warning and error - Only shows messages at the warning level and higher.
• Error - Only shows error messages.
• Unassigned - Only shows messages that are not assigned to anyone.
• Assigned to me - Only shows messages assigned to the current user.
• Hide messages - Hides validation messages.
• New messages in this branch - Only shows messages that are new in this branch. For this filter to work, the previous branch must be validated.

Assign a validation

To assist in resolving validation messages, it is possible to assign messages to specific developers. Prefilters are available to show your own or unassigned validation messages.

menu Quality > Validations

1. Execute the Assign validation task to assign a developer to a message and to remove the assignment.

Assign validation

The Assignments tab page shows an overview of the validation messages that are assigned to a developer.

Validation assignments

Approve a validation

By default, error messages cannot be approved, whereas warning or information messages can. When creating your own validations, you can deviate from this behavior by selecting the checkbox Allow approve.

menu Quality > Validations > tab Validation

or

menu Quality > Validations > tab Validation > tab Validation messages

1. Select the validation message you want to (temporarily) approve.
2. Approve or temporarily approve the message:

• Approve validation message - Approve the validation message.

• Approve validation message temporarily - Approve the validation message until the branch is merged or until a specific point in time.

  • Select Approved until branch is merged if the message should be solved after the next merge, regardless of the point in time.
  • Select Approved until point in time if it does not matter in which version the message is solved. The message will reappear the first time the validation is executed after the set time has passed.

The tree will be updated immediately, a new validation run is not necessary.

note

An overview of all (temporarily) approved validations is available in the Maintenance tab.

(Temporarily) approve a validation message

Undo an approval

It is possible to remove a (temporary) approval from a previously approved validation message. This is only available in the Validation messages tab. See chapter View validations.

menu Quality > Validations > tab Validation > tab Validation messages

note

(Temporarily) approved validations are not shown in the list. To see them, you need to disable the Hide approved messages task in the Validation messages tab or look at all temporarily approved validations in the Approvement (temporarily) history table.

1. Select the validation for which you want to undo the approval.
2. Execute the Undo approval task.

Create your own validation

menu Quality > Validations > tab Maintenance > tab Validations > tab Form

1. Enter a Validation id and Description.
2. Select a Validation group.
3. Select the Severity level ('Error', 'Warning', or 'Information').
4. If it allowed to approve a validation, select the Allow approve checkbox. See Approve a validation.
5. Enter the Consequence and Solution.
6. In tab Code, enter the required code.

Hits for this validation (the problems that need to be solved) are available in tab Validation messages.

Create a validation