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 the list is added. Double-click the node (+) or select the task Expand validation 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 . The 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, you can assign messages to specific developers. Use prefilters 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 or hide a validation message

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

You can also temporarily hide a validation message, to indicate that it will be solved at the specified time in the future or after the branch is merged.

To approve or hide a validation message:

menu Quality > Validations > tab Validation

or

menu Quality > Validations > tab Validation > tab Validation messages

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

• Approve message - Approve the validation message.

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

  • Select Hide until branch is merged if the message should be solved after the next merge, regardless of the point in time.
  • Select Hide 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 approved and hidden validations is available in the Maintenance tab.

Approve or hide a validation message

Edit approval or hiding information for a validation message

You can edit the approval or hiding information for a validation message:

menu Quality > Validations > tab Validation > tab Validation messages

1. Select the validation message for which you want to edit the approval or hiding information.
2. Edit the information in the task. For approvals, you can only edit the Reason. For hidings, you can edit the Hide until, Point in time and Reason.
3. Execute the Edit approval/hiding information task.

Undo approving or hiding a validation message

To undo the approval or hiding for a validation message:

menu Quality > Validations > tab Validation > tab Validation messages

note

Approved and hidden validations are not shown in the list. To see them, disable the Hide approved or hidden messages task in the Validation messages tab, or look at all temporarily hidden validation messages in the Hidden messages (temporarily) history table on the tab Maintenance.

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

Create your own validation

Maintenance

Create a validation

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

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

Hits for this validation are available in the tab Validation messages.

Create a validation

Create a validation group

Validations can be grouped together to display them logically.

To create a validation group:

menu Quality > Validations > tab Maintenance > tab Validations > tab Validation groups > tab Form

1. Enter a name for the Validation group.
2. Select the Sequence no. With this setting you can influence the order in which the validation group appears.

The validation group is now available for selection if you create or edit a validation.