Value: Quality
20 May 1996 updated
Reliability
- Typical quote from one guest: "What kind of issues
are you looking for for the web page? If you're looking for unresolved
bugs, I've got several to send ... but I'd get the most bang for my buck
if they'd just shore up their existing support structure and fix the
known bugs in the code."
See also PowerDesigner
Bugs and AIS's
detailed analysis of V5.0 . Of 25 bugs reported by AIS in Version
4.2.1, 20 were repaired in Version 5.0 and four more are scheduled for
repair soon. However, other new and critical bugs were introduced in the
5.0 release.
Useability
- John Pederson has some
extensive analyses on the useability of S-Desingor's GUI done in the Mayo's
useability lab.
Support (some quotes)
- "***** is disgusted and questions the purchase. 'Very poor support',
struggling with features (e.g., merge FK in the PDM, repository install
and setup)."
- "Had a call out of the blue from ******. Also disgusted with support
and lack of communication to existing customers."
- "I am really frustrated with the lack of information forthcoming
from PowerSoft - which in our case has been none. We either find things
out second hand or by accident. "
- A clear plan for measuring responsiveness to input from the customer
base
- "A clear understanding of the development process for future releases
of PowerDesigner including the engineering highlevel specs on-line via the
web."
- How are we notified of bug fixes? Veronique : Formal release per qtr;
maintenance release per month.
Documentation
- Try finding "Rules" in the on-line help. Even though
nearly every definition dialoig has a [RULES] button, you must know
enough to search for "Business Rules" to find help. This
is a tiny example of the incompleteness, obscurity, and circularity of
the documentation.
- There needs to be a complete cross
reference of DDL options listing the CDM or PDM features which
influence the DDL.
- All file
formats for PAM, CDM, PDM, DEF, CDF should be published.
- There is urgent need of an on-line
turotial for PowerDesigner. See OnLine
Applied Information Studies for a demonstration of this approach:
- user = "olais"
- password = "xiao"
- The help has gotten better but, we need a full tutorial included with
the tool. Topic to be included: IE methodology, Creating a CDM, reverse
engineering, discussion of normalization, examples of the different relationships,
entity types etc.
Where to go from here:
© © 1996
Applied Information Science International