iRise Online

Anatomy of an Ikea product

I've heard about this process in the past and this is the first time seeing it in print. Although it has little to do with simulation the article touches on many great points relating to process. There is a point where the author talks about the prototype and just like we see everyday with iRise it's not until you actually touch the product can you truly understand what the objective is.

"When you see something on paper, it looks great," Marston said. "But it's not until you touch it that you say, 'Aha, if you turn it this way, we could get 10 arms out of this length of wood instead of 7."

View the article.

OneSpring creates the first iPhone simulation for iRise

Our iPhone iRise simulation video has been updated with narration and a glimpse at the upcoming iPhone SimDK™.

Watch the video

iRise + YouTube = $20k

So, what does it take to win? Are you passionate about iRise? Has iRise changed your life or the way you do business? Are you creative? Do you have a great idea for telling the world about the power of visualization?  Do you have a great way to motivate others to buy iRise?  Help us tell the world by creating a 30 to 60 second commercial about iRise and you could win $15,000.

www.irisevideo.com

iRise Virtual Training

We finally did it, we've converted our popular instructor led onsite iRise training course into the industry's first virtual training class for iRise. The goal was not to produce a watered down CBT but instead create real value by delivering instructor led training and mentoring at a reasonable price. The curriculum includes three classes; iRise Basic, iRise Intermediate and iRise Advanced. All three classes are delivered through a combination of web conferencing software and VOIP, which has proven to be very successful in our first international training class. For more information please contact us at 888-472-1840 or learn@onespring.net, or download our Educational Services information sheet.

Checkbox logic problem

I have a form that displays a data table containing 2 columns: Include? and Location.  The first table cell contains a checkbox that indicates whether the user has chosen to include that location in the content of another screen.  There is a GetRecord Action pulling include and location from a datasheet that contains the userid, location, and an include column.  If the include = 1, then the checkbox displays checked.  If the include = 0, then the checkbox displays unchecked.  When I change a checkbox on this screen and click the submit button, the change takes affect and the results are what I expect.

However, what I'm trying to do is add a text widget within the section this table is in called Select All that, when clicked, checks all of the boxes on the display screen, but doesn't update the datasheet.  Likewise, a text widget called Un-Select All that, when clicked, unchecks all of the boxes.  I don't want the changes to take affect in the datasheet until the user clicks the Submit button. 

I've tried using alternate views of the table section but when I run the simulation and click Select All, the screen refreshes and the alternate view displays, but in the datasheet, the value of the include column has changed to a blank.  As soon as I click either one of these text widgets, the screen refreshes, but the checkboxes are blank.  The datasheet changes the include to a blank even though the Submit button was never pressed.  Once it blanks out this include field, I cannot change the field value even if I check the checkbox on screen and submit.  How can I get the text widgets to update the screen, but not commit the change to the datasheet until the user clicks a button?

Accordion Menus?

I know 6.0 offers a lot of new functionality for doing AJAX-like functions. However, it mainly appears to only handle horizontal transitions and not vertical. Has anyone figured out how to make Accordion style menus like those found on apple.com?

See you in Vegas,
s-

Vegas Baby, Vegas
-Swingers

version 6, now SP2 this week - anyone using this?

I've just downloaded the SP2 for 6.0 but I personally had not run into any specific difficulties using the first version of 6. Anyone care to share what they found?

The only thing that's now tough is that it now doesn't support IE6, just IE 7.

Has anyone else any learnings from the new features on version 6 that you'd like to share?

I am focusing more on RIAs now - hoping that I can create simulations more easily with this new release.

Mac Users viewing iDocs?

I work in a large corporation and of course provide iDocs to internal clients who work on PCs. Soon we'll also be sharing deliverables with Macintosh users who want to look at iRise simulations. Since the iReader is not available for the Mac OS, how are others handling this situation? What are you other iRisers doing out there?

Catalyze

A new site called Catalyze is in the works for the UX and BA professionals. I'll be posting the URL once it goes live, this is a test post for the RSS crawlers over there to pick up.

iRise and Requirements Management Tools

Hello All, I am curious if and how the iRise community has incorporated the iRise simulation tool with other Requirement Management tools? 

Spell Check

If you are using iRise Manager in conjunction with iRise Studio you can download a free plug-in for MS IE that will spell check the content within IE form fields thus providing a round about way to spell check your iRise requirements.

Linking Processes/Flows

One thing that has come up recently which I think would really improve iRise is the ability to create common processes/flows/scenarios that can be linked to from pages.

My thought is that these processes or flows would be a new category of chapters within the simulation (on the same level as pages, decisions, etc.) and can be used repeatedly, just as chapters can now.

I can't think of the specific example at the moment, but as soon as I remember the project I was working on where I thought this would be useful, I'll post it - maybe there is already a way to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish with this kind of functionality.

Deleting Tool Tips

Has anyone had any luck deleting Tool Tips text from fields?  I have a situation where the client had initially decided that they wanted Tool Tips text on the fields, as well as on a question mark help icon to the right of every field (redundancy).

Now they want to remove the Tool Tips text from the fields, leaving it on the question mark help icon.

My problem is that it doesn't appear that iRise will let me remove the Tool Tips text from the fields.

Is this is a bug?  Is there a workaround (other than creating new fields)?

Scenario Page Links

I think this has been discussed on this blog before, but it would be really nice if iRise provided the capability to create scenarios, with pages included in the scenario, and allowed you to show linking between pages or page/process/screen flow, without actually creating the links on the pages within the scenario.

The grey text links that it creates at the bottom of the scenario pages are annoying and not necessary - often times those same links have been accomplished using navigation/menus that are handled in masters (and the links/nav in masters are not represented at the scenario level).

It would be nice if iRise gave you the ability to determine if you wanted links created at the scenario-level to be displayed on the page-level or not.

iRise Quick Chart

I'm reposting this as several people have experienced problems downloading from the first post.

Download irise_quick_chart.zip

Transparent Layer

Has anyone created a transparent layer w/in iRise.  What I would like to have happen is when the user selects a link, a layer/section appears that is solid white and has an opacity setting of 80% then I would display another layer/section on top of that one, thus indicating to the user that the background is "inactive" and the foreground layer has the primary focus of attention.

Thanks,
s-

Validating Field Type/Format

I need to verify that a text entry field value, as entered by the user, is all numeric.  I know I can use the field properties for the field, but I don't want to handle my error messaging that way - I need to display it on a subsequent error page (in order to maintain consistencey with other error handling that is already built into the site design).

I'm not seeing an action that will provide that type of field-type validation.

Anybody have any thoughts on how to accomplish this?

Google Custom Search

You might have noticed the new search bar above, this search is using Google's Co-op Custom Search Engine and only searches sites that are relevant to iRise and Software Simulation.  The included sites are www.iriseonline.com, www.cio.com, www.onespring.net, www.irise.com and a few others.  Give it a try and let me know how it works.

2006' iRise Conference

This year's conference was at the Le Parker Meridien in NYC.  The first day was the iRise Partner Conference which combined several presentations about the value of building relationships not just networks.  They gave everyone the book "Don't eat alone" which is a very easy read and well worth a couple of hours to do so.  The User Conference was on Wednesday and consisted of several presentations from leading banks a keynote speach by Dennis Conner, funny man.  Everyone then broke out into afternoon workshops covering topics such as User Experience, Business Analysis and I did a little presentation on iRise Tips and Tricks.  This was by far the best conference to date and I'm already looking forward to next years, from what I hear it's going to be bigger and better.  Thanks everyone for putting on a great show. 

Below is the link to the iDoc file that i created during the Tips n' Tricks session.

Download conference_06.zip

Working With Calendars

2nd "How To" question of the night...

Is there any way to ensure the calendar widget pop-up (the actual calendar) pops-up OVER the top of other elements that are beneath it on the page?  The issue I'm having is that if I have a form with many elements, and a calendar in the middle of the list of form elements (middle, from top to bottom, not left to right), when the calendar itself is triggered on the page (by clicking the calendar icon), the visual calendar pop-up is often overlayed with the form fields beneath it.

Ordering the elements (from top to bottom) doesn't seem to help.

Any thoughts?

Working With Radio Buttons

Are there any tips or tricks for working with radio buttons?  I have a simple need to show two radio buttons and then save the value of the selected radio button when the form is saved.

The online help isn't much help in providing details on exactly what you have to throw to the datasheet when you submit the form - it would seem as though you would save the Radio Button Group (which would then send the value of the selected radio button to the datasheet), but iRise doesn't allow you to do that.

The second most likely option would seem to be to send both radio button values to one field in the datasheet, but iRise doesn't allow that either.

How is does it work?

BaseCamp is awesome!

ok so this has nothing to do w/ iRise or simulation but i have to give a plug to BaseCamp over at 37signals.com, this product is so darn simple, it actually works, it lacks all of the pointless, unused "features" that Microsoft, Adobe and every other software vendor puts into their fat applications. EOP (end of plug)

Remembering 9.11

I'm taking a moment to reflect on where I was professionally and personally 5 years ago today.

On September 11th 2001 I was living in Orlando, FL while having recently married of only 10 days, had just moved into a new home and had recently accepted a new job.  Unaware of the events taking place in NYC I was driving into work thinking about all that was happening in my life and how stressful it had become, as I walked into the office and heard what had just happened I realized just how simple my life really was and that the stress I had been experiencing was nothing compared to what the survivors and family of 9.11 victims were about to incur. 

Where were you 5 years ago?

2006 User Conference

If you can make it to the conference this year I would highly suggest doing so.  From what I've heard this will be the biggest by far.  Each year the conference doubles in size, and this year will be a great mix between the BA and UX communities.  A link to registration is below.

http://www.irise.com/userconference/

Clearing Clipboard Values

Is there any shortcut to erasing clipboard values?  If you're using a lot of clipboard entries and want to erase those values (such as when a simulation user "logs out" of the simulation), it is tedious to have to send every constant to the clipboard with a null value just to clear them all.

Is there any quicker, easier way to accomplish this simultaneously for a group of clipboard entries?