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EDN FAQ

Introduction to our EDN: Electronic_Design_Notebook.pptx

Short Highlights of EDN usage: Electronic Design Notebook TL;DR.pptx

This is a very short intro to using the EDN. For the complete reference you should use the full Quick Start Guide below.

Quick Start Guide: Using the Electronic Design Notebook for Capstone Design.pptx

If you only read ONE document on how to use the Electronic Design Notebook (EDN), it should be the one posted above. If you want to get an "A" in this course and be a useful member of your team, you should review all of this page and ask your Project Engineer any questions.

EDN for Clients/ Mentors: EDN_for_sponsors.docx

Basic How To Guides

Useful EDN tricks

Common problems students encounter, and how to solve them

Using Gantt Charts / Project Management

We have created a separate page covering project management and the use of the EDN for your project Gantt Charts.

Where do I "put" information?

The EDN includes a number of tools that can help when managing projects by organizing information in a way that makes it easier to retrieve. They are:
  • the Wiki
  • the Issues
  • Releases / Versions
  • the Forums

These tools are typically provided for all projects - please ask your Project Engineer or the system manager if they are not currently available for your project!

The Wiki

The Wiki for a project serves as it's knowledge base - much as this wiki serves as a knowledge base for the entire Capstone program. In the wiki teams can collaboratively gather information related to the project such as instructions, guidelines, techniques, processes, test plans, etc.

We have an example of a Typical Home Page along with more suggestions and ideas.

Issues

Issues are used to manage things that "come and go" during a project, such as tasks, design errors, and implementation errors (aka "bugs" for the software folks). Use an issue every time a problem is identified, an error is detected, or a key piece of information had been identified as missing. Then, assign the issue to a team member who is then responsible for updating the issue as progress is made. When the issue is complete it's status is changed to reflect that and the % done is automatically updated to 100%. Using the EDN tools a user can see the list of open issues and with the filters, look for those that belong to a particular person.

Because the EDN includes an automatic Gantt chart feature, issues are even more important as every issue is automatically available on the project's Gantt chart. It is recommended that a specific category be used to flag issues that are intended to be seen on the Gantt chart and that using the filters, the other issues are not viewed.

NOTE - Issues will not show up on the Gantt chart unless you enter a due date!

You can indicate relationships between issues in EDN. You can indicate that issue A "precedes" issue B, meaning that A must be completed before B. This also means that you should close the issues in that order.

When closing an issue it is important to ensure that the body of issue includes a link to the location of the artifact/outputs related to the issue. This could be a repository revision number (denoted by lower case r then the revision number ex: r115), forum posting (denoted by message#12345), or a specific wiki page. Someone other than the assignee should be responsible for verifying the completeness and accuracy of the artifact/outputs before closing.

Versions (Releases or Milestones)

On the Gantt chart, these form the milestones used in project management. Issues should be tied to a "Version" which will properly group them on the Gantt chart.

The Forums

The Forums, sometimes called "Discussion Boards", provide a place for teams to discuss the various aspects of the project. To facilitate this, a standard set of boards are created for each project. These are described in the next few sections. In general the forums are used to provide a collaborative platform for our teams. Students as well as clients / mentors, faculty and staff are all users of these forums. They are often used to help create a dialog among these members of the team.

Forum postings cannot be "moved" or deleted by students.

To "end" a thread that should continue elsewhere, simply add a "last" posting that indicates that the thread has ended and give the reader an indication of where to look, ex: in the Design forum, posting titled "Topic X". Best practice would provide a link to the new/current location of the discussion.

Posting Guidelines

There are a number of best practices for posting.
  • Note that attachments cannot be searched! Rather than post an attachment of text, please just post that text directly.
  • When attaching a file, ALWAYS post the ORIGINAL file, meaning the actual file you were editing to produce it. For Word this is the DOC/DOCX file, for PowerPoint, the PPT/PPTX file. For CAD programs, post the CAD file itself. This allows people to open the original file and make changes if needed.
  • If the program that you were using is not part of Microsoft Office / OpenOffice, post a PDF as well. This allows people who don't have the program to still see your results.
  • DO NOT USE MICROSOFT PAINT or similar drawing program to generate diagrams. Engineers use "real" graphics programs like CAD or PowerPoint. We do NOT use Photoshop to create drawings nor Publisher to create posters.

Background Info

The one - two page project description should be posted in this section.
Introductory files from the Client can be posted here.

Project Management

Students use this forum to post their contact and availability information and to coordinate off-site team meetings held. Status reports and minutes from all meetings should be posted here as well.

Design

This forum acts as part of the team's electronic design notebook. As technical information is obtained and analyzed, it should be posted here. Team members are responsible for periodically reviewing the materials and offering insightful and constructive comments. Faculty, staff, and your Client/mentors will do the same!

Midterm

This forum is for team use when collaborating on the midterm deliverables - Board of Directors Review PPT. Drafts should be posted for review and feedback.

Final Deliverables

This forum is for team use when collaborating on the end of term deliverables - Poster and Final Design Review PPT. Drafts should be posted for review and feedback.

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