Extension menu items are one of the best new features in SLIM-Suite 8.2.  You don’t have to be a programmer (or even pretend to be one online) to create customizable menu items that perform tasks like these right from the menu of any SLIM-Suite application:

• Call external applications like Excel, Word, or PowerPoint
• Run SLIM-Suite utilities or APIs
• Open external references or process guides
• Launch the Windows Snipping Tool to capture screen settings or data and email them to your team.

Once you get the hang of it, creating your own custom menu items is easy: if you can unzip files and use Notepad, trust me – you can do this!

The Extension Menu Item feature is documented in its own chapter in each SLIM-Suite user guide, but if you’re like me you could probably use a few real life examples and some sample configuration settings to jump start the process.  In a fairly short period of time, I was easily able to create the following menu items in SLIM-DataManager:

• IMPORT PROJECT FROM SPREADSHEET
• EXPORT DATABASE TO SPREADSHEET
• RUN DATAMANAGER API
• Bring up the API documentation
• Bring up an internal data validation guide
• Launch Excel, Word, PowerPoint and OneNote
• Launch the Windows Snipping tool.

The menu items I created fell into several categories: launching an external application, launching a SLIM-Suite utility/API, pointing to an external process guide, launching a Windows utility. I’ll cover each one, providing sample configuration text for each.

CREATING THE .INI FILE

Although each workbook is set up with default themes, the look and feel of SLIM-Estimate, SLIM-Control, SLIM-Metrics, and SLIM-MasterPlan workbooks are readily customizable.  

Screen Background

The easiest way to change the feel of your workbooks is to change the background color and style.  To change the background color, go to Tools|Customize Display|Screen/Printer Fonts, Colors, and Symbols…, then go to the Colors & Symbols tab on the right.

Color Start and Color End are important if you want to create a gradient background, like the background in the first image.  A gradient background begins with your specified Color Start color then transforms into your Color Stop color either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally (pictured above).  If you choose the Solid color style, simply select your Color Start.

Graph Background

Like the Screen Background, you can have a solid background or a gradient.  Simply follow the steps above for selecting your colors and styles.

Solutions and Reference Data

Having data is great, but if you don't understand how to display it, you can't get your point across.  The focus of this blog series is to explain the various chart types available to you in SLIM-Metrics so that you can efficiently analyze your data, as well as to provide helpful tips and tricks. 

Bar charts break a data set into bins or categories and provide the number/percent of projects or the average metric value for each category.

Unlike scatter plot charts, bar charts can display both numeric and text metrics. There are two metrics tabs on a bar chart property sheet — one for the independent and one for the dependent metric. To create a bar chart, highlight the independent and dependent metric you want to display and select Choose, or simply double-click the desired metric. Once chosen, the selected metric name appears in the field to the right of the Choose button. 

Histograms

Histograms display continuous numeric data (each bar spans the interval between dependent axis ticks) grouped into evenly spaced bins on the independent axis, for the first data set. Additional data sets are overlaid over the bars in a line style with symbols. The Bin Size or Number of Bins can be customized, or you can select Auto to accept the default bin settings.

Histograms show both values and distributions, which is an important way of evaluating single summary statistics, such as averages.  For example, if a PI histogram follows a normal distribution, then you can probably use the average PI for estimation.  If a PI histogram does not follow a normal distribution, then it is a good idea to choose a different method to pick PI.

SLIM Suite default workbooks contain pre-defined views you can customize to fit your reporting needs.  The Navigation Panel on the left side of the user interface displays the list of views, organized into sections or folders.  Each SLIM tool contains multiple views to facilitate presentation and analysis of the unique metrics it employs.

Figure 1: Navigation Panel

One of the most valuable and flexible objects to include in a view is the Note Panel.  Just as it sounds, it is simply a note pad where you can include descriptive text about estimation assumptions, findings, questions, instructions to SLIM users.... the possibilities are numerous.  QSM uses the Note Panel to provide instructions, tips, and easily customizable project and executive summary reports.  The view below shows the Section Purpose & Operating Procedures view, which describes other views in the folder, along with suggestions for tailoring subsequent charts and reports. 

Figure 2: Note Panel View

You can use notes to document the estimation procedure you want others in your organization to follow.  Use notes to document the special background information that explains why the recommended solution meets the most important project goals and constraints.