Sanplex provides the Waterfall management model. This gives users a new tool and methodology for project management, allowing you to select the model that best fits your actual needs and enhancing overall project flexibility.

Project Managers can watch the following video to learn how to use Waterfall projects in Sanplex:

【视频介绍】

Below, we will introduce the features and workflow of Waterfall projects.

I. Create Waterfall projects

Click the Create Project button. On the project management model selection page, select Waterfall (Waterfall-style project management) to proceed to the Waterfall project creation page.

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The Waterfall project creation page is essentially identical to the Scrum project creation page. Fill in the required information and click Save.

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Unlike Scrum projects, once a Waterfall project is successfully created, the system will redirect you directly to the phase configuration page. On this page, you can configure the workload percentage, start and end dates, access control, milestone status, and phase owner for each phase.

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After configuring the phases, you can view them under the project's phase list. You can filter and view them using tabs such as All, Unfinished, Unstarted, Doing, Suspended, and Closed.

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You can check the "Show Tasks" box to view all tasks under each phase from a global management perspective.

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Click a phase name to navigate to its specific task list page. Click the More button to view a dropdown list of other phases under this Waterfall project. The core features of a Waterfall project and its phases operate similarly to a Scrum project and its sprints, so we will not elaborate further here.

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II. Waterfall project workflow

The Waterfall project model in Sanplex divides the software lifecycle into six fundamental phases: Requirement, Design, Development, Testing, Release, and Review.

This represents a completely different lifecycle workflow compared to a Scrum project. A Scrum project consists of one or more executions that operate relatively independently, developing specific stories and resolving specific bugs per sprint. In contrast, a Waterfall project relies on fixed, sequential phases that are closely interconnected.

• Requirement Phase: Primarily focuses on organizing, analyzing, and reviewing user stories to finalize the complete list of stories required for the project. You can create task-type items to manage the grooming and review processes.
• Design Phase: Focuses on writing high-level design, detailed design, database design, and API design documents based on the finalized stories, and then reviewing these design documents. You can link stories and create design or task-type items for management.
• Development Phase: Operates similarly to a Scrum sprint. You link the finalized project stories and proceed with development. You can link stories, create development-type tasks for management, and monitor progress using burndown charts, task boards, and various views.
• Testing Phase: Focuses on testing the stories developed in the previous phase. You can link stories, write test cases, and conduct test case reviews. You can create testing-type or general tasks for management. During this phase, you create a build to submit a test request, link test cases to the request, and execute them to complete the testing cycle.
• Release Phase: Focuses on release testing for the build that passed the testing phase. You can create general or testing-type tasks for management. Once the release version passes testing, you can finalize the entire project release via Project > Release.
• Review Phase: The project progresses from grooming and design to development, testing, and finally release. The review phase serves as a retrospective for the previous five phases, summarizing experiences and issues to provide valuable insights for future projects.

III. Design features of Waterfall projects

Among the secondary navigation menus of Waterfall and Scrum projects, the Design feature is currently exclusive to Waterfall projects. Let's detail how to use this feature.

The Design module includes High-Level Design, Detailed Design, Database Design, and API Design. You can use these respective tabs to filter and view designs, or use the search function to find items based on specific conditions.

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The usage of high-level design, detailed design, database design, and API design is essentially identical. We will use high-level design as an example for detailed explanation. You can apply the same operations to other design types.

1. Create high-level designs

Click the Create button on the right side of the high-level design page to create designs individually or in bulk.

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On the design creation page, you can select related stories and the design type.

Only stories linked to the current project will appear in the related stories dropdown. You can enter the detailed content of the high-level design document in the description field, or upload a completed design document as an attachment.

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Successfully created high-level designs will appear in the list.

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2. High-level design actions

You can assign, change, link commits, and delete high-level designs.

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2.1 Assign and delete high-level designs

Click the assignee field to assign the high-level design. The assignee can then view and make changes to the design document.

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Click the Delete button to prompt a confirmation dialog. Click Confirm to delete the high-level design, or Cancel to abort.

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2.2 Change high-level designs

Once a high-level design is successfully created, any subsequent modifications must be made exclusively through the Change operation.

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2.3 Link commits to high-level designs

Design documents can be linked to code repository commits. To enable this feature, you must first create a repository for the product associated with the Waterfall project in the DevOps module. Once successfully created, you can view the repository information under Project > Code.

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Click the View Commits button in the action column on the right side of the high-level design list to see code commits linked to the design. You can also link new commits by clicking the Link Commit button.

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On the link commit page, you can filter by repository and commit time. Check the desired commits and click Save. A design can be linked to one or multiple commits.

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Successfully linked commits are visible in the related commits section of the design. You can also remove commits from this page.

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IV. Customize phase types and phase lists

1. Customize phase types

Our default phase types include Requirement, Design, Development, Testing, Release, Review, and Other. You can customize these phase types based on your actual workflow needs by navigating to Admin > Model > Waterfall > Phase. You can modify existing phase types, delete them, or add entirely new ones tailored to your requirements.

The default phase types are as follows:

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2. Customize phase lists

Similarly, our default phase list includes Requirement, Design, Development, Testing, Release, and Review. Currently, the default phase list shares the same names as the phase types. The key difference is that the phase list includes workload percentages.

Please note that when configuring phases in a Waterfall project, the sum of all phase workload percentages must equal 100%. Therefore, you must carefully calculate the workload distribution for each phase when configuring them in the Admin section. All of these can be customized according to your business needs.

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To add a phase, click the Create or Batch Create button to enter the phase creation page. Once successfully added, they will appear in the phase list.

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