Up until now, developers have had to rely on users to notify them of software problems within an application. Often, those problems went unreported, and even when they were reported, the information was often incorrect or incomplete. Those days are over. VisualAge Smalltalk developers now have a software maintenance system that solves this dilemma.

Unity has introduced UniCycle, a new product offering that lets developers know a problem has occurred in their applications without the need for users to notify them. It captures the problem automatically, routes it through a problem management system, and then distributes only the necessary fixes via a small patch file. As a result, UniCycle increases productivity and shortens downtime for applications.

UniCycle was originally created to meet the business needs of Chubb & Son, Inc., an international insurance company and Unity's first alpha customer for UniCycle. Chubb's environment contained object oriented (OO) projects at all stages of development -- initial conception, under development and deployed -- providing excellent feedback on the initial release of the product.

Chubb's main business focus is property and casualty (P&C) insurance. Chubb is unique in its ability to consistently derive an underwriting profit from its operations as well as from the investment of premium income. Chubb focuses on high quality, personalized customer service and expedited claims processing. As a result, Chubb's internal IT applications must be highly flexible and allow for quick turnaround when making changes in software.

UniCycle was originally created to respond to inefficiencies in the maintenance process for Chubb's highly successful Masterpiece II (MPII) personal lines policy management system. MPII was the first complete OO application to be deployed to Chubb's branches, and is still its most ambitious.

In 1996, OMG/Computerworld awarded MPII the application title of "Best Use of Object Technology to Integrate Legacy Systems." Chubb cited Unity as key consultant on the project. Written with IBM's VisualAge Smalltalk, MPII is one of the largest and most complex VisualAge applications deployed to date.

Using applications written in Smalltalk presented new challenges to Chubb customer service representatives (CSRs) because the manner in which problems manifested was different from their traditional workstation applications. In many cases, the users were not aware they had triggered an application problem. This could lead to difficulties because the CSRs would continue to use the system even though a problem in the software might mean placing the underlying data in an invalid state for continued use. Additional problems could then emerge that eventually would get called in to the development team, however by that time, the sequence of interactions was difficult to reproduce because much of the crucial information about the initial problem had been lost.

Unity proposed the idea of automatic problem capture to Chubb to ensure that developers would receive high quality information about initial problems. Integrating problem capture into a problem management system for VisualAge was a natural next step for several reasons:

• There was no standard problem management system in place for workstation applications. Each development team had created their own process of tracking problems. in some groups, problem tracking was done using a paper-based system, which did not allow for shared information. Occasionally, problem information would be inadvertently misplaced or sent to the wrong developer.
• QA personnel typically used and maintained their own internal system for tracking and reporting problem status to their management. As a result, reporting mechanisms for different groups varied. When QA personnel switched teams, they might have to learn a new system. The quality of information regarding problem status available to a particular team was largely a function of the organization and presentation skills of the QA team leader. Depending on the team, this could vary considerably

UniCycle formalized the interactions between users, developers and QA personnel. It provided a consistent view of the problem and feature status for all interested parties. UniCycle also improved the quality of information sent to the development teams about software problems encountered in their branch offices, and ensured timely delivery of information to the development teams allowing quicker response to crucial field problems.

UniCycle is currently deployed within four VisualAge applications at Chubb. Chubb's Object Technology Center, which is responsible for promoting reuse consistency across all OO applications, has mandated that UniCycle be incorporated into all VisualAge Smalltalk applications deployed within Chubb. Chubb currently has 15 VisualAge Smalltalk projects in various stages of development.

With the success of UniCycle at Chubb, and because of the need Unity saw for this kind of product with several clients, Unity decided to develop UniCycle as a software product for VisualAge Smalltalk applications. Other UniCycle features include integration with VisualAge configuration management capabilities (Envy), enabling developers to verify that all appropriate fixes are included in any distributed application; and screen capture, which provides an instant display of what happened when the error occurred. UniCycle began shipping in mid-September, 1997.

Unity specializes in providing OO consulting services, component development and software products to solve business problems. Unity has offices in Phoenix, Arizona and Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota.