faq

Frequently Asked Questions

General MetaTeam questions

My company uses a project management server. Why should we use MetaTeam?

MetaTeam is designed to complement tools such as Microsoft Project, Primavera, Deltek Vision, Clarizen, and other project management tools.

These tools are focused on tasks, schedules and assignments. That is important stuff. But it is far from the whole story of how teams work.

MetaTeam is focused on organization, roles, goals, decision making, responsibilities and relationships. These concerns are the glue that holds teams and organizations together. If that glue is dried up and brittle everything falls apart.

My company uses an issues management system. Why should we use MetaTeam?

Issues management tools like JIRA, StarTeam, Bugzilla, TrackIT and others are mainly focused on dealing with operational issues. While you could use one of these tools to manage goals, decisions, etc. it would not be a close fit.

Again, MetaTeam is a perfect complement to an issues management tool. MetaTeam focuses on overall team health and direction, while the issues management tool helps the team deal with the rapid fire day-to-day issues.

My company uses a collaboration solution. Why should we use MetaTeam?

There are many great collaboration environments from SharePoint to Central Desktop to Documentum. These tools focus on communications between team members and document management.

MetaTeam is also about communication (not document management, though). However, MetaTeam is more interested in providing structured communication channels that facilitate team performance and learning. Where a Central Desktop makes it easy to share and converse, MetaTeam makes decision making clear and responsibilities known. These are different goals.

That said, and you've heard this before, MetaTeam is a terrific complement to a collaboration tool. Essentially MetaTeam provides the team with a strong skeleton where the collaboration space can layer on muscle. And each system can link to the other, as needed (assuming the collaboration tool is Web based).

Is the MetaTeam in-context help available as a single file?

Yes, the complete set of in-context help information is here.

 

Questions about how MetaTeam sees things

What is the relationship between teams and projects?

In MetaTeam the hierarchy is:

    MetaTeam
        - User
        - Group
        - Team 
             -- Group
             -- Project
                   --- Group

Which means:

1. MetaTeam is the root context that contains all users, all teams and some groups
2. Teams may contain projects and groups
3. Projects may contain groups

All of these structures may have members. Even users have members of their own "personal" group. (Personal groups are called 'Friends and Co-workers of ABC', where ABC is a person's name.

 

Shouldn't my project have a team rather than my team having a project?

There are actually many ways to structure your organization in MetaTeam. For instance, projects may have many teams or external groups participating.

When you look at MetaTeam from the perspective of a project, the project "has" a team (sometimes referred to as the "host team"). It may also have other teams that are contributing members or support.

The same is true of projects and groups. A project may host many groups, but there may also be external groups working on the project.

When external groups work in a project, the relationship is tight. The group's members are listed with the project's own members. Likewise, if goals, decisions, relationships, etc. are marked private they are shown only to the project members and to the members of any participating groups.

If there are external teams participating in the project, those team's members may be added to the members of the project, along with the members of the "host" team.

You may also choose to use formal relationships to show how teams, projects, groups and people are working together.

 

How-to questions

I just got an error message...

It happens. Hopefully your error was due to something you entered. That way you can fix the problem yourself. However, sometimes it is on our side. Please see this page for more about how MetaTeam provides error messages and what to do when you get one you don't understand. In addition, the same page talks about required fields, how to spot them and why there are so few.

 

I want to auto generate a charter for my team

To learn how to generate a charter please see this page

 

What is the difference between the "admin" account and the 'Admin' role?

The "admin" account is special. "admin" can do virtually anything within MetaTeam. Those actions that "admin" can't perform out of the box can still be done by "admin". All "admin" needs to do is simply add the 'Admin' role in whatever context the action is to be performed in and go ahead.

There is one thing that "admin" can't do. Delete the "admin" account.

The 'Admin' role is less special. It is a regular role, but one that is:

• Created by default in every team, project, group and user context
• Automatically assigned all the special responsibilities (more details on special responsibilities below and an overview here)

Anyone assigned the 'Admin' role will be able to do virtually anything in the context where that role is in effect. But since a role only applies in the team, project, group or person it is created in, being assigned 'Admin' is not as all-powerful as it may at first appear.

To truly be all-powerful, you would need to be 'Admin' in all contexts. And that is exactly what "admin" has the ability to do.

 

I just created a team and there are a bunch of default roles. What are they? Can I delete them?

When you create a team, project, group or person in MetaTeam you find that several default roles are created at the same time. All of these default roles may be deleted from any team, project, group or person.

The default roles are:

• User
• Self (only created in a person context)
• Leader
• Manager
• Sponsor
• Top_Manager
• Admin
• Top_Admin

There are a couple of things to know about these roles:

• Admin has the ability to do practically anything in its context (i.e. within the team, project, group or person)
• Self is created for each person so that they have a wide set of responsibilities within their own area
• Although it sounds like Top_Admin is superior to Admin they are actually quite similar. Top_Admin and Top_Manager are there for you to use if you need to differentiate between different admins or managers.

As said above, you may delete these roles (and if you do, you may then recreate them anytime). Before you delete these roles, however, you should understand a bit of why they exist. The purpose of the default roles is to make it simpler to set up a team, project, group or user. Essentially, these roles are a way for MetaTeam to provide you with some pre-packaged sets of special responsibilities.

Special responsibilities are permissions for a role to manage an aspect of a team, project, group, user or MetaTeam overall. For example, in order to save you time, MetaTeam creates a "Leader" role for all projects that has the special responsibility "Assign responsibility".

You will no doubt find that you want to make changes in the special responsibilities assigned to the default roles. Moreover, you will probably want to delete some of the roles and/or create new ones.

Also, note: you don't have the ability to create new roles in the root context. Moreover, you can not delete the default roles in the root context. In the root context the default roles are the ultimate arbitrators of who can do what within MetaTeam. However, you are still free to assign the default roles any set of special responsibilities you like.

 

I just installed MetaTeam. Who are Stanley Bats, Sara Bugs, Steve Snakes and Stella Clams? How do I make them go away?

MetaTeam ships with a set of examples:

1. At least 1 team named "New garden furniture product line"
2. At least 1 project named "Launch advertising campaign" project within the "New garden furniture product line" team
3. At least 10 people, most with first names beginning with the letter 'S'
4. At least 2 groups, the "Costing group" within the example team, and the "Midnight oil group" within the example project

These examples exist for you to get a quick sense of some of the possibilities of MetaTeam.

It is perfectly safe to delete any or all of the examples. Please feel free to do so.

If you want to log in as Stanley, Sara or any of their friends and coworkers, their usernames and passwords are the same. So sbugs has a password of sbugs.

 

How do I create my first team?

Login as admin. If you are logging in for the first time use the password admin, as the instructions on the login page say. (Don't forget to change the admin password right away).

Next follow the outline given on the quick start page.

 

How can I batch import users and teams?

Customers who have the latest Corporate or Enterprise Edition license can use the import tool to create teams, projects, groups and people. In addition you can import roles, goals, decisions and other elements of a team, project, group or person's work.

Imports are done using XML files. The XML import data is validated against this XML Schema. To learn about the import schema please read the schema documentation — The best place to start learning is probably this page.

More detailed information about batch importing your information is available on this how-to page.

 

How do I manage security in MetaTeam?

Start with a basic introduction to "Special Responsibilities".

 

I want one of my managers to be able to create a team, but I don't want to make them a 'Sponsor'. How do I do it?

At a basic level, what you want to do is add a role to the 'New team' special responsibility, then assign that role to your manager. Here's how you do that.

Lets assume you want to use the default role 'Manager'. 'Manager' is created for every team, project, group and user. You don't need to create 'Manager' yourself.

Log in as "admin" or a person who has the 'Admin' role in the root context. Lets assume you are logged in as "admin".

If this is your first time logging in as "admin" you will not have the 'Admin' role in the root context; however, since you are logged in to the special account, you can simply assign yourself the 'Admin' role. Do that by open "admin"'s 'Roles' tab and clicking the 'Assign a role in the root context' link at the bottom left hand side of the page.

Now that you have the 'Admin' role in the root context, switch to the 'Responsibilities' tab. The 'Responsibilities' tab has four sub-tabs. Switch to the 'Root Special' sub-tab. 'Root Special' lists all the special responsibilities the user has in the root context.

Find the 'New team' special responsibility. Click its 'Click for role names' link. If you have not added to the set of roles assigned the 'New team' responsibility you will see that 'Manager' is not one of the roles assigned.

To add 'Manager' just click the 'Add a role' link. The form that opens offers the available roles in a drop-down menu. Pick 'Manager' and click 'Submit'.

Now, if your manager has the 'Manager' role, they will be able to create teams.

If your manager is not yet assigned to the 'Manager' role, open their details pages to the 'Roles' tab. Click the 'Assign a role in the root context' link. A simple role assignment form opens. In the drop-down menu select 'Manager' and click 'Submit'.

Now your manager can log in and create the team.

 

The person who was managing a team is gone. No one else has the right special responsibilities. How do we get administrative control back?

Every MetaTeam installation has a special account named "admin". That account does not need special responsibility for most actions and has the ability to assign special responsibilities to any user, including itself. The answer is to login as "Admin" and reconfigure the special responsibilities for the team.

If you have lost the Admin account password, please contact eVisioner for assistance.

 

How can I make my profile invisible?

The visibility of a person in MetaTeam follows a few simple rules.

1. Is the person's profile set to public? If yes, you can see the person.
2. Are you "admin"? If yes, you can see the person.
3. Are you the person? If yes, you can see your own profile.
4. Do you have a relationship with the person? If yes, you can see the person.
5. Are you both members of the same team, project or group? If yes, you can see the person

If none of these rules come up true, you will not see the person. In general, though, it is probably a good idea to encourage people to keep their profiles set to public, the default.

You should also be aware that wherever your account is referenced (e.g. you are assigned a role, you create a decision) your account will be visible to and reachable by anyone who can see that context.

 

Who can update my team's charter?

There is a set of simple business rules that tell you if a person may create or update a charter. For these rule sets, if you don't get to 'yes' the answer is 'no'.

New charter

1. Does a team or project exist? If not, a charter can not be created.
2. Is the person the MetaTeam "Admin"? If yes, the charter can be created.
3. Is the person a member of the team or project? If not, the charter can not be created.
4. Does the person have the "New charter" special responsibility? If not, the charter can not be created.

Update charter

1. Does a charter exist? If not, no update can happen.
2. Is the person the MetaTeam "Admin"? If yes, the charter can be updated.
3. Is the person a member of the team or project? If not, the charter can not be updated.
4. Is the person the creator of the charter AND is the charter not yet adopted? If yes, the charter can be updated.
5. Is the person the maintainer of the charter? If yes, the charter can be updated.
6. Does the person have the "Update charter" special responsibility? If not, the charter can not be updated.

 

Who can create, see, update and delete team relationships?

The set of business rules for interactions with relationship is worth spelling out. First, though, what is a relationship in MetaTeam?

A relationship is a connection between any two teams, projects, groups and people. The parties in a relationship do not need to be of the same kind. For example, a person may have a relationship to a team, or a team may have a relationship to a group. You may create multiple relationships between the same parties as long as each has a different type.

When you create a relationship, the first party is the place where the relationship is created. I.e. if you are browsing your team and you create a relationship to a group the first party is the team and the second party is the group.

Each relationship has a name, a description, a type, a strength, and other attributes that describe the connection between the parties. In addition, you may add notes about the relationship.

Relationships have some subtle impacts. The best example is that when you go to add members to a project. Normally you may only select people who are members of a team or group involved in the work. However, if the project has a relationship to a team, project or group its members may be added. Likewise a person may be added as a project member if there is a relationship to the project.

Stay tuned to this space — bigger things are planned for relationships in future releases.

Now, back to the question. Here are the rules.

New relationship

1. Is the person "admin"? If yes, the relationship may be created.
2. Does the person have the "New relationship" special responsibility? If yes, the relationship can be created.

View relationship

1. Is the person "admin"? If yes, the relationship may be viewed.
2. Is the relationship public? If yes, the relationship may be viewed.
3. Did the person create the relationship? If yes, the relationship may be viewed.
4. Is the person a party to the relationship? If yes, the relationship may be viewed.
5. Is the person a member of one party to the relationship? If yes, the relationship may be viewed.

Update relationship

1. Is the person "admin"? If yes, the relationship may be updated.
2. Did the person create the relationship? If yes, the relationship may be updated.
3. Is the person a party or a member of a party to the relationship AND does the person have the "Update relationship" special responsibility? If yes, the relationship can be updated.

Delete relationship

1. Is the person "admin"? If yes, the relationship may be deleted.
2. Can the person view the relationship? If not, the relationship may not be deleted.
3. Can the person update the relationship? If not, the relationship may not be deleted.
4. Does the person have the "Delete relationship" special responsibility? If yes, the relationship can be updated.

 

How do I customize the types of goals, groups, responsibility records, etc?

These values are the contents of drop-down forms. MetaTeam refers to each set as a range. To change the values in a range you must have the "Update config" special responsibility. The "admin" user has the "Update config" special responsibility, so to make things simple lets assume you logged in as "admin".

1. Loot at the top set of tabs. You should see one labeled "Admin". Click it.
2. The "Admin" tab opens with the "Range Manager" sub-tab highlighted.
3. Click the "Click for range values" link to show the values in a range.
4. Click the "Add a value" link to add new values, or the 'X' link to delete.

 

Can I change the login page message?

Yes, easily.

The login message is the text in the box below the login form. It starts "MetaTeam is a Team Empowerment platform...." The HTML for the message is in a file in your config directory. Please see: [install]/config/messages/login.html.

Whatever you put in this file will show up as the welcome message for all MetaTeam users.

When you upgrade MetaTeam or apply a patch you must protect your custom login.html only if you are replacing the [install]/config directory. I.e. if you check the config module in the installer, you will over-write your login.html.

If, on the other hand, you upgrade or patch just the application, you do not need to worry about your custom message. I.e. if you only check the server module box in the installer your custom login.html will not be touched.

 

How do I set up email alerts?

Please see this how-to page on setting up notifications.

 

Technical questions

What do I need to run MetaTeam?

You will need a capable workstation- or server-class computer. The suggested setup is outlined here.

The MetaTeam Windows installer contains the Sun Microsystems Java Development Kit (JDK) 6 network installer; your computer will need to be able to see the Internet for this JDK installer to run. You must have JDK 5 or greater installed to run MetaTeam. Please see http://www.javasoft.com for more information and to download a JDK.

What databases does MetaTeam support?

The MetaTeam Market Test Release only supports the embedded Apache Derby database shipped with the product. Derby is a solid relational database that is more than sufficient for MetaTeam.

Future versions of MetaTeam will also support Sun Microsystem's MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server and other databases, as warranted by demand. At this time MetaTeam's development is done on MySQL and Derby and those will be the first databases supported.

Does MetaTeam support Active Directory?

Not at this time; however, Active Directory support is high on the development list.

Are there ways to integrate MetaTeam with other servers or applications?

MetaTeam is designed with the goal of close integration and data exchange between systems. During the Market Test Release no integrations are available. However, stay tuned for more on this topic in the next months.

Does MetaTeam support SSL?

Yes. MetaTeam runs in an unmodified Apache Tomcat 6 web server. You can configure Tomcat in many ways, including for SSL. Please see this page for SSL and use this page as a starting point for other Tomcat configuration topics.

 

How can I run MetaTeam as a Windows service

MetaTeam is an application within a Tomcat 6 web server. Setting up Tomcat to run as a Windows service is straightforward. The solution we recommend is using JavaService from the OW2 Consortium. http://forge.objectweb.org/projects/javaservice/. JavaService is an open source tool with a business-friendly license. The documentation is at http://javaservice.objectweb.org/js_doc_frame.html.

 

Do you release patches? How do I apply them?

Please see this page for information about how to install a patch or point release. The same page also gives a helpful overview of the MetaTeam installer.

 

My MetaTeam server's output log has several NoApproprateTaskException stack dumps. What does it mean?

Those stack traces are the result of exceptions relating to Special Responsibilities. They are the MetaTeam core's way of telling the Web application that a user does not have permission to do something.

Most typically you will see this noisy exception as a result of a person who can not assign Special Responsibilities opening a page that could display the "Special" tab.

Long story short, it is normal.

At some future point we may implement a more discreet reaction, but for the time being, please just ignore this routine output.

 

How can I install MetaTeam on a Linux machine?

The pure Java installer is here. A how-to on Linux installs is here.

 

Do you support Macs?

In theory MetaTeam is completely cross-platform; however, in practice, however, we test MetaTeam primarily on Windows and Linux, not on Macs. This not a statement of preference, just a reality of resources currently available.

We have reports of MetaTeam working just fine on Mac OS X. You will need to follow the same instructions provided for installing MetaTeam on Linux using the Java installer. The good news is that Mac OS X has a Java Development Kit preconfigured all you need to do is run the MetaTeam Java-based installer and away you go.

The pure Java MetaTeam installer is here. An install how-to is here.

 

I want to uninstall MetaTeam. How do I do it?

Both the Windows and the Java installer create uninstallers. You can find them in the install directory. (I.e. on Windows typically c:\Program files\eVisioner\MetaTeam.

That said, MetaTeam puts nothing into your registry and all files are right in the install directory (except the two desktop icons and one Start Menu shortcut installed by the Windows installer). If you like, simply stop the server and delete the install directory.

The one simple thing to remember is that you must stop MetaTeam before uninstalling. If you do not, you will not be able to remove all the directories below the install directory due to the operating system locking the server and database files that are in use. If you do forget, no worries. Just stop MetaTeam and delete the directories.

Any, in case it needs to be said, the easiest way to stop MetaTeam is ctrl-c. If you are running MetaTeam as a service, just open the services and switch it off.

 

What is MetaTeam built on/with?

Lots of things, including Java SE 1.5, Tomcat, Ant, MySql and other usual suspects. But special thanks go out to the less well-known projects.

Categories: Getting Started  | Technical