Teamstudio, the global leader in software asset management solutions for Lotus Notes, releases Teamstudio Build Manager version 3 with seven major enhancements that make it easier and faster for Lotus Notes developers, administrators and users to develop new Lotus Notes applications and to conform to industry best practices. Build Manager users may now specify and sign individual design elements in a Notes database ensuring security and traceability of design changes to support best practices and Sarbanes Oxley compliance.

Teamstudio Build Manager is a flexible and sophisticated build tool that helps automate the application build process to ensure error-free builds, internal control and audit compliance. By automating a best practices build, developers and administrators gain the advantage of consistent "one-click" builds with comprehensive audit trails or "promotion histories."

"It is generally believed that software problems caught before they reach production can be rectified at one-tenth of the cost that would be incurred if they are trapped later," said Ian Smith, President of Teamstudio. "This best practices build process is essential for Lotus Notes development organizations wanting to avoid costly downtime, rework and loss of credibility. Automating your build process supports the "Promotion to Production" control objective necessary for SOX compliance and can diminish the potential for errors and decrease the time spent by internal resources on manual builds."

Seven new enhancements to Build Manager V3 include.

1. Build Comments - Users can provide a comment or note each time the database or database template is promoted. These comments are valuable documentation that can describe key changes to the application and dependencies that are required for the application to function correctly.

2. Compile LotusScript upon Build - Before this new feature was available it was the task of the developer to manually compile all LotusScript. The "Compile LotusScript" feature automates the build task for all LotusScript and ensures the application will function correctly.

3. Servers may be Predefined for Promotion & Refresh - Build Manager administrators may now set up a list of predefined servers for the purpose of defining a promotion path. For example, the predefined list could identify test servers and production servers. A user may easily identify the proper servers for promotion or refresh and create the promotion path to update the Notes application templates. Administrators also have the ability to restrict who can promote applications to different servers automatically based on the "Promote Authority" configuration. This feature supports the best practice of separation of the roles of the developer and administrator.

4. Ensure updates to agents are refreshed - The agent enable/disable state and "run on server" property can be forced to be updated during a design refresh.

5. Sign Individual Elements in Database - Users may now specify and sign individual design elements in a Notes database. Prior to the availability of this feature the only option was to sign the entire database.

6. New Build Macros - New build macros can help make promotion paths more generic and easier to reuse. Three new build macros have been added in Build Manager: DESTINATION_SERVER, DESTINATION_PATH and BUILD_COMMENT. The new DESTINATION macros make it easier to keep the promotion path up to date because they can be used as an alias for the server name.

7. Easier Database Management - It is now easier to assign databases to projects based on a new feature that allows users to assign multiple projects at once. In the prior version of Build Manager, a user was required to assign projects individually to each database. In addition the new "Filtered View" feature allows users to minimize the documents a particular user will see in a view. The user will see just the database and promotion path documents.