Use Cases, Definitions, and Requirements can reference other requirements. Besides using the Add Requirement References dialog to create references, you can drag and drop items between the main list view and the project browser:
- Select 1 or more requirements in the main list and drop them on a use case or definition in the project browser. This will assign each of the selected requirements to the target item.
- You can drop onto a requirement as well, but you must press and hold the shift key when you drop the requirements, otherwise they'll become child requirements, not referenced.
- Drag and drop works in both directions. Instead of dragging requirements onto an item, you can drag selected items onto a requirement.
The techniques above create an Explicit reference. You may also create an ID Link reference by adding a Requirement ID link in your text (right click and select Insert Requirement ID Link or press Ctrl+R). This will add the text of the requirement and its ID which acts as a hyperlink in CaseComplete. Only the ID is needed to maintain a reference: you may modify or remove the text of the inserted requirement if desired.
There are multiple ways to see which items reference a given requirement:
- Open the requirement details form. On the Traceability tab in the Is Referenced By section, the items that reference the requirement will be shown along with the reference type (Explicit or ID Link).
- Create a diagram and drag a requirement from the project browser into the diagram. Then right click on the requirement shape and select Add Related Shapes/Connectors. References to and from the requirement will be shown with an arrow that is labeled with the reference type (<<reference>> i.e. explicit, or <<ID Link>>). See also Creating a Use Case Diagram.
- Generate the Requirements Cross Reference Word report or one of the Matrix - Referenced Requirements Excel reports. Use these reports to find unreferenced requirements as well (i.e. requirements that haven't been referenced by any use case or requirement yet).
Hi Doug,
I have a question regarding custom report for referenced requirements. I am trying to create a template (XLS) for traceability and would like to display the list of requirements that are referenced by each requirement but the keyword $listReferencedRequirements is not working. Any other way to display this apart from just the matrix view of referenced requirements?
Hi Zoheb,
$listReferencedRequirements should work. In fact, if you look at the Requirements report, it does the same thing, although uses $table instead of $list. Would you be able to open a support ticket and send your template so we could take a look? That will be the easiest way to diagnose the problem.
Doug
Hi Doug,
Thanks for the quick response - it did work. I wanted all the referenced requirements to be displayed in 1 cell for a particular requirement, but I was not using the InCell option. Once i used it it worked fine.
Hey Doug,
I am customizing the Built in Test Case Report. Is there a way to have the reference requirements output in a
comma delimited format: ie, L2R234, L2R456, L2R789,
versus a list:
L2R234
L2R456
L2R789
Hi Audrey. The command you're looking for would be "$listAcrossRequirements $Name, " where the text you included above is the requirement name. If it's some other property, use that instead of $Name, of course, and be sure to include the trailing comma and space after that property.
More information can be found in section 3.5 of the Custom Reports User Guide.
What would be useful is the ability to preview (or add columns to display more detail) a requirement prior to selection and adding to a use case. If you use a hierarchical-ish naming convention, the current display may not offer any real clue as to which requirement is which (other than the number). Ie the description or a added detail field may actually be the informative label of the requirement (as is the case with us)
Bryon,
We are looking at ways to improve that "select requirements" dialog window to make it more user friendly. In the interim, I would encourage you to give this method a try: Drag and drop one or more requirements onto your use cases to create your references. You can have the Requirements tabbed view list open on the left side of the CC window to view details, then the use case you're working with displayed in the project browser on the right. When you locate the appropriate requirement(s), you can drag them over to the project browser and drop them on your use case, adding them as references in that use case.