Tool Mentor:  Reviewing Requirements Using Rational RequisitePro

Purpose

This tool mentor describes how to use Rational RequisitePro to facilitate requirement reviews.

Related Rational Unified Process™ information: Activity: Review Requirements.

Overview

RequisitePro facilitates the review of requirements in a project team environment. All project documentation can be organized and accessed from a single location. Team members can then share comments about specific requirements or broader aspects of the project through online discussions. All discussion items, which can be shared in e-mail or directly in RequisitePro, are stored in the project database for later review. To review requirement documents, an author can temporarily secure a document during review and revision. Revisions are later merged back into the project and made available to all team members.

Tool Steps

Click one of the following to examine these requirements review concepts and procedures in more detail.

1. Access Requirements documentation in a single location
2. Develop a project team dialog
3. Secure Requirements documents for review and revision

As requirement documents are created or imported in RequisitePro, they are integrated into the requirements management project. Each document is associated with the project database, which allows rapid, centralized access by all users. All requirement documents in the project can be opened from a single dialog box. You can also add nonrequirement documents, such as a glossary, to your RequisitePro project for easy access by your project team. In addition, requirement information is available through a variety of interfaces, including the RequisitePro Word Workplace, the Views Workplace, and the RequisiteWeb product.

To create a requirements document:

1. Do one of the following:
   • On the Tool Palette, click Document > New.
   • In the Word Workplace, click RequisitePro > Document > New.
2. In the Document Properties dialog box, click the General and Revision tabs to define the document:
3. Click OK.

To open one or more requirement document while a RequisitePro project is open:

1. Do one of the following:
   • On the Tool Palette, click Document > Open.
   • In the Word Workplace, click RequisitePro > Document > Open.
2. Select the documents you want to open. Use the multiple selection techniques to select more than one document.
3. Click OK.

To import a Microsoft Word document that contains requirement text:

1. On the Tool Palette, click Project > Import. The Import Wizard appears.
2. Select the Microsoft Word Document option and select a document to import.
3. Click Next to advance in the wizard. When you select the "Requirements and document" option, RequisitePro parses the requirements automatically and marks them in the imported document. You can choose to parse the requirements based on keywords, text delimiters, or Word paragraph styles.
4. Click Help on any screen to access additional instructions.

For More Information

Refer to the following topics in the RequisitePro online Help:

• Creating requirements documents (Index: documents > creating)
• Opening requirements documents after a project is opened (Index: documents > opening)
• Importing requirements from a Word document (Index: importing > requirements from a Word document)

2. Develop a project team dialog

RequisitePro facilitates team communication and review with discussion groups, making it easy for users to discuss their requirements. With discussion groups, users can quickly create and distribute discussion topics—comments, issues, problems, or even change notices— regarding a requirement or any aspect of the project. Distribution can be to the entire team or limited to a specific group of users. Replies can be made within RequisitePro or RequisiteWeb or with any SMTP e-mail application, if e-mail is enabled for the project. RequisitePro notifies users of new messages and stores the discussion threads along with the associated requirements for easy reference by the whole team.

Common problems that project teams encounter during a project include capturing often forgotten rationale for making decisions and proposing changes.   Discussion groups provide value to teams for solving such problems by allowing users to do the following:

• Create discussions and associate them with a single requirement, a set of requirements, or the whole project
• Automatically distribute an e-mail message (if enabled) to the selected discussion audience
• View a graphical representation of discussion threads in a hierarchical tree format showing comments and replies
• Run queries on discussions
• Modify the attributes of a discussion (priority, status)
• Print discussions

To create a discussion:

1. Do one of the following:
   
   • On the Tool Palette, click Project > View Discussions.
   • In the Views Workplace, select one or more requirements, and click Requirement > Discussions.
   • In the Word Workplace, click RequisitePro > Requirement > Discussions.
2. In the Discussions dialog box, click Create.
3. In the Discussion Properties dialog box, click the General, Attributes, Participants, and Requirements tabs to define the discussion, add participants, and associate the discussion with requirements (optional).
4. Click OK.

To view and reply to a discussion:

1. On the Tool Palette, click Project > View Discussions, or click the highlighted discussion icon on the Tool Palette (indicating that a new discussion message has been created).
2. In the discussions list, click a discussion. An expand/collapse indicator is displayed to the left of discussions with responses.
3. Click an item to read it.
4. To respond to the selected discussion item, click Reply.
5. In the Discussion Response dialog box, type your response.
6. Click OK.

For More Information

Refer to the following topics in the RequisitePro online Help:

• Creating new discussions (Index: discussions > creating)
• Reading discussions (Index: discussions > viewing)
• Responding to discussions (Index: discussions > responding to)
• Configuring e-mail for discussions (Index: e-mail > discussions, setting projects up for)

3. Secure Requirements documents for review and revision

The "offline authoring" feature in RequisitePro enhances the review process by allowing authors to "check out" a document from the project and revise it in Microsoft Word. A read-only copy of the document remains in RequisitePro; it is protected from modification by other team members until the review is complete. The offline document, which is simply a Word document, can be distributed to co-authors for review and revision. Finally, the resulting document can be brought back online, and the review cycle can be completed.

While the document is offline, the user who took the document offline has the ability to mark (create), unmark, and delete requirements in the document using Microsoft Word 97 or Word 2000. The user can route the document to other team members for similar revisions. (It is recommended that you maintain only one copy of the offline document and pass that copy to each team member in turn.) Other users can view the document in RequisitePro but not edit it.

When the document is brought back, RequisitePro does the following:

• It creates requirements from the marked text.
• It updates the database with changes made to existing requirements. These can include deletions, modifications, and additions. If requirements were deleted, the owner of the offline session is prompted before the deletions are recorded.
• It rejects any changes to requirements that the user does not have permission to edit. In this case, the entire document returns to its original online state.

To take a requirements document offline:

1. On the Tool Palette, click Document > Offline Documents.
2. Click the document you want to take offline. (Use a multiple select action to select multiple documents.)
3. Click Take Offline. The Take Offline Information dialog box appears.
4. Type a reason for taking the document offline and the directory path where you want to store the document (or click Browse to locate the directory).
5. If you are taking multiple documents offline, select the Apply to All check box to apply the Reason and Location entries to all the documents. Clear this check box to address each document individually.
6. Click OK.

To bring documents back online:

1. On the Tool Palette, click Document > Offline Documents.
2. In the Offline Documents list, select the document you want to bring back online.
3. Click Bring Online.
4. In the Description of Changes box, type a description of the changes made to the currently selected document while it was offline. If you are bringing multiple documents back online and the changes apply to all subsequent documents, select the Apply to All check box.
5. Click OK. Click Yes to accept the updated document.

For More Information

Refer to the following topics in the RequisitePro online Help:

• Taking documents offline (Index: offline authoring > taking documents offline)
• Bringing offline documents back online (Index: offline authoring > bringing documents back online)

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