Requirements Traceability

In the context of a test tool, Requirements Traceability involves associating a particular TestCase (or Scenario) with one or more Requirements. There are two common approaches to capturing this information:

•Repository Capture - When a TestCase is created (or edited) traceability information is captured by adding one or more entries to your Requirements Repository (such as DOORS or TeamCenter) such that traceability links exist from each Requirement to the TestCases that verify the requirement has been met. If this approach is used, refer to your repository documentation for capturing traceability information.

•TestCase Capture - Record traceability information in the TestCase file (or TestCase repository), by including in the TestCase a list of fully qualified references to the Requirements that are tested. If no requirements traceability tool is available, then this approach must be used.

In both cases it is beneficial to be able to move traceability information from the repository to the TestCases and visa versa. This helps ensure that reports from the test environment and the traceability environment are complete and up-to-date. See the section below on Requirements Data Import/Export.

In a Regression Report, the requirements and their associated Scenarios are listed in the "Sorted by Requirement" section.

Use this approach if you want to have the tester capture traceability information in the TestCase as the test case is created or modified.  The first step is to enter the potential Requirements Sources in the Project Settings for your MxVDev project.

•From the main menu, select Project->Project Settings, and click the Req Sources tab.

•Enter references to the requirement source entities. For documents/repositories that can be accessed by everyone on the project using the same URL, the URL should be entered. (This includes for files such a Word or Excel documents that are on a shared drive or web location, so long as all the people on the project can access the document using the same URL. It can also be the URL to a particular DOORS repository

•Once you have entered all your sources, use the drop-down menu box below to choose a Default Requirement Source.

Once the Project Settings have been configured, it is easy to associate Requirements with a TestCase or Scenario. When creating or editing a TestCase (or Scenario):

•Navigate to the TestCase Properties dialog, and click the Associated Requirements tab. (Ctrl-R displays the appropriate dialog box; there is also a toolbar button.)

•The Default Requirement Source will be preselected for a new entry. If needed, select another requirements source.

•Complete the Id field. Note that the Source field and the Id field (ROIN) when combined should provide a fully qualified reference to a unique section in the Requirements Source. If the Source field is a URL, then you can make the Id a bookmark by including the # sign before the name of the bookmark.

•Enter a Description manually if desired.

•Hitting Enter twice or clicking the OK button will save the entries and close the dialog.

Notes:

•If the Requirements Source is a DOORS repository, then a URL can be used to access the requirement. Just double-click the URL on the Associated Requirements tab.

•It is possible to associate Requirements with both Scenarios and TestCases. If the TestCase in any context demonstrates that a particular requirement has been met, then enter the traceability information in the TestCase. If the Requirement is only validated in the context of a Scenario (the Requirements are only validated if all the tests in the sequence pass), then it is better to associate the Requirement with the Scenario.