Requirement Operations in Dimensions CM

Purpose

Use these operations when you wish to edit the details, attributes, or relationships of a requirement in Dimensions CM, notify users of changes to associated requirements, or to invoke Requirements Management using Dimensions RM.

To select requirements:

In the navigation pane of the My Current Project tab or My Current Stream tab, expand the Catalog node and select the Requirements node:

The requirements that are related to the project appear in the content pane.

To view the requirements in a container of requirements, expand the Requirements node and click the appropriate node, for example, a collection node: or a baseline node:

In the content pane, select one or more requirements.

To edit the details of a requirement:

PRIVILEGES To edit requirements requires the following privilege: "Perform Requirement Related Operation" (PRODUCT_REQUIREMENTMAN).

Select a requirement in the content pane.
Click the Open button: or click the requirement name.

The Dimensions RM Browser Edit Attributes dialog box appears (through the Dimensions RM integration). Consult the associated online help or Dimensions RM documentation for details on how to edit the attributes using this dialog box.

When you have finished, exit to return to the Dimensions CM web client.

To relate a requirement to an existing request:

On the My Current Project tab or My Current Stream tab, expand the Catalog node and select a requirement, click the Relate button: .
In the Relate dialog box, enter the existing request in the Relate to field, or use the browse button to select it.
Click OK.

NOTE When creating a baseline, you can also scope it by Requirement rather than Request. See Creating a baseline that contains requests and requirements: and Miscellaneous Functions.

To create a new request to relate to a selected requirement:

On the My Current Project tab or My Current Stream tab, expand the Catalog node and select a requirement. Click the New Request button and select a request type.
In the New Request dialog box, enter the new request details in the relevant fields in the General and Attributes tabs. The Related requirement(s) field will, of course, be pre-populated with the selected requirement.
Click OK.

NOTE When creating a baseline, you can also scope it by Requirement rather than Request. See Creating a baseline that contains requests and requirements: and Miscellaneous Functions.

Creating a baseline that contains requests and requirements:

If your items are used in builds, once requirements have been linked to requests and the work for those requests has been completed, a baseline should be created for all the items before they are used in the build. You will want to create the baseline using the requirements that were worked on for this build and project milestone. The creation of this baseline ensures the specific version of requirements, requests, and items are associated. The creation of this baseline in Dimensions CM also creates a baseline in Dimensions RM with the same name that contains the requirements that were linked or associated to the requests. The baseline in Dimensions RM will be associated with the Dimensions CM baseline that was created.

To create a baseline in Dimensions CM that contains the requests and requirements, you must first create the Request Baseline Template in the Dimensions CM Administration Console. This must be done before attempting to create the baseline in Dimensions CM.
On the My Current Project tab or My Current Stream tab, expand the Catalog node and select a requirement. Click the New Baseline button: .
In the New Baseline dialog box, enter the new request details in the relevant fields in the General and Attributes tabs.

When creating the baseline in Dimensions CM, you need to specify the requirements to use for the baseline. This is done through the General tab. Click the Requirement radio button and then enter the requirement PUIDs that will be part of the baseline (the PUID numbers can be browsed). A PUID is just a unique identifier of a requirement in Dimensions RM.

Click OK.

When the action is complete, a baseline in Dimensions CM and a baseline in Dimensions RM are created. The baseline in Dimensions CM will contain all objects (items, requests, and requirements) and the baseline in Dimensions RM will contain the requirements.

Notifying Dimensions CM users of changes to associated Dimensions RM requirements:

PRIVILEGES Email notification of changes to associated Dimensions RM requirements requires the following to be applicable:

For all users who wish to receive notifications, the administrator must have previously set up through the Administration Console:

a An email subscription to the event 'Someone has made a change to a Requirement related to a Request pending for me'.

b The granting of the product-level privilege: "Perform Requirement Related Operation" (PRODUCT_REQUIREMENTMAN).

The subscribing, privileged Dimensions CM users must have pending requests that are related to requirements.

It is possible to use the Dimensions CM email notification utility dmemail (see the "Managing Notification Emails" appendix in the Process Configuration Guide) to notify users of changes to associated Dimensions RM requirements. For example: when requirements are added to or removed from a collection; when collections are associated or unassociated from a Dimensions CM project; or when requirements (contained in an associated collection) are updated or replaced.

In addition to the administrator setting up email subscriptions and privileges, he or she must have edited the following configuration files:

email_config.dat

This configuration file (located in %DM_ROOT%\dfs (Windows) or $DM_ROOT/dfs (UNIX)) contains settings specific to dmemail and its entries are discussed in the "Managing Notification Emails" appendix in the Process Configuration Guide. However, when dealing with associated Dimensions RM requirements, some settings that are specific to Dimensions RM need to be added to the section concerned with databases for dmemail to process, for example:

host = <Dimensions RM_host_name>

dmuser = <Dimensions CM_System_Administrator_User_ID>

By default, <Dimensions CM_System_Administrator_User_ID> will be dmsys.

dm.cfg

This configuration file (located in %DM_ROOT% (Windows) or $DM_ROOT (UNIX)) must have been edited to schedule dmemail. This is discussed in the "Managing Notification Emails" appendix in the Process Configuration Guide.

To start a Dimensions RM session:

On the Items tab, Projects/Streams tab, Request tab, or Baselines tab, click the More button: and select Requirements ...
Select the associated Dimensions RM project you will be working with from the links presented to you on the Select RM Project screen (this is not displayed if you have only one association).

The Dimensions RM Browser main window appears (accessed through the Dimensions RM integration). Consult the associated online help or Dimensions RM book for details on how to use Dimensions RM.

When you have finished, close the Dimensions RM main window to return to the Dimensions web client.