Working with Attributes

The purpose of attributes

Attributes are assigned to requirements for multiple reasons. An attribute can describe the status of a requirement in the development workflow. Priorities or estimated costs can be assigned to each requirement. Attributes are strictly speaking not part of the Requirements Specification. Instead, they are stored separately in the Repository and can be changed at any time.

Users can create any attribute they need, except if the attribute already exists. A few attribute names are defined by the application and cannot be changed. Attributes have values, although only one value at a time. A User defines Attribute names and Value names in Settings… > Attributes. Attribute names and Value names are treated as strings; values can therefore not be integers or floats or other data types.

These examples describe Attribute names and Value names that can be used in a project:

  • Status
  • Implemented
  • Tested
  • Relinquished
  • Priority
  • Very critical
  • Critical
  • Non-critical
  • Cost
  • < 8h
  • [8, 20] h
  • [20, 40] h
  • > 40 h

Normal workflow

The normal workflow for assigning attributes and values to requirements:

  • Analyze the Specification;
  • Open Settings… > Attributes and create the attributes and values that is going to be assigned later to the requirements. Once the Specification is stored into the Repository, together with its configuration, the defined attributes and values cannot be changed (see more below);
  • Store the Specification into the Repository;
  • Load the Specification from the Repository;
  • Assign attribute values to the requirements in the Navigate > Attributes table. The values are saved instantly to the Repository as they are updated.

Attributes that are not created before the Specification is stored

A Specification can be unintentionally stored into the Repository before the correct attributes have been created. There is a strict relationship between a stored Specification and its configuration. Every time a Specification is loaded from the Repository, its configuration is loaded too.

A user can correct this problem in two ways:

  • The correct attributes and values are created before the Specification is stored again with a new revision.

Or

  • Load the Specification from the Repository;
  • Open Settings… > Attributes and create the missing attributes and values;
  • Refresh the Navigate > Attributes table by leaving the Attributes view (select another view) and then re-enter it.

If the last option is selected, the Attribute and Value names in Settings… > Attributes will mismatch the ones in the Specification Configuration, and an out of sync warning may be shown. The out of sync warning means that the Attribute and Value names that were assigned to the Specification were not part of the Configuration that was saved with the Specification.

Show Attribute

Click the Option > Show Attribute button in the Navigate > Attributes view to open the Show Attribute Panel. The Panel lists all attributes that can be displayed as separate columns in the table. Select the desired attributes to display.

Show quartiles

Activate the Show quartiles check box to display quartile information in the table. The values in the columns Quality, Risk and Information will be colored red, green or black depending on which quartile they belong to. The upper quartile (75% to 100%) is colored green, the lower quartile (0% to 25%) is colored red, other quartiles are colored black (25% to 75%).

The coloring enables a project to address lower quartile requirements for improvement.

Clear

The Clear button deletes an attribute and all values from the Repository.

Select a column header and click on the Option > Clear button in the Attributes view. The attribute and value names will be removed from the Repository. It will only affect the current Specification revision. The attribute name is not removed from Settings… > Attributes. If the attribute has a default value, the default value will be set. This operation cannot be undone. The column will still be displayed in the table after deletion. To remove the attribute completely from the configuration, open Settings… > Attributes and remove the attribute. Refresh the Navigate > Attribute table if necessary.

The default attributes (Quality, Risk, and Information) can never be deleted.

Inherit

When a new revision of a Specification is stored into the Repository, the requirements have no attributes assigned to them.

Click the Option > Inherit button to open a Panel that displays all versions of the current Specification. Select a version from where attributes should be inherited. The same attribute values are assigned to the new version of the Specification. New requirements will not be assigned any values.

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