In almost every project I have worked on there is a need to export the requirement set into Word as a requirement specification and get it reviewed, approved and distributed. And in a lot of cases that is how the requirements arrive; as a requirement specification that has to be imported into DOORS.
When importing or exporting then the front pages of the Word document are not part of the requirements – or at least they should not be. The requirements module should only contain the requirements and not the front matter. Where does all that information go? You also need to correlate the document versions with the module/project baselines. So how is this done?
The contents/index can be easily generated in Word but maintaining the version history, the reviewer and the distribution data is not so easy. Yes, you could put this in as ‘Information’ in embedded tables at the front of the requirements, but this is messy to edit. You could even have a separate module for the data and link it in on the build. But this makes life more complicated.
By far the simplest way is to store this information as module attributes. Clearly a DXL utility to extract, display and edit these module attributes is going to be extremely useful.
This DXL Utility is extremely comprehensive and has been designed to manage all aspects of document management from within DOORS ranging from document issue, performing baselines and export to PDF.
Firstly, you select the document number- as this tool allows different documents to be exported from the same requirement module – so you could export a requirement specification, a VVRM matrix ( pulling in linked data from the test cases and even test results) and an interface specification ( filtered on interface requirements). Then select the version or issue of the document (as matched with the module baselines). What is then displayed is the document title, additional document information (which can be tailored for your company), the names of the document signatories and the document distribution record. Often this information is the same for each document and version, but it can be modified for any combination.
Depending on the user group access then these fields can be either read only or editable (in the former case the Edit button is disabled). They can also be locked down if a document is published.
What is also displayed in the lower part of the screen is the document change history and a series of buttons.
The buttons allow the creation of a new document (which is how the module can used for multiple documents as described above), creation of a new issue by execution of a new baseline (major or minor), or the generation of a pdf. This latter operation is an export using LaTex functionality and it will use all of the information above, plus a predefined company/document template containing the company headers and footers to build the complete document. As an alternative this could be linked to Rational Publishing Engine.
Before the document is produced the user can also enter the pdf file name and location and whether change bars are required.
The Working Copy entry is for when a document is needed to be exported for review but not as a formal issue. In which case the document is water marked as Draft or For Information Only.
