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Announcing DOORS Next Generation Beta 4

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I am very pleased to announce the availability of DOORS Next Generation Beta 4. This is the fourth (and likely final) beta download before the product is made generally available at the end of the year.

DOORS Next Generation beta 4 contains over 50 new features as well as significant improvements in stability and performance. These improvements span both the web and rich clients- with intense focus on making progress in the rich client.

You can get an overview of all the cool new features in our New and Noteworthy page. Below is a preview of some of my favorites:

  • Locking. Beta 4 introduces new locking features in both clients that allow for concurrent editing of modules and artifacts across distributed teams.  Locks can be either persistent or scoped to an editing session.
  • Link creation improvements. Based on feedback received from our customers we have made it easier to create links in three important ways:
    • Both clients now support creation of link type preferences. An administrator can specify the preferred types of links available when linking to/from an artifact of a particular type. This makes it easy for groups of users to grow and maintain a consistent set of traceability links.
    • Artifact picker dialogs have also been improved to allow filtering by module (in addition to existing filters). It’s now even easier to quickly find the artifact you want to link.
    • The rich client allows creation of links across modules using drag and drop actions.
  • ReqIF improvements. We continue to push forward on our commitment to implement the Requirements Interchange Format specification. In this beta, we have introduced support for exporting and importing “views” and improved ReqIF interoperation between DOORS 9 and DOORS Next Generation.
  • Module editing enhancements. We have spent considerable effort to improve the module experience in both the web and rich clients. Here are a few of the improvements you can expect to see:
    • Web client
      • Improved accelerator key support. The web client now supports all the common types of DOORS 9 accelerators. This makes the web environment more usable by “power users” making frequent edits.
      • Easy link creation from view columns. You can now simply click on a link column in order to create a link of the type the column is displaying- no more hunting in long lists for the link type.
      • Selecting of attributes to display in traceability columns. Attributes from artifacts at the other end of links can now optionally be displayed right within link columns.
      • Bulk changing of requirement types and the heading attribute. You can now change the type of multiple requirements all at once with just a few clicks. You can do the same to toggle the heading attribute of the requirement.
    • Rich client. There are almost too many improvements in rich client module editing to mention. Here are just a few of the highlights:
      • Embedded images. Images can be seen inline without having to click a link.
      • Attribute editing. Attributes for one or more artifacts can now be edited inline. All data types are supported, including enumerations, durations, dates and times.
      • Spreadsheet-like tab support. Users can now tab to easily navigate between cells within the module.
      • Support for permissions on attributes. The rich client now respects permissions that have been set on attributes of an artifact’s type.
      • Improved rich hovers. The rich hover feature has been refined and tuned to be less obtrusive and to display more useful information.
      • Improved look and feel. We have spent considerable effort to refine the look and feel of the rich client module editor. We hope you like what you see!

Many of the features and improvements in this beta are in response to feedback that we received from beta participants. This feedback has been invaluable to the development team and has helped us focus on including the most important features in this first release of DOORS Next Generation. I sincerely thank everyone who has contributed during this nearly year long beta process, and I encourage you to download the beta one more time and add your feedback on this post or ask questions in the DNG forum.

Download the DOORS Next Generation Beta 4 today!

George DeCandio
IBM Rational Distinguished Engineer, Requirements Management