Assign single object number to DOORS Table

In our workflow, we want to be able to export a word document to DOORS and maintain consistent formatting. We've had decent success using the DOOR Export option within word via attaching the doors.dot template. We have no requirements/traceability issues with the tables since the shall's are contained in other objects and the tables contain supplemental information.

The problem we have with this approach is in DOORS after the export. Every table in the word document is generated as a DOORS Table, and every cell in each DOORS table is assigned a unique number. This leads to a huge increase in the number of objects in the module. Since we have no need to track the history of individual cells, and prefer to simply track the history of the table as a whole, with a single attribute set, this is not ideal.

My question is this - Is it possible to set DOORS tables so each table is only assigned a single object number and set of attributes? If so, how do I do it?

Note: OLE Tables are not an idea solution for us as they are not searchable. I have already tested a method where I convert the word tables to OLE objects before doing the export, which creates them in the DOORS module as OLE objects. This approach does fix the issue in that it places the table into a single DOORS object, but it presents other problems as well.

Any help is appreciated! Thank you in advance.
SystemAdmin - Fri Mar 01 13:49:45 EST 2013

Re: Assign single object number to DOORS Table
Tony_Goodman - Mon Mar 18 11:47:59 EDT 2013

Sounds to me like your workflow is back to front.
You should be mastering your information in DOORS, not word.
Word is only useful as a publishing vehicle if you require actual documents, it is completely hopeless for managing requirements.

Why are you worried about the number of objects in DOORS? They are all free.
Plus the fact that each cell is unique is one of the strong features of DOORS that allows you to track change.

Tony Goodman, www.smartdxl.com

Re: Assign single object number to DOORS Table
SystemAdmin - Fri Mar 29 14:03:28 EDT 2013

This looks to be a similar post that you have done earlier.
Tony is a very knowledgeable guy and it would be good to listen to him, but the reply seems to be more philosophical than practical. Tables can be an efficient means to communicate information instead of having a large number of textual requirements. DOORS tables are not very user friendly and so do not lead itself to using this as the source of the requirements. In the same light, state diagrams may be an efficient means to communicate requirements, but DOORS does not have an efficient way to handle these either. So the user has to resort to using other tools to build these to put into DOORS. DOORS can not always be the main source of the workflow.

My group has also having to deal with tables. You do have a couple of options.

1) Use OLEs of embedded MS word tables. My group does this, only using excel instead of word tables. Excel is not necessarily better, it just doesn't mess with the formatting as much as MS word does and so you get more of a consistency in the presentation of the tables. Not perfect by any means though. Yes, the shortcomings of not being able to search is an issue. I have overcome this by making a dxl script that not only searches text, but uses automation to launch and search word or excel. This was developed with ideas and help from a fine group of individuals that participate in the dxl forum, including Tony. Their help is greatly appreciated!

2) Another group uses RTF tables in the objects to make tables. These have the benefit of having the table all in one object like the OLEs and are searchable by the DOORS search tool. The negative side of this solution is that they are not as maintainable and may have some formatting issues when printing. To make the RTF table, you make the table in MS word, select and copy the entire table and then paste it in the DOORS object. It does not get imported or inserted as an OLE. It is not as maintainable because you can not modify the RTF table easily. That is, you can not easily add rows/columns, etc. The group that uses this usually copies the table back into a word table, does the edits and then copy and pastes the new table back into DOORS. The formatting issue when printing stems from the fact that the RTF tables use tab characters which depend on computer/printer settings, so one person's printout may look good, where another's may not.

I disagree with the comment of objects are free. More objects means more memory is used and more things to keep track of. They are definitely not free.

Hope this helps provide you some more things to consider.
Cheers,
Greg