How to prompt user for username and password to "sign" an artifact

I would like to utilize or emulate DOORS' built-in electronic signature functionality where the user is prompted to enter their username and password to digitally sign an approval route. (The approval route artifact is a new feature I am developing.)

Has anyone repurposed the electronic signature functions for other purposes (i.e. appendSignatureEntry())?

Or is there another way to accomplish my essential task: digitally signing a new type of artifact (an approval route)?

Thanks everyone!

Re: How to prompt user for username and password to "sign" an artifact
Mathias Mamsch - Wed Aug 19 07:16:32 EDT 2015

Hey Bob - not much of a help here - what exactly is it you are looking for? 

The usage of the signature perms? 

A way to create a password dialog?

Ideas on how to create a signature mechanism in DOORS?

Asking if anyone has done the same as you want to do will most of the time probably not leed a lot of people into chiming in and posting their work.

For digitally signing stuff in DOORS the first thing you need to overcome is to have access to a secure hash function or an asymetric encryption function. I described once a way to leverage existing javascript libraries to implement an sha256 component (that I wanted to use to implement a custom licensing scheme for DOORS):

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/html/topic?id=77777777-0000-0000-0000-000014806761&ps=25

Still - trying to implement your own electronic signature system in DOORS will give you a lot of headaches. Maybe go with the existing signatures first.

Just as a side note: If you doing really safety critical stuff in DOORS - you would need to have a couple of assumptions to the security of data in DOORS, which might not hold up. Therefore you might want to rethink, if you should rely on electronic signatures in DOORS or export stuff to a professional configuration management system and perform all your needs there.

Regards, Mathias

Re: How to prompt user for username and password to "sign" an artifact
Bob3 - Wed Aug 19 12:56:05 EDT 2015

Thanks for your response, Mathias!

I'm trying to create a custom document approval workflow tool in DOORS for the med device industry. I need to challenge a document approver for their DOORS username and password to authenticate their approval of a series of modules/views. 

The customer actually currently does this approval process in their CM tool, but they're trying to push the activity back into DOORS so that comments and changes can be made natively in the DOORS modules. 

Re: How to prompt user for username and password to "sign" an artifact
Mathias Mamsch - Wed Aug 19 15:38:58 EDT 2015

So what are you looking for?

Code like this:

SignatureInfo sigInfo = null; 

// Executed on a module with Signature Configured to a type with enums a,b,c
string sErr = getSignatureInfo (sigInfo, module current, 0,1, "");

if (!null sErr) {
        print "Could not get Signature information: " sErr "\n"
} else {
    string message = appendSignatureEntry(sigInfo,"b","c","My Comment");
}

This code created a new signature on a test module baseline (0.1) and popped up the password dialog for the user. Does this help?

Regards, Mathias

Re: How to prompt user for username and password to "sign" an artifact
Bob3 - Fri Aug 21 17:43:50 EDT 2015

SignatureInfo sigInfo = null; 

// Executed on a module with Signature Configured to a type with enums a,b,c
string sErr = getSignatureInfo (sigInfo, module current, 0,1, "");

if (!null sErr) {
        print "Could not get Signature information: " sErr "\n"
} else {
    string message = appendSignatureEntry(sigInfo,"b","c","My Comment");
}

Yes, that is helpful!

Is it possible to extend that code to, with a single authentication, electronically sign a group of several module baselines that comprise one physical document once published? (I'm not asking you to do the work, I'm just wondering if you think it's possible based on your experience)

Re: How to prompt user for username and password to "sign" an artifact
Bob3 - Thu Nov 12 14:28:48 EST 2015

SignatureInfo sigInfo = null; 

// Executed on a module with Signature Configured to a type with enums a,b,c
string sErr = getSignatureInfo (sigInfo, module current, 0,1, "");

if (!null sErr) {
        print "Could not get Signature information: " sErr "\n"
} else {
    string message = appendSignatureEntry(sigInfo,"b","c","My Comment");
}

Does DOORS/DXL allow a user to electronically sign off once and have it apply to several modules' baselines?

My situation is that a single requirements document is spread over multiple modules in DOORS classic. To sign off on the document, approvers will be faced with inputting their username and password many times in order to sign off on all the pieces of the document as it routes for approval.

Re: How to prompt user for username and password to "sign" an artifact
Mathias Mamsch - Fri Nov 13 03:15:55 EST 2015

I guess there is no such function. Placing a signature in DOORS is probably meant like signing paper. You have to do it for all documents separately. Of course one can argue, that having to type the password over and over again is not very user friendly. Maybe you can submit a feature request to IBM. Regards, Mathias