It's all about the answers!

Ask a question

Anyone have material about the inner workings of how DOORS works?


Mario Didonna (611) | asked Dec 05 '14, 4:09 p.m.
Hi,
I'm a systems engineer starting up my first assignment in DOORS 9.5.2; I had a brief 4 day class on DOORS last year.

I have access to "getting started" material and tutorials, but I'm looking for material on how exactly DOORS works in terms of linking modules (SRS, test plan, SSS, SRD, etc), enacting rules between modules, updating a module based on changes to a different module, etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Comments
Donald Nong commented Dec 07 '14, 9:28 p.m.

It sounds like you are after a design document, rather than a user manual.

2 answers



permanent link
Keith Collyer (456511) | answered Dec 10 '14, 11:57 a.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER
Hi Mario, what you are asking for seems simple, but to answer it we really need a clearer picture of what you really want. For example:
  • linking modules - you can link any module to any other, though you can (and should) impose controls on what is allowed. Are you asking for guidance on what sort of modules you should have and what links you need? In which case, it depends on what information you need to manage and you need an architecture workshop to determine that
  • enacting rules between modules - I don't know what you mean by this
  • updating a module based on changes to a different module. This sounds like you need to use suspect links.
Hope that helps. It's actually a very big topic, so if you could clarify that would help a lot.

Comments
Mario Didonna commented Dec 10 '14, 5:43 p.m.

Hi Keith, thank you for your reply.

For the purview of my assignment, I will be entering an SRS that needs to have columns for comments, component, test method, and entry type (header, req't or text). The SRS will eventually link to a "parent" SSS, and will have a "child" test plan (not sure if this will be an STP or not).


permanent link
Keith Collyer (456511) | answered Dec 11 '14, 12:25 p.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER
Mario, it seems that what you are looking for is not information on how DOORS works, but information on how you should work in DOORS. This really should have been covered in your 4 day course. As I said before, this is a really big topic, but I can give you a high level overview of what you should be thinking about.
  1. Establish what information you need to manage.
    •  It seems that, initially at least, you are only managing one type of information, requirements in an SRS (incidentally, "SRS" means different things to different people, I usually interpret it as a "System Requirement Specification")
  2. Establish what other information you need to link to. You say that this will be an SSS (another ambiguous term) and a test plan.
    • Will you be responsible for setting these up?
  3. Establish what you need to do with the information. This helps you to understand:
    • what information is needed in attributes (you seem to have this)
    • confirms the relationships needed (again, you seem to have this)
You now have a specification for what you want to achieve, so you need to think about how to implement it in DOORS.
  1. Create a module for each type of information (you may need more than one in some cases, but just create one first, then you can use it as a template)
  2. Create attributes, thinking carefully about their types and what values they need to have
    1. For enumerated attributes (and some others) you need to create the attribute type before you create the attribute itself
  3. Create views
    1. Think about what information you need to see when carrying out specific tasks
    2. I generally recommend naming views after their content rather than tasks, as often a single view will be used for several tasks
    3. Don't forget to think about traceability information as well as attributes
  4. If necessary, make copies of modules that you created as templates
    1. If you have created views with traceability to modules that you copy, you will need to re-create those views
  5. Create link set pairing restrictions to limit creating links to only those that are legal
This seems like a lot, but if you work through it systematically it really isn't. The important thing is to always bear in mind what you are trying to achieve.

I hope this helps, feel free to respond if you need more help

Your answer


Register or to post your answer.


Dashboards and work items are no longer publicly available, so some links may be invalid. We now provide similar information through other means. Learn more here.