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What scenarios/best practices for linking to base artifacts vs module artifacts in DNG?

What are the scenarios in which it would be a good practice to link to base artifacts residing in a folder rather than the artifacts as they reside in a module in DNG? We are using CLM 6.04 and are trying to map out our eventual processes. Is there a way to enforce the rules so that users link to either folder or module artifacts consistently? We have not yet set up configuration management. If we make the wrong decision now, we will have a lot of link updating to do at some point, and we would like to avoid that. Pros and Cons? Reuse issues? Anybody have experience with this?

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 We have been through this. Through some bad guidance we were performing module based linking and then moved to base. We are back to module and I do not believe we will go back to base.


History - as I understand it :-)
  • Modules we added to Rational Requirements Composer (RRC) when IBM decided to rename RRC to DNG (perhaps they were there before, I did not use RRC)
  • Originally there were many issues with modules (we suffered through many of these issues :-( )
  • Collections were originally thought of as the way to group requirements together, but that paradigm does not really support a document centric approach. Artifact linking was built on this collection approach.
  • When DNG became a thing, DOORS Classic (9.x) had modules and they were added to support old school users into the new way of doing things.
  • Finally I would say with 6.0.4 DNG has finally gotten modules working smoothly.
In our world (Aerospace) the purpose of linking is to get traceability from a a customer requirement down to implementation AND we do everything via modules. Basically we are developing documents, which at the end of the day is what we may or may not deliver to an end customer either internal or external. 

If you NEVER have to deliver a document from DNG, then modules may not make sense, but that is about all we seem to do. ;-)

You asked for Pros and Cons - admittedly this is a very short an opinionated list.
Base Linking

Pros
  • link is not tied to a specific module but to the specific artifact(s)
  • link does not show up in the link field unless requested (also a con)
Cons
  • harder to track it to a module
  • Not visible in the default link view, have to click on the additional show links button
  • Building trace matrix output gets tricky
Module Linking
Pros
  • Feels natural (customer spec -> system spec -> software spec -> etc)
  • Can drag an artifact and drop on another artifact to create the link
  • Shows up in the link field with out special action
  • Trace matrix with RPE is easier (IMHO)
Cons
  • Need to work in a module environment
Hope this helps
- David

Linda Roberts selected this answer as the correct answer

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If you are using EWM or RTC and EQM or RQM, do you link base requirements to work items or module requirements? Same with Requirements linking to test cases - we have chosen to link base artifacts to test cases. Just thinking about this makes my brain hurt. I'm so happy to see Linda's question and David's response.

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Have a look at my response to you in your other post - don't know if that helps

@Robyn If this doesn't answer your question, please submit your own new question rather than add your question as an answer to a post that was answered 4 years ago. Thanks.

@Robyn I see you posted your own question. Thanks. Better than posing your question as an answer to a post that was answered 4 years ago.

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Question asked: May 25 '18, 12:38 p.m.

Question was seen: 3,220 times

Last updated: Sep 29 '22, 4:42 a.m.

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