Chapter 3 Building a Requirements Model

Traceability Matrix Views

You can link objects to a requirement to confirm that the requirement has been integrated during the analysis and design processes. (See the Traceability Links tab of a requirement property sheet)

Traceability matrix views are grids which display the links between requirements (in rows) and their linked objects (in columns).

There are three types of traceability matrix views corresponding to three types of links, between requirements and:

Design objects (objects from other types of models) – to confirm that the requirements have been integrated in the analysis and design processes
External files (MS Word, MS Excel, PowerDesigner...) - the links with MS Word are managed automatically. You can also link requirements with pieces of various documents (e.g. a planning)
Requirements from different hierarchies - to manage interconnected requirements. For example, you can start from a customer requirements list, then move to a designer requirements list, and end with specifications. The requirement to requirement matrix view allows you to check that no requirement has been forgotten between the customer list and the specifications

Example of a traceability matrix view with requirements links:

The Current cell properties group box displays the properties of a selected link:

Property	Description
Link type	Additional information about the object linked to the current requirement
Bookmark	Only with MS Word files. Bookmark for the MS Word file linked with the current requirement. (See Defining a bookmark in an MS Word document)

You can also create or delete traceability links with the tool in the upper left corner of the Current cell properties group box (see Creating and deleting traceability links).

You can create as many traceability matrix views as you want, by changing the linked objects type or selecting the linked objects.