Chapter 3 Building a Requirements Model

Business Rules (RQM)

A business rule is a rule that your business follows. It is a written statement specifying what an information system must do or how it must be structured. It could be a government-imposed law, a customer requirement, or an internal guideline.

You can attach business rules to your model objects to guide and document the creation of your model. For example, the rule "an employee belongs to only one division" can help you graphically build the link between an employee and a division.

In the case of the Requirements Model, a business rule should be used as a super requirement, i.e. a requirement defined for requirements. For instance, a business rule could be a methodological rule for writing requirements.

Business rules are not available by default in a requirements model. You must activate them through the creation of an extended model definition.

Steps To activate business rules in an RQM:

  1. Select Model→Extended Model Definitions, to open the List of Extended Model Definitions and click the Add a Row tool to create a new extended model definition.
  2. Click Apply and then click the Properties tool to open the property sheet of the new extended model definition.
  3. In the right pane, type a name and a code for the extended model definition.
  4. In the left pane, right-click the Profile category and select Add Metaclasses in the contextual menu to open the Metaclass Selection dialog box.
  5. Click the PdCommon sub-tab and select BusinessRule.
  6. Click OK to return to the property sheet. The BusinessRule entry is displayed within the Profile category.
  7. Click OK to return to the List of Extended Model Definitions.
  8. Click OK to return to the model. The new extended model definition is displayed in the Browser tree view, and you can now create business rules and attach them to requirements.

For information about using business rules, see the "Business Rules" section in the "Managing Objects" chapter of the General Features Guide .

 

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