Analyzing an artifact's relationships to other artifacts

You can analyze artifact relationships by starting out in many pages. If you created an impact analysis diagram, then you already ran an analysis from the Impact Analysis Diagrams screen. You can also start an analysis from the Products, Views, and Queries screens.

This description shows you how to run an analysis by choosing the focus artifact first and then using the impact analysis profile to create an impact analysis diagram dynamically.

Before you begin

To run an analysis, you must have at least one impact analysis profile, which provides an overall view of how artifacts in a product are related. For instructions, see Creating impact analysis profiles.

About this task

To start the analysis, select a focus artifact and then run the analysis to find artifacts that are related. The output shows all the artifacts with a relationship to the focus artifact, and then you can investigate each of the linked artifacts.

Analysis is useful when you need to modify, add, or remove an artifact. By viewing the artifacts with relationships to the focus artifact, you can gauge the impact of the change to the product quality, time-to-market, and so on.

Procedure

  1. Start an analysis.
    • From the Browse Products page, right-click over the product and select Start Analysis.
    • From the Search results page, hover over an artifact and select the Start Analysis icon on the far right.
    • From the Views page, open a view. Click an artifact in the view, click the arrow menu button and choose Start Analysis.
    • From the Queries page, open a query. Click an artifact in the query output and select Start Analysis.
  2. In the Impact Analysis dialog box, click Start Analysis.

    The diagram shows the output in the lower pane. Notice that details about the analysis are displayed on the right in the Navigation Tree.

    Click an item in the Navigation Tree to make it the focus in the output. For example, click Product to bring the artifact to the center of the screen.

    Image shows example output for an analysis that was run on a requirements artifact. The analysis definitions and the Navigation Tree show more details about the analysis.

  3. Explore the potential impact of changes by adding or removing artifacts, hiding types, and expanding an artifact. By changing artifacts, you are customizing the diagram; now you might want to give the diagram a name and save it for future use.

Example

The previous instructions show how to perform an impact analysis from one of the pages. You can also run an existing analysis from the Analysis main menu.

  1. Choose Browse > Impact Analysis Diagrams.

    The following image shows what your Impact Analysis Diagrams screen might look like

    The image shows the Impact Analysis Diagrams screen with three diagrams in view.

  2. Run the analysis.
    • Click one of the diagrams.
    • Run the diagram with a different focus artifact by clicking the pencil icon on the right.
  3. In the Focus and Profile tab, click the Choose Focus Artifact icon. Search for and select the new focus artifact and click Add.
  4. Run the analysis by clicking Apply.
  5. To save the changes to a new diagram, give the diagram a different name.

What to do next


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