This tool mentor is useful for those users who are not using a separate tool for requirements management (such as DOORS®), and would like to create and maintain their textual requirements in the model itself.

In Rhapsody®, you can create requirements in much the same way as you create elements of other types (such as use cases and classes), i.e., you can create requirements in a diagram, you can create them directly in the browser, or you can even create them using a table view. For each requirement, you can specify such details as the name, the ID, the specification (the text), as well as user-defined tags. You can also link requirements to other elements in the model, such as requirements, use cases, classes, etc.

Creating Requirements in a Diagram

You can create requirements in any diagram in Rhapsody. However, requirements are often created in "Requirement Diagrams".

To create a requirement in a diagram you can select the Requirement tool.  This tool appears in the "Common" area of the Diagram Tools menu bar.

When you add a requirement in a diagram, you have two options to display it - note style or box style. You select this option by right-clicking on the diagram.

Using the Display Options menu item in the above menu, you can specify exactly what you want displayed for the requirement. For example, in the Note Style, you can specify that the Specification should be displayed in the note.

The Box Style provides for the display of compartments showing the various fields of the requirement. For example, the figure below displays the name, ID and the specification for a requirement. The compartments are configured using the Display Options dialog invoked by selecting the Display Options menu item in the figure above.

To create links between requirements, you use the Dependency relationship. This is available from the diagram toolbar.

 

Once the dependency is created, you specify its type by selecting the appropriate stereotype for it in the Features dialog for it.

You can also create links between a requirement and other model artifacts (such as use cases) using the same method.

Creating Requirements in the Browser

You can create requirements in the Rhapsody browser by right-clicking on the package in which you want the requirement to reside and choosing Add New->Requirement. It is common to maintain requirements in a separate package reserved solely for requirements.

 

The newly created requirement will appear in the list of requirements within the selected package. Use the Features dialog (invoked by right-clicking on the requirement in the browser and selecting Features) to fill in the various fields.

To create links between a requirement and other elements (such as other requirements derived from it, or classes that satisfy it), right-click on the requirement and select Add New->Dependency and select the element in the resulting dialog.

You can now drag and drop these requirements from the browser to any diagram.