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Requirement Properties

Requirement properties differ slightly from the properties of other elements; they include information related to the Type, Status, Difficulty and Priority of the Requirement. The 'Notes' field is also important, as it describes precisely what requirement the element represents. Requirement naming can also require careful consideration and could reflect either a categorical naming convention, or simply a loose English description of the Requirement.

Access

On a diagram or in the Project Browser, select an element and:

Ribbon

Design > Element > Manage > Properties

Context Menu

Right-click on element | Properties

Keyboard Shortcuts

Alt+Enter

Other

Double-click on Element

Use to

  • Document requirements
  • Set Requirement features such as Type, Status and Priority
  • Set other element properties common to both Requirements and other model elements

Reference

Field

Action

See also

Short Description

The name of this Requirement, which could include numbering, a plain English description or some other formal specification.

If you have set autonaming and autonumbering, and you have already have some text in this field, it is over-written by the auto-counter text.

Set Auto Naming and Auto Counters

Alias

An alias to be used for this Requirement.

If you have set Alias autonaming and autonumbering, and you have already have some text in this field, it is over-written by the auto-counter text.

Set Auto Naming and Auto Counters

Status

The current status of this Requirement.

Color Code Requirements

Difficulty

An estimate of the difficulty in meeting this Requirement; select from:

  • Low
  • Medium
  • High

Priority

The relative importance of meeting this Requirement compared to other Requirements; select from:

  • Low
  • Medium
  • High

Author

The author of this Requirement.

Authors

Key Words

A set of words that could be used to index or define the subject of this Requirement.

Type

The type of this Requirement, typically used as a category for the Requirement.  Possible values are defined on the 'Requirements' tab of the 'General Properties' dialog.

This field displays a single value. You can click on the drop-down arrow and select a different value if necessary.

However, be aware that you can define multiple values for this field, including stereotypes that you create or that are used in integrated or imported MDG technologies. You assign these multiple values using the Properties window for the selected Requirement element, in the 'Stereotype' field.

This has two impacts on the 'Type' field:

  • The value displayed in the field might have been set on the Properties window, and might not be shown in the drop-down list (if it is a stereotype and not a General Type)
  • If you select a different value from the 'Type' drop-down list, you change only the first of the multiple values (the one displayed in the field); you do not change any of the other multiple values, which remain set
Properties Window Requirement Types

Phase

The phase of this Requirement.

Version

The version of this Requirement.

Last Update

Read-only field specifying when this Requirement was last changed.

Created

Read-only field specifying when this Requirement was first created.

Notes

The description of this Requirement.

Linked Documents Note Editors

Notes

  • In Requirement Management tools and texts, the characteristics of a requirement are commonly called attributes; however, in UML the term attribute refers to a different type of feature, and the Requirement characteristics are defined as properties - in this Enterprise Architect documentation, the term properties is used
  • In a project, it might be necessary to define more information in a Requirement than is provided by the standard properties; for more information on extending the Requirement properties, see the Extend Requirement Properties topic

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