Meet the Specification Manager

The Specification Manager is a unique and effective tool providing a spreadsheet or word processor view that can be used to manage any element, although it is particularly useful when working with Requirements that always have descriptive text to describe the Requirement in detail. New Requirements can be created with names and detailed descriptions, and properties such as Status and Priority can be added or changed from drop-down lists. Existing Requirements can be viewed and managed in a convenient view - such as diagrams and windows - and changing them in the Specification Manager will change them in all other places in the repository.

The Specification Manager is the perfect tool for those analysts who are more comfortable working with text rather than diagrams, and who are accustomed to working in a Word Processor or Spreadsheet. It has the added advantage that the Requirements are part of a model and can be traced to other element, including Business Drivers, Stakeholders and Solution Components. In this image it can be seen that the Requirement status and other element properties can be edited from drop-down lists.

There is a wide range of options that provide great flexibility when working with the Specification Manager, including showing notes in columns as in a spreadsheet or inline as in a document, and adjusting the size of the text. These options are available from the 'Specification - Specify' ribbon, which is conditionally displayed when the Specification Manager is launched.

Filters provide a useful way to restrict the display to elements that contain a word or text fragment in a selected column. In this illustration a modeler has decided to restrict the display to all Requirements that contain the word 'light' in the text of the Requirement. This is a great productivity tool when working with large sets of Requirements, and it can be used to locate all Requirements with a particular status, priority, complexity or even all Requirements owned by a specified stakeholder or team, if they have been defined in the model.

A diagram can also be opened from the Specification Manager, allowing you to edit the elements on the diagram as a group. This is a compelling and welcomed view for some non-technical staff, including managers and customers. For more information see the Specification Manager Help topic.