Going From Use Case to System Design

[tslahetka]

I am a new user of Enterprise Architect.  I am using this tool to gather the functional requirements for an application and to create use cases based on the functional requirements.

My company's goal is to develop a functional requirment document that is detailed enough to hand off to a developer so they can create the application.  My question is how much detail should be included in the FRD, and how much should be part of the system design document?

For example, the application involves data entry.  At some point the user wants to select who the case is assigned to from a drop down.

At some point the requirement is:

The user selects the Assigned To from a drop down.
The drop down will list all the active attornys in the office.
The drop down will list the attorney's initials and their full name.
The list is sorted alphabetically by the initials.

At this point I am not describing software, but I am describing how the application should work for the user.  

Should this be part of the use case and the functional requirement document?  Or, should I included less detail in the FRD, and include the specifics in the software design docuement?

I am looking for suggestions and guidance on the level of detail to include in the FRD, and how to make the transition from an FRD to a SDD.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Tom Slahetka

[yreynhout]

I think it's fairly simple. You're requirement is:
"The user should be able to select who the case is assigned to".

In a use-case you will describe how the system, actor, ... will go about this. Simply put, the use case describes how it will realize the requirement.

[sargasso]

Not wishing to cast nastursiums but I would have expressed the requirement in the form of:

"The system will provide a mechanism to assign an attorney to a case that allows the user to either enter the initials and name of an active attorney or to select the name of an active attorney from a list formatted as initials and name, sorted alphabetically by the initials."

This gets away from specifying the input interface at all.

BTW: "sorted by initials" appears ambiguous -

AB Brown
AB Zoltan
AC Brown
AD Campbell
etc

[thomaskilian]

IMHO

The user selects the Assigned To from a drop down.
The drop down will list all the active attornys in the office.
The drop down will list the attorney's initials and their full name.
The list is sorted alphabetically by the initials.

are all single functional requirements that should appear as such.

Thomas