How to automatically number requirements?

[yechengyu]

Hello. I want to add requirements of my design in EA.  Is there a way  to automatically number my requirments so that when I deleted an existing requirement, the series number could automatically reflect the changes as a consequence?

E.G.

Req-001_This resolution has to be > 500 m
Req-002_The image has to be < 2M
Req-003_The primary key can't be a txt field.

Then if I delete Req-002, I want the Req-003 to be adjusted to Req-002 automatically rather than manually.

How to do that?  Thank you very much.

[mconneen]

You can use the Settings / Auto Name counter (and select the requirement element type) in conjunction with some sort of utility script to "renumber".  It will not do it on the fly, but will do it as you schedule it.

This would also require that you "up scale" to a database (SQL Server or MYSQL (etc).

Not pure.. but would work.  

[Tonu]

Mconnen is right (if I haven't missed some new features in recent versions) -- you will have to write your own script to renumber requirements.

However, you do not need to upgrade database. If you want to do it in a safe way you probably want to use automation interface. With large amount of elements, it will be faster to  do it directly in database using ODBC. EAP file is normal Jet database so you can open it either in Access or use Microsoft Access ODBC driver to access the data.

[«Midnight»]

You can even connect to an EAP file the same way you'd connect to a repository. Just point to the Jet ODBC or OLEDB driver instead of Oracle (or SQL Server or whatever) and fill out the dialogs as usual.

The EAP file in question could even reside on a remote disk, perhaps in a shared server folder. Just think of the possibilities...

David

[yechengyu]

Guys,Thank you very much.  I tried the Auto Name Counters and it works pretty well for adding new requirements.  

I tried to connect to ODBC or JET, but I always got errors.  This was tested on a very simple Access database I created.   I am very new to EA's ability with database, could anyone explain a bit more?

My steps were as follows:
1. Connect to server
2. Choose Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC drivers
3. In the Connection Tab, for Use data source name, choose My Access Database.
4.In select Database dialoge box, browser to the simple access database that I created.  Hit OK
5. I got "Invalid Data Source...Check configuration" error.

My access database is very simple. Four fields + 3 records
ReqNum(priKey), ReqName, ReqDesc, ReqNote
1               A        AAA        Anote
2               B        BBB        Bnote
3               C        CCC        Cnote

Any idea?

[thomaskilian]

Look for Jet4 in the help and this forum

[Eve]

It's only briefly mentioned in the documentation, but try selecting 'Show Level Numbering' in the context menu of the parent package in the project browser.

It creates (and maintains) a numerical prefix on all elements in that package.  It will be shown in the project browser and element list.

[Jan Pacovsky]

As others said above - EA doesn't support automatic "renumbering". But the question is, WHY you need to do that?

Of course, it is possible, that you need to delete some requirements, but changing numbers of the others may result in further problems. Requirement number should be something like "requirement ID" that shouldn't change during the time. You need to be able to refer to any requirement and be sure that the number will "never" change. (of course I don't mean references (or links) in EA model which are element-name-independent, but I mean references in free texts - word documents, linked documents etc.).
I consider numbers of elements (not only requirements but usecases, activities...) as IDs, so that I don't care about numbers missing (such as Req-002 you mentioned above). And then, if you accept this approach, you can perfectly use auto-numbering feature of EA.

[yechengyu]

Jan, I agree with you that the naming should be independent of changes.  The problem is that my group use a similar way I gave above as sort of a standard way to name the requirements and it seems hard to have them switch...

I know a user can attach a word doc to the requirement, but my question is: If I want to show the requirement in a diagram, would still attachment work?

[Martin Terreni]

I know a user can attach a word doc to the requirement, but my question is: If I want to show the requirement in a diagram, would still attachment work?

Why wouldn't it? How would you expect it to behave?