How best to gather data requirements

[lucky]

I'm looking for a way in EA to gather some system requirements and need to capture requirements for input and output fields from a system.  Is there a way of capturing requirements in EA for an interface that includes attribute name, type, size, format, mandatory?

The data modeler seems too tied to a database, whereas my data could be expressed simply as XML.  Has anyone used EA to capture data requirements & constraints?  If so, what diagram did you use?

[Paul Lotz]

There are a couple things your question could mean, but, yes, it is possible (ideal, really!) to model data interfaces in UML and EA using a class diagram.  Each class can have attributes and it is trivial to spell out the name, type, size, and other properties--even custom properties--for each parameter.  We do this for each subsystem we design and develop and find it to be an an indispensable and time-saving technology.

The interface element is available on class diagrams if you want to define an interface in a technical object-oriented sense, but I'm not sure that's what you want to do.

EA also has a special database-modeling tool, but it doesn't sound like you are really looking for that, either.  I recommend starting with a class diagram.

[jfzouain]

Hi

What ever Paul told you, it is true.
But before going that way look into Raquest, add-on for EA.

Looks like you are in DW project, good tool for this.

Jose