How to link requirements to process flow

[minolo]

Hi guys,
  I have to do following task. My company is now analyzing adoption of existing system and deploying it to sister company with slightly different requirements. And process and Screens are key feature. For process documentation we decided to use BPMN notation.
  
  And there is what I want to achieve:
  1. I have list of requirements in EA requirement module. I want to map requirements to particular steps in process (most of the cases it will be to one step but can be more). This will give me way to later report what requirements are covered where. Any idea how can I link it? I found way to link it via Advanced->Parent but it works just for an Activity, not for decision points. So it's more like workaround. But is there some better way to link it?
  2. Same I want to do for screens or possibly with screen elements which also implements some requirements. How to link them?
  3. In process flow I want to visually show new steps. I mean that process contains 90% of flow which is in place. And 10% which has to be newly developed. And I want to show and report somewhere new required parts. Can I somehow flag it? and can I somehow visualize it like for example by different color?
  
  Thanks for any hint.
  
  Regards, Michal

[qwerty]

1. Definitely no. Parent creates a generalization and this is simply wrong. Create a <<trace>> dependency manually in a context diagram or via a relationship matrix.
2. For the screens you can create classes and link them like in 1.
3. Managing as-is and to-be is very complex. You can either use colored elements/relations or tagged values. Also you can use either the same element which you adorn with tagged values to show progress or you use different elements. There are pro/con for both approaches.

q.

[ducatiross]

Hi Minola,

I am doing exactly the same thing as you in my project. We are drawing lots of complex BPMN diagrams and then attaching requirements, issues and changes to different steps as appropriate, using a dependency association, so they show up in Traceability window.

See below :-


(Sorry, can't see to insert an image).

I am struggling with a good way to visualise new and modified steps though as I would like the diagram filters to do it, but they can't draw things in colour - only fade out non-compliant parts.

If you find a way for this, let me know !

[qwerty]

You need to place the picture on a public server and use the URL.

q.

[Uffe]

Hello,

Regarding new/existing, all elements (but not connectors) have a "Status" property, which can be searched for, reported on in documents, and used in diagram filters. Depending on how you pull information out of EA, the diagram filters may cover your needs.

The status can also be displayed directly in diagrams, but this really only works for requirement-style elements; for others the status is displayed in the element shadow on the diagram which is very hard to see.

The set of available statuses (Proposed, Implemented, etc) can also be modified as required. For more details, check the help file under Modeling Basics -- Reference Data -- General Types -- Status Types.

You can of course simply change the colour manually, but unless your model is minimal and will be thrown away, this isn't a good idea. The colour of a UML element is not intended to carry information, so EA does not treat it as a fundamental property of the element, which means you can't test for it in document generation etc.

The best alternative is to define your own stereotypes and write shape scripts which change the colour based on the status or on a tagged value you define, as qwerty suggests.

This is more work, but worth it if you're in a medium-to-large scale project.

HTH,


/Uffe