RaQuest: Initial questions from a 1st-time user

[sshearer]

Hi,

I've downloaded the trial version of v2 of RaQuest and successfully integrated it with my purchased copy of Enterprise Architect, and spent a couple hours (so far) playing with it.

I thought I'd document some questions/issues here in order to generate discussion.

First off, over-all, I like what I've seen so far, but:
- the Help file could use some (English-as-a-first-language) polishing in some places, but it could also use a chapter related to describing the workflow and defining the dividing line between the 2 tools.  I do realize that documentation costs can be a significant percentage of development costs and that a young product may not be fully documented.

- As a mid-sized company with large-company software product documentation requirements, I could really use some recommendations on how to organize my requirements.  At this point, I guess it'll have to be a matter of experimentation.  To start I'm planning on creating packages which mimic our Product Management structure.

- I was able to figure out how to create new Requirements Types (Business & Feature) and can use them.  However, when I did a 'Generate UseCases', it generated Use Cases for EVERY requirement that I entered.  I would like a discuss/recommendation on what should actually be happening here.  My thought is that it would be nice to be able to specify a Requirement Type (eg. Feature) as a filter for generating Use Cases.

- Having created a set of requirements in one (*.EAP) database, I wanted to move (or copy) them to another (learning) database.  How do I do that ?

- Which brings me to a follow-up question: How can I share requirements between projects / products ?  eg. "In the event of ...x..., a record will be written to a centralized logging facility." would be used in MANY places.

- Suggestion to user interface: when looking at the main screen which shows the tree hierarchy of requirements on the left and 'All Requirements' on the right, it would be nice if selecting a row on one side would also automatically select the same row on the other side (and visa versa).

- Also, it would be nice if (in the list of All Requirements), the Type, Priority, Risk, Difficulty, and Stability columns were all modifyable like the Status column is.

As I'm preparing for a demo to my team on 12-Apr-2005, I'm sure I'll have other questions ...  

Thanks,
Steven.

[Takeshi K]

Hello Steven,

Thank you for your useful and valuable advices of RaQuest.

I have forwarded your message to our RaQuest support team.
I (or the team member) will reply to your message later.

If you want to move (or copy) requirements, it's the same way
to move elements of EA itself. In other words,
please export target Package to XMI file by EA
and import it to another EAP file (which has also
RaQuest data) by EA.

--
t-kouno

[sshearer]

Hi again, this is just a continuation of my earlier post ...

I've just tried using the Word Add-in.  It's a really neat feature, but:
- when registering a requirement with RaQuest, it doesn't prompt me to select where to store the requirement - so it just puts them all in the top-level 'bucket'.  It would be great if the requirement could be added 'under' (ie. as a sub-requirement) the currently selected row (regardless of whether it's a package or a requirement.  It also seems to have a problem with text which has been formatted as bullets or numbered lists.

- within RaQuest, there is no automatic refresh of the screen, so I don't see the recently registered requirement(s) unless I do File/Reload (or File/Close & File/Open).

- How can I customize the (Word or HTML) report which generated ?  ie.  I don't (necessarily) care about seeing all the various properties of a requirement in the report (ie. limit - especially when it's undefined, author/date stamps, status, etc.

- On the other hand, when generating a report, I would like to be able to specify:

selection criteria: ie. type, status, or specific version
sort order: ie. priority

I suppose that other people would want various other combinations.

For background purposes, I'm part of a team of BAs which support multiple internal software products for our employer.  We each have our areas of responsibility, and multiple BAs can be assigned to projects which (in the end will) require changes to multiple products.

From a reporting perspective, as BAs, we'd like to be able to capture requirements and generate a variety of reports, ie:

- Master (latest Implemented version of each requirement)
- Release-specific (latest Approved? version of each requirement)
- etc.

Also, we'd like to use our existing documentation as a template for formatting and content layout/ordering/etc.  because, as we all know, business users can freak when they're expected to sign-off on something which look unfamiliar.  

Thanks,
Steven.

[Takeshi K]

Hello Steven,

Thank you for more suggestions.

Now I'm forwarding reply of your first post
from our RaQuest support team.

I'll soon forwarding again about your second post.

---

Thank you for your feedback and advice.

We are sorry for the inconvenience caused by the delay of
Startup Manual for RaQuest version2.0.

-Thank you for your feedback about the Help file.
We are sorry that our English is poor to describe the details.
We are nonnative English speakers, so your comments about
the expression of the Help file are welcome anytime.

-We will add the workflow to the Help file for the initial setting,
which defines the dividing line between Enterprise Architect and
RaQuest.

-To specify a Requirement Type on generating Use Cases,
'Type to generate Usecases' drop-down list at [General Feature 2] Tab
of Options is available.

We know the position of this menu is inconvenient for users.
We will change its position in future version.

-To move requirements to another database (*.EAP),
[Export package to XML] & [Import Package from XML] menus of
Enterprise Architect are available.

To share requirements between projects / products,
use [Export package to XML] & [Import package from XML] or
[CSV import/export] features of Enterprise Architect in the meantime.

We are thinking about the implementation of the feature to specify
several top Requirement Packages in one database (*.EAP)
in future version.

-It is technically possible to automatically select the same
requirement in Tree (left pane) and in List (right pane).
We will add the feature as an option in future version.

In current version [Locate in Project Tree] of Requirement context menu
in Requirements Tree shows the position of the Requirement in
Project Tree.

-We are planning to categorize list columns into two types
at [List Fields] tab of Options.
One is selectable column in List and the other is not selectable
column in List. The targets that have two types are Status, Type,
Priority, Risk, Difficulty, Stability and User Define Attributes.

We are also thinking about the implementation of 3 panes interface
to always display the Requirement properties dialog of
selected Requirement.

Your comments and requests are welcome anytime.
We will incorporate your ideas to improve RaQuest.

--
t-kouno

[sshearer]

Thank you for taking the time to consider my suggestions - as a newly (registered) user, I look forward to the update !  

Yes, I do like the idea of a 3rd pane to show (all tabs of?) the selected requirement - it might make it a little easier to use (ie. no pop-up window).  Just keep in mind that my laptop screen is only 30cm x 23cm, and I'm already wearing glasses  

Regarding specifying a Requirement Type for generating Use Cases, thanks for the reply.  Yes, that needs to be moved, possibly to a new form after clicking on 'Generate Use Cases'.  However, I think that instead of selecting a specific Requirement Type, we should be able to select multiple Requirement Types.

My reasoning is that, at my company anyway, we have a hierarchy of requirement types: concept, business high-level, business low-level, functional high-level, functional low-level - each with one-to-many relationship between each level.  (If the project is small enough, we don't bother with the low-level type.)  Our low-level requirements typically document things like known data elements or screen designs - things we wouldn't want Use Cases for.

I understand that an arguement could be made that the BA can 'just delete the ones (s)he doesn't want' - but that assumes that all the BAs on the team are eager to use the tool (or any tool for that matter).  It's also a bit of a productivity issue.


I've had some time to explore the product further - and continue to be impressed with the functionality available in such a relatively young product - way to go guys !

I started to experiment with assigning Members to requirements.  I couldn't figure out how to define members - I first looked under Tools/Options, but after reading the manual (gasp   ), I was able to define Members and play with the various views - when coupled with the ability to define Work Amount per Requirement, it will make for an excellent project planner !

I know defining a GUI which will please most people is almost impossible, and that you don't want to make functionality available from multiple places (unlike Microsoft products), but maybe you could consider adding the ability to define Divisions and Members
on the Members tab of a Requirement ?

Could you please tell me how to define roles for the Members tab ?

Thanks,
Steven.

[Takeshi K]

Hello Steven,

I forward the reply from RaQuest team about your second post.
I already told to RaQuest support team about your third post,
so please wait for a while to post the answer.


----

Thank you for your additional feedback.

We are sorry that Word Add-in feature is insufficient.
We will improve the method to select where to store the requirement
and automatic refresh feature. But it will take some time to
implement these features. Thank you for your understanding.

We have the requests for customizable Word or HTML report from
our customers and recognize the need of it, but we have not implement
the feature yet.

Enterprise Architect have the customizable formatting
feature to export documents in RTF.
(In the future, It comes to be able to do more easily.)
We are thinking about utilizing the feature in RaQuest.
We are thinking about implementing the feature to specify types and
order of exported requirement first. It seems that it is feasible only by RaQuest.


--
t-kouno

[Takeshi K]

Hello Steven,

Sorry to reply your post soon.
Following is our reply of your third post.

Please tell us if you have more requests and suggestions.

----

- Regarding specifying a Requirement Type for generating Use Cases,
we will move the specification feature and improve it to select
multiple Requirement Types.

- Regarding defining Work Amount, we will add the ability to define
Work Amount per Member of Requirement.
Give us some time to think how to deal with the relation
between Work Amount per Requirement and Work Amount per Member of
Requirement.

- If you want to define a Division at 'Member' drop-down listbox on
Members tab of a Requirement, check 'Use Divisions as member' checkbox
on General Feature1 tab of Tools > Options.

- Input the role directly to 'Role' combo box to define the role for
the Member at this time. (The input values are not saved.)
In future version, we will synchronize the roles with the ones of
Enterprise Architect.


--
t-kouno

[sshearer]

Hi, thanks for the latest reply - I just want to clarify a point:

"Regarding defining Work Amount, we will add the ability to define Work Amount per Member of Requirement" - I wasn't asking for a change - I am quite happy with the way it is.  

From my perspective, a BA is assigned to one or more requirements - requirements are not assigned to multiple BAs (if needed, we'd just split the requirement into another layer of detail and assign those).

There may be other customers who would like to see the functionality you're proposing - but for me, the way it is now is just great !  


And now it's time for the tough question  :  What is your planned release schedule for the rest of this year ?

If there was a way to publish this information (and keep it current) on the web-site(s) (eg. www.raquest.com and/or www.sparxsystems.com/RaQuest.htm )  - that would be great !

Thanks,
Steven.

[Takeshi K]

Hello Steven,

Thank you for your assistance.
Here is reply from our suport team.

If you have any more questions or advises, please tell us.

----

Thank you for your comment about Work Amount.
We understand your way of using this feature and we are happy to
hear that you are happy with the way it is.

In future version, we are planning to add the ability
to define Work Amount per Member of Requirement.

We are planning the release schedule as follows:

- [August, 2005] Release of version 2.1.
 Three panes feature and customizable documentation feature
 will be added.
- We will publish the other upgrades on our web-site
 as soon as their schedule is made.
- We release the buildup as needed for the bug fix and
 the small feature addition.


--
t-kouno