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As the technical complexity of today’s applications continues to increase, so do the requirements for these applications. The increase in these requirements compounds the challenge of managing them in regulated applications. Automated requirements management software reduces the time needed to complete a project. These software tools drastically simplify the life of a test or design engineer by ensuring that the specifications set forth in a requirements document are successfully implemented. The latest version of NI Requirements Gateway delivers on these benefits by including new features for impact analysis so you can visualize the effect of any changes you make to traceability information. This article examines several new features in NI Requirements Gateway 1.1, including the addition of classification marks, Windows Vista and Office 2007 support, and enhancements to the NI TestStand and LabVIEW types that increase the precision of requirements traceability.
Table of Contents
- LabVIEW Block Diagram Traceability
- Classification Marks
- Multiple Type Improvements
- Checksum Type for High-Level Analysis of Multiple Files and Directories
- Windows Vista Support
- Office 2007 Support
- New Report Formats
- Other NI Requirements Gateway Resources
LabVIEW Block Diagram Traceability
The release of NI Requirements Gateway 1.1 ushers in a new age in requirements traceability with LabVIEW by providing coverage specification of block diagram components. On an as-needed basis, you can use NI Requirements Gateway 1.1 to analyze block diagram element descriptions and labels of structures, functions, or wires that contain traceability information. Because you have the power to specify when block diagrams are analyzed, you remain in complete control over the compromise between analysis performance and level of detail. The ability to describe references and attributes in LabVIEW captions or labels on either the front panel or block diagram yields increased precision for coverage specifications because you can now trace coverages down to individual block diagram elements.
Figure 1. With NI Requirements Gateway 1.1, you can analyze labels and other LabVIEW block diagram elements.
Classification Marks
You can use marks in NI Requirements Gateway 1.1 to permanently tag parts of a file with easily distinguishable attributes that designate multiple built-in or custom classifications. Two examples of default marks are modification and search result marks.
Modification marks automatically label each item in the project that has been altered since the last analysis with a color customizable icon. Because the standard icons that indicate modification disappear upon subsequent reanalysis of a file, in previous versions of NI Requirements Gateway, you were unable to persist modifications for continued analysis. In the latest version, modification marks remain until turned off so you can continue to trace the impact of your changes.
You can distinguish elements that result from an Edit»Find query by classifying them with search result marks. These icons help you quickly differentiate qualified elements from nonqualified elements as well as help you permanently classify results, even after the Find window is closed. Because you can customize all marks, you can configure different color schemes to designate the results of different search queries.
Figure 2. With classification marks , you can designate elements as modification, search result, and more.
Lastly, you have the ability to create your own custom marks and color code them accordingly. You can then apply these customized marks to elements based on your designated conditions.
Multiple Type Improvements
In addition to analyzing block diagram elements, the LabVIEW type has been enhanced to conduct large application analysis. With NI Requirements Gateway 1.1, you can analyze LabVIEW Project (*.lvproj) and LabVIEW Library (*.lvlib) files that contain coverage information to further extend the breadth of coverage options for LabVIEW.
Figure 3. NI Requirements Gateway 1.1 supports large applications by analyzing LabVIEW Library (*.lvlib) and Project (*.lvproj) files.
National Instruments also has improved the LabVIEW and NI TestStand types to include simplified access to password-protected files. Instead of inputting passwords to protected LabVIEW and TestStand files during every NI Requirements Gateway project analysis, you can store a password list along with the document settings in the NI Requirements Gateway project file, making both the LabVIEW and NI TestStand types significantly more efficient for applications that involve password-protected files.
Figure 4. Password lists make analysis of password-protected NI TestStand and LabVIEW files more efficient.
If you use Microsoft Word, Excel, and Access, you can take advantage of extended options for coverage specification and traceability analysis in NI Requirements Gateway 1.1. Microsoft Word Bookmarks and Annotations are now supported by the Word type. Furthermore, you gain the ability to specify one or more Microsoft Excel worksheets from which to analyze traceability information with the Excel type, and one or more tables in which coverage information is specified with the Access type.
National Instruments has expanded NI Requirements Gateway support for Telelogic DOORS to include DOORS 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, and 9.0 (note that NI Requirements Gateway supports only DOORS 9.0 on Windows Vista). The DOORS interface has been improved to use variable configuration to specify baseline and server information.
The Code C type has been enhanced so you can specify references and attributes in function bodies. Function body analysis is optional because disabling this feature could result in performance improvements for overall project analysis.
Figure 5. With NI Requirements Gateway 1.1, you can specify requirements and coverage inside function bodies.
Checksum Type for High-Level Analysis of Multiple Files and Directories
By using NI Requirements Gateway 1.1, you can guarantee file and directory integrity with the new Checksum type and ensure that components have not been modified. File and directory modifications also change the date, time, and Message-Digest algorithm 5 (MD5) attributes stored in the document. As shown in Figure 6, whenever a document of the Checksum type changes, NI Requirements Gateway displays change icons that indicate modifications in date-time or MD5 signatures and warn you that you need to reanalyze that the document(s) for potential changes.
Figure 6. Orange icons display when the Checksum type detects modifications.
Windows Vista Support
With NI Requirements Gateway support for the new Windows Vista User Account Control (UAC), nonadministrator users can run the NI Requirements Gateway user interface. The new graphical and aesthetic Windows Vista enhancements improve the usability of the visualization and traceability functionality in NI Requirements Gateway 1.1.
Office 2007 Support
With new WordX and ExcelX type support, you can analyze native Microsoft Word and Excel 2007 files. NI has preserved the previous Word and Excel types for use with Microsoft Word and Excel 2003.
New Report Formats
With NI Requirements Gateway 1.1, you can export the latest engineering standard report file formats with the addition of library or custom report generation in the PDF and PostScript formats. You can generate reports with either a portrait or landscape orientation.
Figure 7. Using NI Requirements Gateway, you can generate library and custom reports in multiple formats.
Other NI Requirements Gateway Resources
Requirements Management for NI Software
Download Free Evaluation Software
Learn More about NI Requirements Gateway
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