Reconciling test plans with requirements in the Requirements Management application

After you have associated requirement collections with test plans, the requirements in the Requirements Management application might have changed. Requirements might have been added, deleted, or modified. You can reconcile test plan coverage with the requirements in the Requirements Management application.

About this task

When you reconcile requirement collections in a test plan, new requirements or requirements that have changed are displayed. You can update the requirements in the test plan and mark the corresponding test cases as suspect. You can also choose not to update the requirement link. If new requirements have been added to the requirement collection, you can generate new test cases or add the requirements to existing test cases to add test coverage for the requirements.

Limitation: In a project that does not have configuration management enabled, you can use the requirement reconcile operation to find which requirements have changed. In a configuration-enabled project, you can use the link validity status to determine which requirements have changed.

If configuration management is enabled for your project, the following limitations apply to reconcile operations:

The reconcile operation does not check for changed requirements. Instead, the Requirement Links section shows the updated validity status for each requirement associated with a test case. For more information about link validity, see Using link validity in CLM applications.
Removed, deleted, and unplanned requirements are shown automatically; however, you are not required to complete an action in the Reconcile wizard. Instead, affected requirements are listed and you can open the corresponding test cases to take action.
You cannot mark a test case as suspect during the reconcile operation.

Procedure

Open the test plan with which you associated the requirement collections, and go to the Requirement Collection Links section.
Click the Reconcile Requirements in Collections icon . The Reconcile Requirements wizard opens and displays the requirements that were updated in the collection since the last reconciliation. If there are new requirements in the collection, requirements that do not have test coverage in the current test plan are displayed.
In the Pending Actions section, the Reconcile Test Coverage action is displayed. To add test coverage for new requirements, complete the following steps:
1. Select the check box next to one or more requirements; then in the action column, click the Expand/Collapse icon (). The Action menu opens.
2. In the Action menu, do one of the following:
  - If the selected requirements already have been linked to existing test cases, to add the test cases to the current test plan, click Add Test Case to Test Plan.
  - To generate new test cases for each selected requirement, from the Action menu, click Generate [n] Test Cases, where n is the number of test cases to generate; then complete the fields in the New Test Case window and click OK.
  - To generate a single new test case for all selected requirements, from the Action menu, click Generate Test Case; then complete the fields in the New Test Case window and click OK.
3. Click Next.
If there are additional pending actions, the Reconcile Requirements window displays the actions and the list of requirements associated with each action: Reconcile Removed Items, Reconcile Deleted Items, and Reconcile Updated Items.
Optional: Reconcile requirements that were removed from collections or deleted from the project since the last reconciliation. Those requirements that have been moved out of the associated requirement collections or those requirements do not belong to any requirement collections, but are associated to the test cases in the current test plan, are listed for the Reconcile Unplanned Items action.
1. In the Pending Actions section, select Reconcile Unplanned Items or Reconcile Deleted Items.
2. Select the check box next to one or more requirements to reconcile unplanned or removed items, then do one of the following:
  - To ignore the changes for this operation, click the Ignore icon .
  - To accept changes, click the Mark Suspect icon .
  Note: No action is offered for configuration-enabled projects. For removed, deleted, and unplanned items, you can open the associated test case to make any required updates.
The operation is added to the Action column for the selected items.
Optional: Change the suspect status of test cases that are linked to modified requirements. If configuration management is enabled for your project, the reconcile operation does not check for updated requirements.
1. In the Pending Actions section, select Reconcile Updated Items.
2. Select the check box next to one or more requirements to reconcile modified items, then do one of the following:
  - To ignore the changes for this operation, click the Ignore icon .
  - To accept changes, click the Mark Suspect icon .
    Tip: If you deleted a requirements collection link in the test plan, you will want to remove any test cases that covered requirements in the deleted collection. Be sure to accept the changes for the modified requirements so that the associated test cases are marked as suspect. Later, to remove the test cases, open the Test Cases section of the test plan, find suspect test cases and verify that they validate the deleted requirements. Select the test cases marked as suspect, and remove them by clicking the Action Menu > Remove (x) Test Cases.
  - To clear suspicion from the test cases, click the Clear Suspicion icon.
The operation is added to the Action column of the selected requirements.
For any modified requirements, to update the associated test case, select Create New Quality Task. You will be prompted to create a quality task for each test case that is associated with the selected requirements when you click Finish.
Note: You can create a new quality task only for the requirements for which you chose to apply Mark Suspect. The Create a new Quality Task option is disabled when Clear Suspicion or Ignore is applied.
Optional: If reconciliation fails due to errors, such as from server connection issues, complete the following steps:
1. In the Pending Actions section, select Reconcile Failed Items.
2. Select the check box next to one or more requirements with failed items.
3. To ignore the changes for this operation, click the Ignore icon ().
The operation is added to the Action column of the selected requirements.
Click Finish. Actions that you specified in the wizard are implemented.
If you chose to create a new quality task for modified test cases, a window opens prompting you to create the quality tasks.
1. Click the Create New Quality Task button.
2. Select the task type.
3. In the Summary field, enter a brief headline that identifies the work item.
4. In the Filed Against field, select a category that identifies the component or functional area that the quality task belongs to.
5. Assign an owner to the task.
6. Set a due date for the task to be completed.
7. Enter a description of the quality task and click OK.
A quality task is created in the Change and Configuration Management application. The task appears in the My Tasks widget of the personal dashboard for the owner that you assigned the quality task to. The Links section of the quality task shows a related test case link for the test case associated with this task.
Click Save.

What to do next

To view changes to test cases in the test plan, in the table of contents, click Test Cases. The test cases whose suspect status you changed are displayed with the Suspect icon Suspect

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