Requirement artifacts

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A requirement describes a condition or capability to which a system must conform. A requirement is either derived directly from user needs or stated in a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed document.

In the Requirements Management (RM) application, you use artifacts and artifact types to define requirements and support and enhance the definition of requirements.

For example, you can use features and use cases to describe the requirements, and then enhance the definition by creating diagrams, wireframes, or storyboards.

Artifact is a general term for an object in a repository. You can manage artifacts in projects and folders, or you can use tags to filter groups of artifacts for a specific purpose. Click Recently viewed artifacts recently viewed icon to quickly navigate to the artifacts that you have accessed lately.

Artifacts and artifact types

Artifacts can be of various types, which have customizable attributes and data types.

While there is no default artifact type called "requirement," you can create one or use the default artifact types that are in the sample project templates.

Many artifact types are included in the sample project templates, including these types:
  • Requirements
  • Use cases
  • Design documents
  • Business process diagrams
  • Use case diagrams
For a list of sample project templates and their included artifact types, see Creating requirements projects.

If you are a project administrator, you can view the artifact types that are in a project and create artifact types, attributes, data types, and links types. See Managing project or component properties in requirements projects.

Artifact formats

Artifact formats can be specific to individual artifact types or can be used for multiple types. For example, you might use the text format for a feature or a use case specification or a custom artifact type. However, the diagram format is typically used exclusively for creating diagrams.

You can create and populate artifacts that are based on several formats, including these:
Text
Use this format to create rich-text requirement content that can contain text, images, and embedded artifacts. This format is useful for text-based artifacts types, such as actor and use case specifications, user stories, features, business goals, and glossary terms.
Collection
Use this format to group a set of related artifacts in a collection.
Module
Use this format to create a structured document that consists of artifacts in a module.
Diagram
Use this format to create graphical artifacts such as wireframes, business process diagrams, and use case diagrams.

Documents: Rich-text requirement artifacts

You can capture text-based content in rich-text artifacts that are called documents. Documents use the same rich-text capabilities that are used for requirements, use case specifications, actor specifications, and all other textual artifacts. These capabilities include controls for text styles, paragraph justification and indentation, bullets, and links.

If your browser supports spell checking, you can edit and check the spelling in rich-text artifacts. Misspelled words are marked with a red wavy underline.

In a document, you can link to artifacts, and can mark and embed other artifact types, comments, requirements, and images. Embedded requirements and inserted artifacts are updated as the artifacts are modified and saved.

To provide context for presenting multiple requirements, you can embed requirements and graphics in a document. An example of a rich-text artifact that typically contains multiple high-level requirements is a vision document.

Viewing the artifact's history

From the More actions more actions icon menu, click Open History > Audit History tab to view the changes in the artifact. This tab shows a complete history of changes that goes back to the creation of the artifact. To return to the artifact, click Close History. You can also access the artifact history from Open Artifact > Open Artifact History