Managing artifacts with attributes

You can assign attribute values to requirements and other artifacts to manage properties such as status, priority, and owner. You can filter artifact lists by attribute values.

About this task

All artifacts have attributes, which are consistent for each artifact type. You can use attributes to track project status and organize artifacts by common properties such as owner, priority, and risk. Changes to attribute values can affect traceability relationships.

Attributes can include these elements:

  • Lists of predefined values, such as Priority (Must, Should, Could, Won't)
  • User-entered text fields, such as Business Value
  • Selections from repository resources, such as Owner, which is selected from a search of team members

Artifact types can be customized with user-defined attributes and attribute values.

To set attribute values in the sidebar of an open artifact, expand the Overview section, set the attribute values, and click Save.

After setting attributes, you can filter a list of artifacts by attribute values. You can click the Add filter icon to add filters on the Artifacts, Collections, or Modules pages, and in a collection or module. You can filter based on the following criteria:
  • Name
  • Artifact Type
  • Modified by: Filters on the user who last modified the artifact
  • Modified on: Filters on the date of the last modification
  • Where Used (Modules): Filters on artifacts in specified modules
  • Lifecycle status: Filters on linked lifecycle artifacts
    • Development work items, by using the Implemented By link type
    • Defects, by using the Affected By link type
    • Tasks, by using the Tracked By link type
    • Test cases, by using the Validated By link type
  • Link type Filters on internal link types in the RM application

At the More attributes selection, you can also filter by attributes that are specific to an artifact type, such as difficulty, priority, and status.

Procedure

To filter a list of artifacts, collections, or modules based on attribute criteria:

  1. Click the Add Filter icon Add filter.
  2. Select the attribute in the list and add values.
  3. Click Add and Close.
  4. Click Apply to apply the selected values to the filter.
  5. Click the Edit filter icon Edit filter to modify the filter criteria.
  6. Click the Remove filter icon Remove filter to delete the filter criteria.

Example

To view the artifacts that have high-priority features and that are linked to other artifacts by child of relationship:

  1. Click the Add filter icon Add filter.
  2. Click the Artifact Type entry and select Feature. Click Add.
  3. Select Priority, click High and then click Add.
  4. Select Link type, click Child Of and then click Add.
  5. Click Apply.

Example:

To display artifacts that are used in specified modules:
  1. Click the Add filter icon Add filter.
  2. Click the Where Used (Modules) entry and select either the is any of or the is all of operator, and then select one or more modules. You can display a list of modules by typing a search keyword or by clicking the Browse button and manually selecting specific modules.
    Filter by attributes
  3. Click Add and Close and then click Apply. All the artifacts in the specified modules are displayed on the Artifact page.
Conversely, to display artifacts that are not used in modules, select the is not any of or the is not all of operators.

You can access the Where Used (Modules) filter in the Filter by Attribute section on the Artifacts page or in the artifact and link selection windows.

You can also view artifact attributes for cross-component links when you apply a format to a specific link type.