DCO 6.1 - Working with Application Requirements

Updated on June 10, 2020

Application Requirements describe in business language the business and functional requirements for processing work and data in an application.

Think of requirements as an inventory of events, conditions, or functions that must be satisfied and tracked in a development project. They also provide benchmarks against which the application can tested.

Good requirements:

Describe the need in business terms so that it is easily understood by the implementation team
Identify the type (business rule or non-functional) and level of importance to the application
Indicate the current development status

Entered in conjunction with use cases for starting flows, sub flows, and flow shapes on the Discovery Map in the Application Profile and Application Accelerator, they are categorized as either Business Rule or Non-Functional requirements.

Here's an example of each category:

System needs to have 2-3 seconds screen to screen interaction is a Non-Functional requirement you want put in place for the overall project
First Name should not be longer than 20 characters is a Business Rule requirement that you want to tie to a specific use case or flow

Creating Requirement rules

Requirement rules are initially created by the Application Accelerator and are keyed to the application. This allows you to copy, version and reuse them when building and extending other applications. Like use cases, they can be added and updated at any time during a project lifecycle to reflect the ongoing evolution of the implementation.

The requirement rule contains the following sections:

- Definition tab — describes the requirement in detail; specifies category, level of importance and status
- Implementation tab — adds and deletes requirement links to application, flow, and use case rules
- Attachments tab — used to display, add, and delete attachments you want to associate with the requirement such as UML diagrams, Power Point presentations, or other project documents that provide additional details

Details about completing the sections and fields of the rule form are in the online help topic About Application Requirement rules.

Linking Requirements to Rules

Requirement rules can be linked to the following rules to provide a comprehensive view of requirements as they related to the entire application, individual use case, or a flow. What you will see is that a single requirement can be linked to multiple rules and applications establishing a ongoing pattern of standardization of design and reuse. If a requirement is updated at any point in time, the change ripples through all rules linked to the requirement.

Application
Use case
Flow

To display and update a list of requirements:

1. Click the Requirements tab.

1. A list of requirements linked to the rule displays in the Linked Requirements section. This section appears in all of the rules.
  - Click a row to display a requirement rule.
  - Click Edit Links to add or update the links in a pop-up window.
  - Select the Application Name and the Requirement ID.
  - Click Save and Close.
  - Click Delete All Links to delete all links to the rule.

A list of the requirements keyed to the application are listed in the All Requirementssection. This section appears only in the application rule. When new requirements are added to the application, they appear in this section.
- Click a row to display a requirement rule.
- Click Export to Excel to export the list to Microsoft Excel.

Requirement Reports

You can select and run two reports that list requirements for your applications.

Select > Application > Tools > Requirements Listto list requirements by application, ID and category.
- Click a row to display a requirements rule.
- Click Export to Excel to export the list to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
Select > Application > Tools > Requirements Matrix to list requirements by name, category, full description and the use cases they are linked to.
- Click a row to display a requirements rule.
- Click Export to Excel to export the list to Microsoft Excel.
- Click Add to Favorites to add it to a report category on your favorites list.