Blocks Diagram

The block diagrams visually reflect the elements and the relationships in the process so they can be understood by everybody, including management and marketing, allowing to establish a collaborative environment for all the users, who can easily understand, follow and participate in the defined process, enforcing it.

Several artifacts supported

IRQA supports several artifacts other than requirements, including:

• Glossaries
• Services (UML and Functional modeling)
• Test cases
• UML models
• Functional models

Requirements Gathering

These elements are natively supported in the tool in order to be able to support the different activities in the RDM process.

• Requirements capture & gathering, helping to:
  • Capture exact and complete information on requirements
  • Deliver products that fulfill real business needs
  • Align IT with business

Requirements Analysis

• Requirements analysis, helping to:
  • Manage the project scope
  • Deliver projects in time and in budget
  • Prioritize needs

Requirements Specification

• Requirements specification, helping to:
  • Document and specify requirements appropriately for stakeholders
  • Communicate requirements through the lifecycle

Requirements Verification and Validation

• Requirements verification & validation, helping to:
  • Deliver quality products that cover the user’s expectations

Requirements Management

• Requirements Management, helping to:
  • Manage changes in the different phases of the lifecycle
  • Perform change impact analysis and prioritize changes

Role-based Workflows

The visual role-based Workflows allow to align the processes and the tools, enforcing the elements lifecycle.

All Requirements process supported

All the artifacts along with the block diagrams and workflows allow users to define and follow from very simple to highly complex Requirements processes in just one single tool.

Examples of processes or activities from Software and Systems engineering that can be followed in IRQA:

• CMMI level 2 and 3
• SPICE
• Tender management processes (RFI, RFP, etc.)
• Agile methodologies
• Product validation
• Ad hoc processes

Customizable Interface

All the general capabilities in IRQA are provided completely out-of-the-box, which means that the configuration can be made completely through the user interface, reducing the adoption time.

Administrators are able to configure the menus, toolbars and buttons available in IRQA based on the user role, simplifying the user interface for end users and hiding unnecessary options.
 

Percentage column easily implemented

The plugins capability allows to create new project specific tabs and columns, including and arranging the attributes, calculated information and other relevant information for the project as needed.

Share Views

Users are able to create their own specific views: Columns, filters, classification criterias, description, tabs, etc. Administrators can share and predetermine these views to the different roles, creating specific views for specific tasks to different roles!

Custom Text

IRQA can be easily localized to the different languages or domain terms, which is in most cases critical for the user acceptance.

Document View

The Document view allows engaging all users in the system (even the non-technical ones), reducing the learning curve, but keeping at the same time a defined structure.

Export to Word

The defined processes, attributes, workflow, glossary as well as project and user configuration can be included in project templates which will replicate the complete structure whenever starting a new project.

Requirements, Use Case and Test Case reusability of components helps achieve a reduced rework and cost and better quality.

Quick export to check your project status. Users that don’t need to modify anything can get all the information from the MS Word or Excel WYSIWYG exports.

Workflows

Avoid repetitive task and automate almost everything with the workflow scripts support:

• Send emails
• Create/Modify/Delete other elements
• Change traceability
• Check elements

Change Management Mechanism

IRQA seamlessly integrates with MS Office to import Change Requests, Requirements, Tests and Services, and help users work with a proper environment according to their specific needs.

Attending to the rest of the needs of the different sectors, IRQA also implements the use of an advanced technology in the interchange of information specifically designed for requirements (XRI). This technology addresses the needs of those companies in need of an organized format to exchange information.

The powerful import process includes a Change Management Mechanism, to accept or reject the modifications made offline, and merge the results.

Licensing

The unattended import capability of the import tool allows users to keep the database synchronized with the information contained in a MS Excel or MS Word file.

IRQA supports different comercial databases, such as Oracle, SQL Server or MS Access, apart from giving support to MS Access, so as to be able to work disconnected from the server using a desktop database and at the same time using all the capabilities in IRQA.

The use of commercial database allows to:

• Carry out Administration tasks (backups, restores, etc.) in the same context of other applications.
• Take advantage of proven database performance
• Carry out a database replication, easy and well known by the systems departments.
• Make use of commercial terminal servers from distributed web access in a simple way
• Access the database through virtual private networks.

Don't forget to check our IRQA out-of-the-box integrations with:

• Software Configuration Management tools
• User management tools
• Design tools
• Test management tools
• Project management tools
• Bug tracking tools
• Requirements Management tools

IRQA provides a versatile Integration Platform which can be used to integrate with third party, commercial or proprietary, tools to extend the change impact analysis features to elements out of the scope of IRQA, and link requirements with the rest of the activities of the lifecycle. These third party tool elements will be included in IRQA as External Elements, which can be included in Block Diagrams.

These External Elements may be accessed through our open Plugin support, which allows users to build new integrations, including in the IRQA interface new toolbars, buttons, tabs and columns to support the integration.

The External Elements can also be accessed through a very powerful and open API for commercial languages, including COM and Java.

More information...

IRQA Components

IRQA components represent groups of elements and the relationships between them, including requirements, services and tests, representing from simple non functional requirements like usability or performance, to complex product features like interfaces.

These components can be reused in the different projects in different versions, according to the information contained:

• Share: The elements are shared and defined between different projects in the database, allowing users to collaboratively build up a solution.
• Read mode: The elements are read only and cannot be modified. However, they can take attributes and can be related to other elements.
• Copy and link mode: The elements are imported in read/write, so they can be modified and updated. They can also take attributes and can be traced to other elements.
• Copy mode: The elements become part of the destination project and loose the link with the original one.

When working with components, projects are notified if using an outgraded component, so as to decide, depending on the reuse mode selected whether to upgrade, keep the current or merge current and new components.

Through the components catalogue, companies can address their product families and variants support, building products out of combinations of components.