Importing an Existing Structure from Another Specification

You can quickly create a requirement specification's structure by importing the existing objects and structure (chapters, comments, requirements, and parameters) from another specification. Objects can be copied or referenced when they are imported from the other specification.

Importing a complete structure from another specification is a two part process. Importing a partial structure is a three part process—there is an additional step for selecting the individual objects to import.

Required responsibilities:

  • Baseline: Leader (when the object is in the Frozen state) or Author

This task shows you how to:

Specifying the Import Options

Before you begin: View a specification. See Specification Detail Page.
  1. Select the specification's row in the structure display.
  2. From the toolbar, select Actions > Import Existing Structure.
    The Step 1: Import from Existing - Options window opens.
  3. In the Copy or Reference field, select the scope of the other specification's structure that you want to import:
    • Select Complete Structure from another Requirement Specification to import the complete specification structure.
    • Select Partial Structure from another Requirement Specification to specify which parts of the specification's structure (chapters, requirements, and so on) you want to import.
  4. In the Copy with link field, select Create clone relation if you want to create a cloned relationship link to objects copied from the other specification's structure.
  5. For each type of specification object, specify how to import them into the target specification:

    OptionMeaning
    DuplicateThis type of object will be duplicated in the specification structure. It will have a new name.
    ReferenceThis type of object will be referenced in the specification structure. it will have the same name.
    NoneThis type of object will not be imported into the specification structure.

    If you choose to duplicate, the types, policies, and vault of the copied objects will be the same as the original object. Each of the duplicated objects will be in the first state in the policy as if it were a new object.

  6. For copied objects, type the Prefix for Copied Objects or select AutoName.

    A prefix is required for copied objects to ensure all objects in the database have a unique name. The default value is "Copy of". If you do not select Autoname, the app will assign the prefix repeatedly until any name collision is resolved. If the name collision cannot be resolved using the prefix, when the maximum length of 128 bytes is reached, autonaming will be used to create a copy of the object to be imported to avoid extremely long names.

  7. Click Next.

Selecting the Specification to Import From

  1. Use the Search page to find and select the specification to import the structure from.
  2. If you are importing a complete structure, click Done.
  3. If you are importing a partial structure, click Next.

Selecting Objects for a Partial Structure Import

  1. Select the objects that you want to import from the structure:
    1. If necessary, use the filter to display the type of requirements listed for import. Only objects displayed by the currently-selected filter will be imported. For example, "Non-functional requirements" will not be imported when the "Functional Requirements Only" filter is selected.
    2. If necessary, expand and collapse the structure to see the available child objects. Since requirements and comments cannot have child objects, they cannot be expanded or collapsed. Chapters can be expanded or collapsed to show their child objects such as sub-chapters, requirements, and comments. If you select a collapsed chapter, all the chapter's child objects are automatically selected for import. If you expand a selected chapter, you see that all the child objects are selected.

      You can also make a partial selection of a chapter's contents:

      • If you select a requirement or comment in a chapter structure that is two or more levels deep, the entire parent structure is selected to preserve the structure—the parents of the selected object up to the root specification will be automatically selected for import. Since this is a partial selection instead of a complete selection, the chapter's row is highlighted in orange instead of blue to indicate that only some of the chapter's child objects are selected.
      • If you select a chapter, causing all of its children to be automatically selected, then deselect one or more child objects, this is also a partial selection—the row color of the chapter is changed to orange.

  2. Click Done.

The specification into which the objects were imported is opened, showing the new structure.