Purpose

This tool mentor describes how to use Rational RequisitePro to describe a system use case in detail. For system use cases, the worker is the System Analyst.

Related Rational Unified Process Activities:

In the Requirements Workflow:

Overview

After the use cases for the proposed system have been identified, as described in the Find Actors and Use Cases Rational Rose tool mentor, you can use RequisitePro to develop a Use-Case Specification document.

Note: We recommend that you initially develop the use cases in Rational Rose and generate them in RequisitePro using the Integrated Use Case Management feature. Refer to the tool mentor Managing Uses Cases with Rose and RequisitePro for more information.

Sections of the Use-Case Specification document can be used to create specific requirements. These requirements can be traced (or linked) to other requirements, such as product features and test plans.

The textual information for the selected use cases is detailed by a Use-Case Specifier who writes a Use-Case Specification for each use case. This document defines all textual properties of the use case, and may elaborate on the name and description of the use case produced in the Rational Unified Process Activity: Find Actors and Use Cases.

To detail a use case using RequisitePro:

  1. Create a Use-Case Specification document
  2. Complete the Use-Case Specification document
  3. Mark requirements in the detailed Use-Case Specification
  4. Add diagrams to the Use-Case Specification (optional)

If you created your RequisitePro project using the RequisitePro Project Template, your project already contains a Use Case Specification document type. You can find information on how to add a customized template in your RequisitePro project in Tool Mentor: Adding Templates to Your RequisitePro Project.

1. Create a Use-Case Specification Document To top of page

The Use-Case Specification document contains the use caseÆs textual properties. This includes the following use-case properties: name, brief description, basic flow of events, alternate flow of events, pre-conditions, post-conditions, and special requirements.

Note: If you have developed your use cases in Rational Rose, you can use the procedures described in Tool Mentor: Managing Use Cases Using Rose and RequisitePro to create a new use case document that is associated with your Rose use case. If not, use the following tool steps to create a use case document.

Tool Steps

To create a Use-Case Specification document:

  1. On the Tool Palette, click Document > New. The Document Properties dialog box appears.
  2. Type a name, description, and file name for the document.
  3. At the Document Type field, select Use-Case Specification Document Type. Click OK. The template for the Use-Case Specification document opens in the Word Workplace (the RequisitePro Microsoft Word interface).

For More Information

Refer to the following help topic in the RequisitePro online help:

  • Creating requirements documents (Index: documents>creating)

2. Complete the Use-Case Specification To top of page

In the newly created Use-Case Specification document, complete each section with the use-case-specific information. The name and the brief description properties should already have been documented in Activity: Find Use Cases and Actors in Rational Rose.

Tool Steps

Enter the name and brief description in the Use-Case Specification document:

  1. In the Use-Case Specification document, replace the "Use Case Name" text which is displayed in the template with the actual name of the use case.

    2. Note: If you created the use case document using the procedures described in Tool Mentor: Managing Use Cases Using Rose and RequisitePro, the use case name is inserted automatically in the title of the document. Use the RequisitePro > Requirement > Cut and Paste commands to move the use case requirement to the "Use Case Name" text.

  2. After reading the default instructions in the Brief Description field, delete the instructions and enter the text for the brief description.
    Note: If you developed the use case in Rational Rose and want to include the Rose documentation field as part of the brief description section in your RequisitePro use case document, copy the text from the Documentation field in the Rose Use Case Specification dialog box and paste it into your use case specification document.

To complete the use case:

  1. Replace the default text located in the Basic Flow of Events section with the text for this use caseÆs basic flow of events. Use a step by step description, in which each step is identified on a separate line.
  2. Repeat this procedure for the other use-case properties (alternate flow of events, special requirements, pre-conditions, post-conditions, etc.).
  3. Save the Use-Case Specification document in the Word Workplace by selecting RequisitePro > Document > Save.

For More Information

Refer to the following help topic in the RequisitePro online help:

  • Saving requirements documents (Index: documents>saving)

3. Mark Requirements in the Detailed Use-Case Specification To top of page

In order to track traceability links between use cases and other information, such as the use case model, product features, or test scenarios, create RequisitePro requirements from the Use-Case Specification sections. Mark the use-case name as a parent requirement and its properties as child requirements. These properties may include brief descriptions, actions within the basic or alternate flow of events, pre-conditions, post-conditions, special requirements, and extends relationships.

Tool Steps

  1. In the Use-Case Specification document, highlight the complete text of the use-case name.
  2. In the Word Workplace, do one of the following:
    • right-click and select Create Requirement.
    • click RequisitePro > Requirement > Create.
      The Requirement Properties dialog box appears.
  3. Select UC as the requirement type.
  4. On the Attributes tab, select the Property attribute value of "Name" from the drop-down list of use-case properties.
  5. Repeat the preceding steps for the brief description (setting the Property attribute to "Brief Description"). On the Hierarchy tab, select <choose parent> and identify the UC requirement representing the use-case name.
  6. In the basic flow of events section of the Use-Case Specification document, create UC requirements for each step or group of steps (subflow) to which you want to set traceability links. Set the Property attribute to "Basic Flow", and set the requirementÆs parent to the use-case name requirement, created in steps 1-3, above. Optionally, indicate groups of steps which are always performed together. If necessary, use hierarchical requirements to distinguish subflows from the basic flow of events.
    Note: You do not need to create requirements for each step in a flow of events. The value of creating flow of events requirements is in tracing from a higher-level requirement, such as a product feature, to a specific part of the flow of events. This may be preferable to considering the flow of events as a whole since flow of events often span several pages.
  7. In each alternate flow of events, create UC requirements for each step or group of steps (subflow) to which you want to set traceability links. Set the Property attribute to "Alternate Flow," and the parent requirement as indicated previously. Similar to the basic flow of events, use hierarchical requirements to indicate complete subflows.
  8. Optionally, in the pre-conditions section of the Use-Case Specification document, select each pre-condition separately and create a UC requirement. (Property = pre-conditions, parent = use-case name requirement.)
  9. Optionally, repeat the step above for the post-conditions (Property = Post-conditions), and the special requirements section (Property = Special). Set the use-case name requirement as their parent.

For More Information

Refer to the following help topics in the RequisitePro online help:

  • Creating requirements in a document (Index: requirements>creating>...in a document)

4. Adding Diagrams to the Use-Case Specification (optional) To top of page

Some of the use-case properties are non-textual, such as "use-case diagrams" and "other diagrams". See the Rational Unified Process Artifact: Use Case. These diagrams are stored in Rational Rose. Using Rational SoDA, you can create a Use-Case Report from the use-case textual properties stored in RequisitePro and the use-case diagram information stored in Rational Rose. See Report: Use-Case on how to create this report.

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