Release notes for Rational RequisitePro 7.1

IBM(R) Rational(R) RequisitePro(R) is a requirements management tool that teams can use to manage project requirements comprehensively, promote communication and collaboration among team members, and reduce project risk.

Contents

Description

Rational RequisitePro uses a project database for managing requirements in views with sort and query capabilities. It also includes integration with Microsoft(R) Word for creating and maintaining requirements documents that are linked to the database for real-time updates to requirements from within documents. The database and Word integration helps you organize and prioritize your requirements, trace relationships between them, and track changes that affect them. Traceability features visually indicate how changes affect the project, helping you perform impact analysis and make informed decisions for scope management or resource allocation. You can manage requirement changes more effectively and keep your project on track. Rational RequisitePro captures the change history for each requirement, providing an audit trail of the evolution of project requirements.

This document provides information and links for installing and using Rational RequisitePro, including new features, compatibility, known problems, fixed defects, changed files, late-breaking information, workarounds for defects, and supplemental information about topics that might not be covered in the RequisitePro Information Center.

This document provides information for the following types of users:
  • System administrators and database administrators who install and configure the product
  • Project managers who create and configure product projects and documents
  • Advanced users who implement integrations of Rational RequisitePro with other products, work on international systems and localized versions of the product, or encounter problems that are not included in the documentation

Announcement

For detailed information about new features in the product, see Rational RequisitePro.

Compatibility issues with earlier versions and international systems

Rational RequisitePro works only with other Rational products that are version 7.1, or later. You must install and upgrade the other Rational products. For compatibility with this release, if your team accesses shared Rational RequisitePro projects from multiple clients and RequisiteWeb, you must upgrade all of your Rational RequisitePro and RequisiteWeb installations to version 7.1. To determine the version of the Rational products that are installed on your system, you can open IBM Installation Manager and click File > View Installed Packages.

Rational RequisitePro is enhanced for teams that work across time zones because documents now use GMT time stamps to eliminate inconsistencies. Rational RequisitePro is supported on the following international operating systems: French, German, Japanese, Italian, Swedish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Dutch, Hebrew, and Korean. You can enter text and data in your geographic language and corresponding character set on the following operating systems: French, German, Japanese, Italian, Swedish and Simplified Chinese. Regional date, time, and number conventions, as specified by the regional settings that are selected in the Windows(R) Control Panel, are also supported for input and output.

Users on Hebrew, Korean, Traditional Chinese and Dutch operating systems must enter all input data (such as path names and project data) by using U.S. English. Screens, menus, controls, wizards, reports and user documentation are in U.S. English. Internationalization requires homogeneous language environments, such as a French operating system that uses French versions of SQL Server and Microsoft Word. When Rational RequisitePro and Rational ClearQuest(R) are integrated, the databases for both products must use the same language code page.

System requirements

For information about hardware and software requirements, see System requirements.

For additional details, see the following Rational Support technotes:

Installing Rational RequisitePro 7.1

For complete documentation, including step-by-step instructions for installing Rational RequisitePro, see the most current version of the IBM Rational RequisitePro Installation and Upgrade Guide in the Information Center.

What's new

The following features are included in the 7.1 release of Rational RequisitePro and the client for Web (RequisiteWeb).
Reporting
  • Reports on requirements, documents, and several other project items can be produced.
  • The IBM Rational RequisitePro Report Management facility provides a simple interface for organizing and launching reports. It is accessed as a Web page at http://<server_name>/ReqProRptMgmt/, where <server_name> is the hostname or IP number of the system where the Reporting Server was installed.
  • The Report Management facility provides four sample reports based on the Learning Use Case project.
  • BIRT Report Designer with IBM Rational RequisitePro Data Source provides the capability to create new report templates.
  • Optional features are installed by selecting new checkboxes in the Installation Manager.
  • Data sources that pull data from any RequisitePro project are included. Multiple data sources can be defined per report to pull data from multiple projects.
Access databases can be upgraded
  • Access databases created before version 7.1 can be upgraded to the 7.1 schema with the RequisitePro Database Upgrade Wizard.
  • Enterprise databases can be upgraded to the 7.1 schema using scripts that are provided in the installation. For more information see the Rational RequisitePro Installation and Upgrade Guide.
Web User Interface
  • Updated UI design graphics are included.
  • A Quick Search is included.
Web Word authoring in RequisiteWeb
  • Enhanced integration with Microsoft Word is provided.
  • You can edit and save Word documents while working online.
  • You can create, delete, and modify requirements in Word documents.
  • You can create requirements of any requirement type in the document.
  • You can view and edit requirement properties from within the document, as in the Windows native client.
  • You can establish parent and child relationships while working in the document.
Feature parity between Rational RequisitePro and RequisiteWeb
  • You can change the types of requirements in RequisiteWeb.
  • An option to show the column requirement name in text in Traceability Matrix views is provided.
Enhanced package security
  • Administrators can set package permissions for user groups.
  • You can apply update, create, or delete permissions to requirements, documents, views, and child packages.
FIPS-compliant encryption
  • Database password encryption complies with the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS).
  • Access to the LDAP server is protected by a FIPS-compliant password encryption system.
Integrations
  • RequisitePro supports integration with IBM Rational RequisitePro Composer version 7.1.
  • RequisitePro supports integration with IBM Rational Quality Manager.
View baseline
  • You can view a single baseline using the same view format as that for Compare baselines. Only a single baseline is displayed.
Support for rich text through RequisiteWeb
  • Requirements created in IBM Rational RequisitePro Composer retain font and style enhancements when displayed in RequisiteWeb.
  • Requirements created in Microsoft Word documents retain font and style enhancements and embedded images when displayed in RequisiteWeb.
  • All views support full rich text.

IBM Eclipse Help System for RequisiteWeb

The RequisiteWeb has a new Eclipse-based help system that includes an improved navigation tree, an index, and search capability, and provides new content on reporting, Web Word authoring, and other enhancements.

IBM Eclipse Help System the client for Windows

A new Eclipse-based help system is available for the Rational RequisitePro client for Windows. It is shipped with the product and is available at the Information Center.

Known problems

Known problems are documented in the form of individual technotes in the Support knowledge base. As issues are discovered and resolved, the IBM Support team updates the knowledge base. Search the knowledge base to find workarounds or solutions to problems quickly. You can launch a customized query of known problems, both open and closed, in this release of Rational RequisitePro to alert you to the following usage limitations and outstanding issues: