Indirect associations

An indirect association links model elements and requirements through proxy requirements and traceability. Indirect associations are particularly powerful for creating many-to-many relationships with traceability between multiple requirements and a single proxy or between multiple proxies and a single requirement.

With the default project configuration, when you associate a non-use-case model element (such as a class) with a requirement, the integration creates a proxy. This proxy requirement represents the model element within Rational® RequisitePro® and is linked directly to the model element. This direct link is represented by a link arrow , which is visible in both the Model Explorer view and the Requirement Explorer view. Proxy requirements are created in the Eclipse Element Proxies package in the Requirement Explorer view. The integration also creates traceability from the proxy to the requirement that you selected for the association. This requirement trace is represented by a link-by-proxy arrow. The following figure provides an example of a link to a proxy and a requirement trace from the proxy to the requirement. Notice that the requirement trace from the "Create report" proxy to the "Generate reports" requirement is visible in the Requirement Trace view.

screen image of indirect association

The following figure represents an indirect association between a model element and multiple requirements using a proxy and multiple requirement traces.

graphic showing  proxy linking and traceability

Using the previous example of a class, the following figures demonstrate how the "Create report" class can be associated with two feature requirements and viewed within the Requirement Query Results view. The first figure shows a Traceability Tree view; the second figure shows a Traceability Matrix view.

screen image of traceability tree viewscreen image of traceability matrix view

Parent topic: Requirement concepts and artifacts

Related concepts
Requirement traceability
Direct associations
Associations between requirements and model elements

Related tasks
Viewing requirements traceability
Creating indirect associations between requirements and model elements
Creating model elements from requirements
Creating requirements from model elements

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