Tool Mentor: Detailing a Use Case Using Rational RequisitePro

Purpose

This tool mentor describes how to use Rational RequisitePro® to describe a system use case in detail. The description of the system use case is performed by the system analyst.

This section offer links to additional RUP information related to this tool mentor.

• Detail a Use Case

• Report: Use Case

Overview

After the use cases for the proposed system have been identified (as described in the Rational Rose® Tool Mentor: Finding Actors and Use Cases) , you can use RequisitePro to develop a Use-Case Specification document.

Note: You can develop the use cases in Rose and generate them in RequisitePro using the Integrated Use-Case Management feature. Refer to Tool Mentor: Managing Use Cases with Rational Rose and Rational 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.

The textual information for the selected use cases is detailed by someone playing the requirements specifier role, who is responsible for writing 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 RUP activity Find Actors and Use Cases.

Tool Steps

To detail a use case using RequisitePro:

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

If you created your RequisitePro project using the Use-Case Template, your project already contains a Use-Case Specification document type.

1. Create a Use-Case Specification document

The Use-Case Specification document contains the use case's textual properties. This includes the following use-case properties: name, brief description, basic flow of events, alternate flow of events, preconditions, postconditions, and special requirements.

Note: If you have developed your use cases in Rose, you can use the procedures described in  Tool Mentor: Managing Use Cases Using Rational Rose and Rational 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.

To create a Use-Case Specification document in RequisitePro:

1. In the Explorer, select the package in which you want the new document to reside. Then click File > New > Document. The Document Properties dialog box appears.
2. Type a name, description, and file name for the document.
3. In the Document Type list, select "Use-Case Specification Document Type."
4. Click OK. The outline for the Use-Case Specification document opens in Microsoft® Word.

For More Information

Refer to the topic titled Creating requirements documents (Index: documents>creating) in the RequisitePro online Help.

2. Complete the Use-Case Specification document

In the newly created Use-Case Specification document, type use-case-specific information in each section. The name and the brief description properties should already have been documented when the use case was originally identified.

To complete the Use-Case Specification document:

1. Replace the "Use-Case Name" text that is displayed in the outline with the actual name of the use case.

   Note: If you created the use-case document using the procedures described in Tool Mentor: Managing Use Cases Using Rational Rose and Rational 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. Read the instructions in the Brief Description section, and then delete them and type a brief description.
   
   Note: If you developed the use case in 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.

3. Replace the default text located in the Basic Flow of Events section with the text for this use case's basic flow of events. Identify each step on a separate line.

4. Repeat this procedure for the other use-case properties (alternate flow of events, special requirements, preconditions, postconditions, and so on).

5. Click RequisitePro > Document > Save.

For More Information

Refer to the topic titled Saving requirements documents (Index: documents>saving) in the RequisitePro online Help.

3. Create requirements in the detailed Use-Case Specification

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

1. In the Use-Case Specification document, select the use-case name.

2. Do one of the following:

   • Right-click and select New Requirement.
   • Click RequisitePro > Requirement > New.
     The Requirement Properties dialog box appears.
     
     

3. Select UC: Use Case Requirement Type as the requirement type.

4. On the Attributes tab, at the Property attribute, select the value "Name" from the list of values.

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 requirement's parent to the use-case name requirement created in Steps 1-3 above. You have the option of indicating groups of steps that 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. A flow of events often spans several pages, so this may be preferable to considering the flow of events as a whole.

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. The following steps are optional:

   • In the preconditions section of the Use-Case Specification document, select each precondition separately and create a UC requirement (Property = pre-conditions, parent = use-case name requirement).
   • Repeat the step above for the postconditions (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 topic Creating requirements in a document (Index: requirements>creating) in the RequisitePro online Help.

4. Add diagrams to the Use-Case Specification (optional)

Some of the use-case properties are nontextual, such as "use-case diagrams" and "other diagrams". See the RUP Artifact: Use Case. These diagrams are stored in 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 Rose.

See the additional information at the start of this tool mentor for further guidance.

Rational Unified Process