Working with Requirements

The Requirements and Systems Portal, powered by Valispace, is an advanced engineering management application used to ensure specification and performance compliance during system design development. When enabled for your Workspace, the Requirements and Systems Portal integrates with your design projects through the exchange of design data and formalized Requirements instances.

The system Requirements, as created in the Requirements and Systems Portal, can be placed as active instances on your design documents, referenced as Tasks, and ultimately marked as Verified to confirm requirement compliance.

Before working with Requirements in a Workspace design project, it needs to be linked to a suitable Block in the Requirements and Systems Portal application – 'Blocks' are parts of the overall System Design, such as a PCB module, within a portal Project. In turn, Requirements linked to this Block become accessible in the Altium 365 Workspace.

You can access the Requirements and Systems Portal interface from your Workspace by selecting its entry from the ‘nine dots’ menu () at the top of the Workspace interface (see example), or from the button when the Portal’s entry is opened in the Workspace Admin – Apps page.

Basic Requirements and Systems Portal Setup

The first steps in creating a Requirements and Systems Portal configuration to suit your needs is to create a portal Project (the 'container' for an engineering project) and one or more Blocks (sections of the overall system design). A Project is created from the Portal's Project view () and a Block from the System Design view ().

Reference documentation: Creating a Project

Reference documentation: System Design Module

A Block to be linked to an Altium 365 project must be set to the Electronics type, which will then offer an additional Altium Link option for selecting a corresponding Workspace project. The project link can be selected from the drop-down menu at this stage, or established later from within the Altium 365 Workspace (related information). When a link is established, the Workspace design project's preview image and its parameter data are imported – the latter is available under the view's Properties tab.

Requirements that will be accessible in your Altium 365 Workspace are attached to Specifications associated with Blocks. A created Specification can include sub-sections (Sections) for attaching Requirements that apply to specific parts of the system design.

Reference documentation: Requirements Module

❯ ❮ Javascript ID: ReqSys

Use the Requirements view () commands to create a Specification entry for your system design Block. Requirements will be attached to this Specification and its (optional) sub-sections. Associate a new Specification with the existing Block to facilitate the linking of Requirements with Altium 365. Multiple Specifications and associated Sections can be created - right-click on a Specification to add a Section. Use the button to manually create a Requirement for the Specification or Section, or the option for the AI-assisted creation of Requirements from information you provide. A manually created Requirement will automatically target the currently selected Specification/Section and choose the next available Requirement Identifier. Enter the Requirement text information and confirm all settings with the button. The new Requirement entry is available under the Table tab view and includes the Block entry that links to the Altium 365 Workspace. Note that Blocks can be manually added to a Requirement (or removed) by double-clicking on the entry's Applicable Block cell. Add further Requirements entries as needed, which can be associated with the main Specification or a selected specification Section. These Requirement entries become available to the linked Project in Altium 365.

The ability to verify Requirements is managed through Verification and Validation (V&V) Activities that are created in the Requirements and Systems Portal. A V&V Activity is linked to a Requirement so that its verification state (such as Not Verified, Verified, Skipped, etc) can be specified in the Altium 365 Workspace.

Reference Documentation: Verification and Validation

❯ ❮ Javascript ID: VVact

V&V Activities that will be applied to Requirements are created from the button command in the portal’s Verifications and Validations view (). In the following Create V&V Activity window, name the activity to be created and confirm with the button. The new V&V Activity entry and any further created entries are included under the All Activities tab listing. Back in the Requirements view (), V&V Activities are applied to a Requirements entry by first double-clicking in its V&V Activity cell. In the following Verification & Validation Items window click the button to access the available V&V Activity choices. Choose a suitable V&V Activity from the Activity drop-down menu in the Link Activity window and select to confirm. The selected Activity is added to the Verification & Validation Items list. If needed, use the button again to add another V&V Activity for the currently selected Requirement. The Requirements entry now includes the specified V&V Activity. Note that its V&V Status cell now indicates that one related activity is available, and in an unverified state (0/1). One or more V&V Activities can be added to all available Requirements entries.

Portal Block to Design Project Link

When the various Requirements and Systems Portal elements have been set up for your design project (see the above collapsible section), its Requirements will be available in the Workspace design view when the project has been linked to the Portal’s related System Design Block. This link can be specified within the portal's Block itself, as outlined in the section above, or set from the Workspace project’s Edit Project window by choosing the appropriate System Design Block in the window's Requirements section.

❯ ❮ Javascript ID: RLink

The link between the Workspace Project and a corresponding Requirements Block is entered or selected in the Edit Project window’s Requirements field, found under the Advanced settings (). Begin typing a known Block name in the field to view and select from a list of matching Block entries. Once selected, click to confirm the setting. Alternatively, select the field's associated option to browse and choose from all available project Blocks. The menu opens the Link Requirements window, which includes a hierarchical list of all available Requirements Projects and their corresponding Blocks – incompatible Blocks (in gray) cannot be selected. Navigate to and select a suitable Block entry and click to confirm. The Edit Project window’s Requirements field will include the specified Project-Block mapping link as a read-only entry. Click to confirm the setting. The current Project-Block mapping can be removed at any time using the button.

Workspace Requirements Access

Within the linked project’s design view the Requirements and Systems Portal Requirements are available from the document view’s Requirements pane, opened from the upper icon. This lists all available Requirements, where a selected Requirements tile shows its information, a link to its instance in the Requirements and Systems Portal, and the Validation settings. Use the command to create a reference instance in the current document, and the command to create a general Task assigned to a specified Workspace member.

Placing a Requirement

A Requirement is placed in the current document using the same process as placing a Comment on a point, object (such as a component or line/trace), or a specified area – see Placing a Comment for detailed information. The Requirement Identifier link (Req-0001 here) in both the Requirements pane and requirement window opens that Requirement entry in the Requirements and Systems Portal, which will include a Design Reference link back to its placement in the Altium 365 Workspace.

Creating a Requirement Task

An actionable Workspace Task is created for a Requirement by selecting the entry's option in the Requirements pane, and then assigning a Workspace Member to the Task, entering a Task description and confirming with the button. Requirement tasks are accessed and progressed through the Web Viewer Tasks page.

❯ ❮ Javascript ID: Task

A Workspace Task related to a selected Requirement is created from the button. The Task is assigned to a Workspace Member as a requested action. The created Task is available in the Tasks page and not placed on the document. In the Requirements pane, use the Requirement tile's Assigned link to open the Tasks view.  Tasks can be Commented on, reassigned to another User, set to a different Priority, and ultimately moved through to a Resolved status.

Note that a placed Requirement can be used to create an associate Task using its Convert to Task option. Both the placed Requirement instance and the created Task will be associated with the source Requirement as shown in the Requirements pane.

❯ ❮ Javascript ID: Convert

Select the Convert to Task option from the window’s menu to create a Task from a placed requirement. The refreshed view will show the associated Task in the placed Requirement window and also in the Requirements pane Assigned entry – both link to the created Task in the Workspace Tasks page. In the Tasks page, the newly created Task is associated with the document where the converted Requirement is placed.

Verifying Requirements

The Verification state of a Requirement can be set from the verification menu item () available in its Requirements pane entry and the document requirement window. The menu offers the options defined by the Verification and Validation Activity associated with the Requirement in the Requirements and Systems Portal.

❯ ❮ Javascript ID: Verify

Select a verification activity associated with the Requirement from the verification menu item () in the requirement window or Requirements pane. The menu label indicates the number of verifications completed from the number of verifications associated with the Requirement – here; 0 of 1. Choose a status setting for the verification activity. Note that multiple activities can be associated with a Requirement, where each is presented with its own status menu options.  These are shown in the Requirements and Systems Portal entry as multiple V&V Activities. The Requirement’s verification status is now set to 1 of 1 because the Verified option was selected. The Requirement entry in the Requirements and Systems Portal also will show this verified state.  Note that the verification will be locked from further changes if the Skipped option is selected.