To perform administrative tasks on project templates, ReqSuite® RM provides template management via a corresponding item in the administration menu. In the context of ReqSuite® RM “project templates” define the entire structure according to which content can be managed within a project.

For creating (“Add Project Template…” button), modifying (pencil icon), deleting (trash icon), editing (hyperlink on template name), copying (copy icon) or attaching MS Word templates (Word file icon), ReqSuite® RM provides corresponding functionality via the “Project Templates” item in the administration menu (see Figure 1). When creating or editing a project template, you can define whether the content of this project template can be reused in other templates or not. To achieve this, the checkbox “Reusable Content” must be checked. Please note that creating projects with reusable project templates is not possible.

A backup of the project templates can be created at any time and imported again later. To do this, switch to the project template that you want to export/import. Three buttons will appear at the top right. The two buttons on the right are intended to perform these operations. It is important to note that these backups can only be imported into the same template, not into another template. Also, importing a backup will irrevocably overwrite the current template definition. The first of the three named buttons is used to reuse project templates. This will insert the entire content of the selected template into the current template.

Important Note: It is only possible to choose reusable templates that have the same language as the current project template. It is possible to reuse more than one project template, but only once per selected project template. Please also keep in mind that reusable project templates cannot reuse other project templates.

Since most of the aforementioned functions are quite self-explanatory, they will not be explained further here. Rather, the subsequent pages describe the functionality of the actual template designer, which can be opened by clicking on the name of a desired project template.

In particular, each project template allows defining:

Categories

Categories are the different types of information to be managed in a project (e.g requirements, test cases, components, etc.). In ReqSuite® RM, every imaginable category can be defined.

Attributes

Attributes are the inherent (data) fields of the categories (e.g. ID, title, description, priority, etc.). In ReqSuite® RM, every imaginable attribute can be defined.

Data Types

Data types restrict the possible values, users can enter for an attribute of a category (e.g. text, richtext, numbers, dates, etc.). In ReqSuite® RM, there is both a predefined set of default data types and the possibility to define own types with predefined value sets.

Graphical Notations

Graphical notations are images to be used in addition to input forms for describing details of a content item or category in a visual manner. Even though ReqSuite® RM does not provide drawing features so far, images created with other tools can be included.

Input Forms

Input forms are parts of the user interface that allow users to view and edit the content items of different categories. For this purpose, input forms organize the attributes of a category in a way that supports users in elaborating corresponding content quickly.

Relationship Types

Relationship types are possible connections that content items of different categories might have with each other (e.g., a link from a test case to a requirement), including constraints on the quantity on both sides of the connections. In ReqSuite® RM, there are no generic relationship types.

Workflows

Workflows are flows that describe the different states in which the content items of different categories can be. In ReqSuite® RM, multiple workflows (theoretical one for every single category) can be defined, including the states, their properties (e.g. items in this state are read-only), and valid transitions.

MS Word Templates

MS Word templates are files that contain static content according to the corporate design (CI/CD) of a tenant as well as a couple of placeholders that can be automatically filled by the content of a given project. For example, the placeholder ###REQUIREMENTS:TABLE WITH ID, NAME, DESCRIPTION## exports all the requirements of a project as a table in a Word document.

Excel Templates

Analogous to MS Word templates, it is also possible to create Excel templates that can export the desired content from ReqSuite projects to Excel documents.