This document provides information about the release of Rational RequisitePro 4.5.
The Help/About dialog box for this release displays the version 4.50.0029. For information regarding RequisiteWeb, including known issues, refer to the Rational RequisiteWeb Installation and Configuration document (ReqWebSetup.html in your RequisitePro 4.5\help directory).
Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, Visual Basic, Microsoft SQL Server, and Visual SourceSafe are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
Oracle, Oracle7, Oracle8 and SQL*Net are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation.
Rational, the Rational logo, Requisite, Rational Rose, SoDA, and ClearCase are trademarks or registered trademarks of Rational Software Corporation in the United States and in other countries. All other names are used for identification purposes only and are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
Copyright © 1998-1999 Rational Software Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Section 1: What's New in RequisitePro
Section 3: Known Issues and Incompatibilities
Section 4: Contact Information
Support for enterprise databases and the RequisitePro Extensibility Interface, which was previously sold as the Rational RequisiteEnterprise Add-on, is now included in RequisitePro.
The use of client/server databases offers increased scalability and power to your organization's implementation of RequisitePro. Now RequisitePro provides the capability to use Oracle® and Microsoft® SQL Server databases, in addition to Microsoft Access.
Project data currently stored in Microsoft Access can be easily migrated to Oracle or SQL Server with the Database Type Conversion Wizard. Additionally, you can convert from an enterprise database to an Access database.
RequisitePro now includes the RequisitePro Extensibility Interface. This fully documented COM-based API gives customers and third-party solution providers direct access to the requirement data.
For this release, the RequisitePro Extensibility Interface includes complete documentation for the RequisitePro Query Engine and the associated query language syntax. The Query Engine provides a programmatic interface and utilizes objects to retrieve RequisitePro project data for requirements and discussions. Queries can be optimized by the user to load only necessary information, enhancing the performance of your application.
For Rational Rose users, Integrated Use Case Management allows you to consistently and seamlessly manage your use cases with powerful requirements management features in RequisitePro. Now you can create and associate requirement documents and attributes with use cases, all from within Rose.
Integrated Use Case Management allows you to develop and maintain a link between the use case in Rose and a textual definition of the use case in a RequisitePro Microsoft Word document. The RequisitePro use case documents provide elaboration on the use case with descriptions, flows of events, special requirements and conditions. The associated use case document is immediately accessible from Rose by simply double clicking.
In addition, use case attributes, such as Priority, Status, and Iteration, can be created and modified from Rose, and are automatically kept in synch with the associated RequisitePro project. For example, a change made to a use case priority in Rose generates suspect traceability links in RequisitePro, automatically and in real-time.
Integrated Use Case Management permits flexible mapping to RequisitePro from the Rose model, package, or use case level. Rose models and packages can be associated with a RequisitePro project, which provides a location for storing and managing the use case documents and attributes.
RequisitePro has been internationalized for this release to support international operating systems and applications. The following testing platforms were successfully used: French, German, Japanese.
The user is able to enter input text and data using their native language and corresponding character set on all supported operating systems. Regional date, time, and number conventions, as specified by user's selection of regional settings on the Windows control panel, are also supported for both input and output.
Note that internationalization assumes homogeneous language environments; for example, a French operating system requires French versions of SQL Server and Microsoft Word.
Measuring trend analyses, completeness, coverage, and project status on requirement data is now made easier. Requirement Metrics provides project managers and analysts the capability of reporting statistics on Requirement requirements text, attributes, relationships, and revisions. These report results are output to Microsoft Excel, and can be manipulated using Excel's familiar, flexible and powerful charting capabilities.
Let's Go RequisitePro is a new help interface that provides prominent access to key, beneficial information on setting up a RequisitePro project and requirements management process knowledge and guidelines. Let's Go RequisitePro guides new users through the getting started process. For advanced users, it provides a single source for easily accessing pertinent, in-depth information resources, such as white papers, the Rational Unified Process, and Web resources.
Let's Go RequisitePro appears when RequisitePro is first launched, providing clear, immediate direction for the user. It can also be launched from the RequisitePro Help menu.
RequisitePro 4.5 also includes the following enhancements to existing features:
RequisitePro supports integration with Microsoft Word 95, Word 97, and Word 2000. Word 97 or Word 2000 is recommended for use with the RequisitePro offline authoring feature.
RequisitePro 4.5 is compatible with:
Note: The RequisitePro 4.5 outlines directory contains new Rational Unified Process, version 5.5, document templates with a rup_*.dot format. Other templates are included from earlier versions and can be removed.
RequisitePro setup creates a Start menu program group for RequisitePro with the following items: Let's Go RequisitePro, Online Help, Rational License Key Administrator, Rational RequisitePro 4.5, Rational Synchronizer, Release Notes, and Technical Support.
To start RequisitePro, select the Rational RequisitePro 4.5 menu item.
Use the Let's Go RequisitePro feature to access getting started online help as well as these release notes, white papers, the Rational Unified Process, and Web resources.
Let's Go RequisitePro appears when RequisitePro is first launched. It can also be launched from the RequisitePro Help menu.
The following is a list of known issues and incompatibilities with RequisitePro and auxiliary applications.
RequisitePro does not support a digit grouping symbol of any kind (i.e., a thousand separator, such as the comma in 2,350). You cannot enter attributes with this symbol. RequisitePro does not display numbers with this symbol. (6858)
Associating a Rose use case to a non-writeable RequisitePro document causes problems. This can include a locked document or an offline document. (8582)
Close Requirement Metrics before you close the RequisitePro project. (7400)
When you mark the "Traceability/Changes logged in history" check box on the Tools > Options dialog box, changes to requirement traceability appear on the revision history list in the requirement properties dialog box. However, traceability changes caused by the MS Project Integration wizard are not logged in the revision history.
If a saved view includes a query with a user-defined date field parameter, the date is stored with the saved view in the date format that is set in your Control Panel/Regional Settings/Short Date Style. If you attempt to open a saved view on a PC that uses a different date format (such as dd/mm/yyyy), a run-time error occurs. The same error occurs if the saved view is part of a project that you are using as a template for creating a new project on a PC that uses another date format. (8328)
In RequisitePro projects that use a Microsoft Access database, you may experience a 5-to-10-second delay between entry of data and display of the modified data. This is due to defects in Microsoft MDAC components, which RequisitePro uses in querying data in Access databases. For example, if you create or modify a requirement, and then run a query for all requirements of that type, the new or modified requirement may not be displayed until after a delay. (2189)
In Discussions, if you open any of the Discussion dialog boxes and then maximize the Word Workplace, you cannot view the dialog box by clicking the Discussions taskbar button. Only the Discussions window displays -- and it is disabled. To view the dialog box, minimize the Word Workplace. (8482)
Avoid creating requirements inside text boxes. RequisitePro cannot access them properly.
When saving RequisitePro documents, Microsoft Word records the revision number for all revisions as "2." This revision number is available on the Statistics tab of the document Properties dialog box, which is accessed from the File menu using the Properties command. This revision number does not affect the document revision information in RequisitePro, which is available on the Revision tab of the Document dialog box. This dialog box is accessed from the RequisitePro Document menu using the Properties command. (1826)
When processing requirement documents with operations such as renumber, assigning a new parent, cut/paste, import, or block create, turn off Word's Spelling and Grammar feature. This feature may adversely affect the requirements.
This release of RequisitePro does not support Microsoft Word 2000 on Far East systems. (7163)
RequisitePro contains a Refresh Requirements command on the Document menu that allows you to reset the style and color of all requirement text in a document in case you inadvertently change it. However, if you change the color of any requirement text using Word 2000, the color cannot be reset using the Refresh Requirements command. To refresh requirement text color, close the requirements document and reopen it, and then select the Refresh Requirements command. (5359)
In some cases, you may not be able to view a RequisitePro database in Microsoft Access 2000. (5468)
If you are importing a Word document that uses a template other than Word's normal.dot template or an existing RequisitePro outline, you should set up that template as a RequisitePro outline prior to importing the document. RequisitePro will overwrite any unrecognized formatting with the normal.dot formatting.
If you have customized the formatting within the Word document, you should save the document as a Word template and copy it to the RequisitePro outlines directory. Refer to the Microsoft Word documentation for help in creating Word templates. Refer to the RequisitePro online help topic "Creating outlines" for help in managing RequisitePro outlines.
RequisitePro will not create a requirement if the block of text and/or images highlighted contain hidden text at the beginning or end of the selection. This occurs because RequisitePro uses hidden text at the beginning of a requirement to assign a requirement tag number and at the end of a requirement to store formatting information about the requirement.
Do not type information within the hidden part of a requirement, as the information is formatted as hidden. If the requirement is deleted, the information you typed is deleted as well.
The RequisitePro ClearCase integration is for NT 4.0 only. If you use ClearCase for UNIX or use Attache, you can manually archive RequisitePro projects and documents just as you would any other files. If you have ClearCase for NT 4.0, you can use RequisitePro's features to check your project and document files in and out.
When checking in and out a RequisitePro project and documents in ClearCase, the document file timestamps are updated to the current time. This causes RequisitePro to assume that the file has been modified externally. RequisitePro displays a message, which you can ignore.
Attempting to remove a document from a RequisitePro project in a ClearCase VOB will result in several file system and Word errors. Documents in a ClearCase VOB should be removed through ClearCase. Then, when opened through RequisitePro, RequisitePro will detect the document has been removed and will proceed with its cleanup logic. RequisitePro projects located in a ClearCase VOB should also be removed using the ClearCase tools.
When adding a cataloged project to ClearCase, the project name must be unique to all other RequisitePro projects in ClearCase.
Various problems exist when using ClearCase snapshot views for RequisitePro archiving. (8579, 8581, 8583)
For projects that include more than 50,000 requirements, you must increase your system memory to at least 128 MB of RAM. For projects of this size, 256 MB is recommended.
For Rational Software's report on Y2K compatibility see: http://www.rational.com/products/y2k.jtmpl.
Microsoft Corporation offers extensive resources for Y2K preparedness, including a Microsoft Product Analyzer application that helps you determine if your Microsoft operating system, software components, and applications are Y2K compatible. See the Web site: http://www.microsoft.com/y2k
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