Import Requirements

You can quickly and easily upload your existing requirements data into Requirements Portal using the Import Wizard available in the Requirements Module.

The Import Wizard can be accessed from the top bar of Requirements Portal by clicking the  button at the top right. Alternatively, when a specification with no requirements is currently viewed, the Import Wizard can be accessed by clicking the  button.

Accessing the Import Wizard
Accessing the Import Wizard

To import a Specification at a time, the Wizard guides you through three main stages: Specification, Upload, and Review. On completing a specification import, a summary is presented as well as the possibility to perform additional actions such as Valifying or importing other files. These stages and actions are described in the sections below.

Stage 1 – Specification

On this stage of the Import Wizard, you can define the target import specification:

  • Use the Select a specification region in the left-hand side of the Import Requirements window to select an existing specification and, optionally its section.

  • Use the Create a specification region in the right-hand side of the Import Requirements window to create a new specification (and also define the abbreviation and the block to be allocated to) without exiting the import wizard.

Click the required region to use the preferred method.

 
  • If the Import Wizard is started within the context of a Specification or a Section, that will appear as pre-select for import destination.

  • In case there are no existing specifications, one must be created.

  • In the naming definition of the new Specification, the naming definition rules must be met – only alpha-numerical characters and the special characters _ (underscore) are allowed.

Stage 2 – Upload

On this stage of the Import Wizard, you can upload a file of a supported type. To do this, drag and drop the file to the right-hand side of the Import Requirements window or click the Drop file control to browse and select the file from the hard drive. Once the file is successfully uploaded, a notification is shown in the window.

 
  • Only Excel (.xls, .xlsx) and Comma Separated Values (.csv) files are supported. Excel Macro files (.xlsm) are not supported.

  • In case a non-supported file is uploaded, an error message will notify you about this.

  • When a file is uploaded, you can either continue the import process or upload a new file (replacing the previous one).

Stage 3 – Review

On this stage the Import Wizard, you can review results of importing data from the uploaded file, configure file options, and map data from the file to requirement fields.

The Destination region of the Import Requirements window provides a visual indication of where the data will be imported (in terms of the specification or section).

The File options region provides the following options:

  • Update requirements – when enabled, any existent requirements in the destination specification will be overwritten by substitution of the data (file data substitutes the data in the specification).

    • If the option is disabled and you are importing requirements whose Identifier already exists in the specification selected as the destination, Requirements Portal will add the suffix _import to the identifiers of the imported requirements to differentiate them.

    • If the option is disabled and you are importing requirements whose Identifiers already exist in the current project but not in the specification selected as the destination, Requirements Portal will add a warning icon to the identifiers that alert to a duplicate identifier in the same project.

    • If the option is enabled, blank values in the file being imported are supported, i.e., if a value in the file is blank, the value is removed from the requirement. This also applies to multi-select fields, such as Tags.

  • Use header row – you can decide to use the header row of the uploaded file or to use a general reference header row provided by Requirements Portal (i.e., columns headers as A, B, C, etc.).

    Requirements Portal considers the Header row as the first row of any uploaded file.

  • Sheet – in case of having a file with multiple sheets, you can select which sheet they want to import from.

  • Starting row – you can select from which row of the imported file the data should start being collected to be inserted in Requirements Portal.

In the table at the bottom of the Import Requirements window, you view a preview of the uploaded file and map its columns to fields in Requirements Portal. This allows you to define how data from the file will correspond to specific fields in Requirements Portal by selecting the appropriate field in the Map To drop-down for each column. If the file contains headers identical to the default fields in Requirements Portal, these fields will be automatically mapped. However, you can override or adjust this automatic mapping if needed.

  • The following fields can be selected for the mapping:

    • Identifier

    • Text

    • Title

    • Rationale

    • Parents

    • Children

    • Path to Section

    • Type

    • State

    • Tags

    • Compliance

    • Compliance comment

    • Verification Methods

    • Applicability

    • Applicable Blocks

    • Owner

    • Tags

    • Custom Columns

  • Verification Methods, Applicability, and Tags can be imported with more than one value for each requirement. To do so, each value should be separated by a comma.

  • For Applicability, compound block types can be referenced with a /, for example, block_A/block_B.

At least the Identifier column must be selected. Otherwise, a warning message will be displayed until that condition is met ().

Execution Report

Once the import process is finished and if the import is successfully completed, a message of success and the changes made and are displayed. If the import fails, a message of failure will be displayed. An example of a successful import is shown below.

If there are any soft errors, they will also be displayed (). The possible soft errors are:

  • Relation cannot be established → Parent or Children Identifier does not exist in the project

  • Relation cannot be established → Parent or Children Identifier is duplicated in the project

  • Requirement Compliance Statement doesn't exist in the project

  • Requirement Type does not exist in the project

  • Requirement State does not exist in the project

  • Tag does not exist in the project

  • Applicability Condition does not exist

Regardless of the importer being successful or not, you can re-import or to perform a new import by clicking Import new file (success) or Try again (failure), taking you back to the stage 1 (Specification).

Upon a successful import, you can also start the Valify process by clicking the Check now control at the top of the window. This process will scan the imported requirements text for possible quantifiable parameters to be converted to Valis inside the requirement.

For more information, refer to the Valify Requirements page.

 

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Feature Availability

The features available to you depend on which Altium solution you have – Altium Develop, an edition of Altium Agile (Agile Teams or Agile Enterprise), or Altium Designer (on active term).

If you don’t see a discussed feature in your software, contact Altium Sales to find out more.

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