Working with suspect links

Trace links create relationships between dynamic objects that can include requirements, system models, and so on. These objects change throughout the product lifecycle. Object owners impacted require change notification. Active Workspace notifies impacted users when a change to a trace-linked object, such as a requirement, occurs. The impacted user can then choose to comment with approval or rejection.

For example, a requirement has a trace link to a system model and the requirement owner changes the requirement. Active Workspace sends a notification and the system model owner receives a notification that the requirement has changed.

Note: Occurrence trace links are not supported. Revision-to-revision trace links are supported.

The Tracelink_Edit_enabled preference must be enabled for each user to ensure delivery of suspect tracelink notifications.

The following process details a typical scenario where a defining_object (in this case, a requirement) has a downstream trace link to a complying_object (in this case, a system model). Each object has a unique user owner.

Consider the following:

• The suspect link indicator is available for any Active Workspace object.
• If the owner of the defining_object and complying_object have the same owner, Active Workspace does not send a suspect trace link notification.
• Due to workflow restrictions, trace link notifications are sent for checked-in objects only. Additionally, objects cannot be released or have a denied access state.

Procedure

1. Do any of the following:

   • In the Table view, click Mark as Suspect in the Is Suspect column.
   • Open an object and from the page-level toolbar, click More commands > Manage > Mark as Suspect.

   The Mark as Suspect panel appears.

2. (Optional) Enter a comment and select a due date for review.

3. Click Mark as Suspect.

   Because the defining_object has a trace link to a complying_object, Active Workspace starts a signoff workflow where the object owner receives a notification in their Inbox that the object has changed.

4. The object owner opens the Review Suspect notification to view the requirement change report.

   Note: The change report is not available for content authored in Microsoft Word.

   Tip: By default, the change report does not support Unicode characters. To add any font that supports Unicode characters, refer to Enable Unicode characters support in suspect link change report.

5. Perform the following:

   • Add comments about the requirement change.
   • Click Approve or Reject for the requirement change.

6. Either owner can click the Workflow tab to see the suspect signoff status.

   Note: The user who initiates the workflow does not receive workflow error notifications. Errors are indicated in the log files. For more information, contact your system administrator.

Review a suspect link from the Documentation tab

When a suspect is raised, the owner of the suspect trace link sees an indicator in the Documentation tab.

1. Open a requirement for review. Click Documentation.
2. If a suspect object exists, a suspect indicator icon appears.
3. Click the icon to open the Inbox to review notifications.
4. Proceed from step 3 in the main procedure above.