Overview of the flat file configuration files

The first step for the requirements manager in importing unstructured requirements is customizing the flat file configuration file(s) to be used for the import process. The flat file configuration files are XML files used to define rules for adding identifiers to the content in unstructured documents. With these identifiers, content, including requirements, paragraphs, and trace links, can be read and marked up by a parser to be imported as structured requirements to Teamcenter. The configuration files also define Teamcenter connection and parser settings, object property assignments, and import preview color settings.

Two flat file configuration files are included with the Teamcenter installation. One is used for importing Word files and one is used for importing Excel files. These are files you customize to specify the import parameters for your environment.

Office product	Location and name of XML configuration file
Word	Client for Office install location/TcFFWordConfig.xml
Excel	Client for Office install location/TcFFExcelConfig.xml

The configuration files contain the following four sections:

• Common settings: configure parser settings and flat file global settings.
• Parser rules: configure rules that create objects and trace links.
• Property assignments: configure property rules.
• Color assignments: configure color assignments for highlighting the identifiers when previewing the unstructured document.

In the configuration files, you define the rules for the format and behavior of object identifiers. Identifiers are defined in the configuration files by using regular expressions. A regular expression is a set of characters that defines a pattern, used for searching for specific lines of text containing the particular pattern. You create regular expressions for each of the different object types you are importing, for example, requirements revisions and paragraph revisions.

In Word or Excel, you use the Assign ID command to assign identifiers to the content in the unstructured requirements, for example on requirements revisions and paragraph revisions. The identifiers are validated against and created based on the regular expressions in the configuration file.

You also define the rules in the configuration files for creating trace links. The cardinality of a relation, whether it is a primary or secondary relation, is defined by the corresponding parser rule in the configuration file that applies between the two object identifiers.

An object and trace link identifier tag is a regular expression in the following syntax:

Range Boundary Open + Keyword + Separator Symbol + value + Range Boundary Close

Here is an example of a regular expression breakdown in Word.

Flat files in Excel

To create a requirement under a requirement specification in Excel using flat files, the TcFFExcelConfig.xml file in the %TC_Root%/officeClient directory must contain the following:

<add RuleID="1" LinkType="FND_TraceLink" PrimaryKeyword="[[]ID:.*[]]" PrimaryKeywordType="Requirement Revision"
CreatePrimaryKeyword="true" SecondaryKeyword="[[]CID:PAR-[0-9]{6} <CID:PAR-[0-9]%7b6%7d>[]]"
SecondaryKeywordType="Paragraph Revision" CreateSecondaryKeyword="false" LinksAs="Defining"/>

Note: In the PrimaryKeyword line, there must be a period before the asterisk.