Setting up a hierarchy for unstructured files

During your business process you may originate or receive unstructured requirements documents created in Microsoft Word or Excel. Unstructured documents (or flat files) are files that contain no Word defined outline levels. Word defined outline levels are required in documents that are imported to Teamcenter, as these are used by Teamcenter to define requirements structures.

If you manage requirements and traceability information in Teamcenter, and you want to import unstructured documents, you must follow these key steps:

1. Customize the flat file configuration files, which are XML files used to define rules for adding identifiers to the content in unstructured documents. With these identifiers, content 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.
2. Assign identifiers in the unstructured document for defining requirement objects such as requirements, paragraphs, and trace links that you want to maintain in Teamcenter.
3. Import the unstructured document to Teamcenter to create and maintain the requirement objects and trace links.

Example

These documents originated from an external supplier and contain no Word defined outline levels to define a structure.

After customizing the configuration files and assigning identifiers to the content in the unstructured document, you can preview the document before the import to check for accuracy or errors. The preview document highlights new items, existing items, duplicate items, internal links, and external links.

After you have resolved any errors in the document, you import it to Teamcenter to create or update the requirement and traceability information.