Attributes as field or item?

Anders Eriksson

Hi, I am new to Jama but quite experienced in requirements management.

I see that I could either define an attribute to a need/requirement as a field in the need/requirement item or define the attribute as as a separate item and link to it.

Example option 1: An attribute Stakeholder is a field in the item type Stakeholder Need

Example option 2: Stakeholder is a separate item type and a Stakeholder Need (item) is linked to the right Stakeholder (item)

Is there a right and a wrong, pros and cons, or is it just a matter of taste?

Iwan Kutter

Hello

We have a similar question at the moment regarding optimization of our setup in the area of variation management. We are using there the Categories, but I am thinking about changing it to Pick list on the item itself or links with separate item type).

I'm also interested in the experience from other Jama users regarding this two options. So here is an overview about some benefits of each option that I currently see:

Option 1: on the item itself with Pick List

• You see the information directly on the requirement / in the review of the requirement without opening the Relationship widget
• When you create a Pick List, you can select it and assign different colors to Stakeholders (like product manager, Tester, Developer...), but only Org-Admin can update the pick list. You could also use Multi-Select.
• When the stakeholder are also Jama user, you could also setup this field as a user field, then you can select a user from the list of all Jama users (but when you have more than one, you must define several fields)
• You can protect it after review (when requirement is locked, you cannot change it anymore)
• You can enforce that something has to be entered

  
  

  Option 2: Relation

  • Here you are more flexible to add new stakeholders
  • You could use the trace view to see which requirement belongs to which Stakeholder (it is more a dynamic view to the relation requirements to stakeholder)
  • You can also drill down from the stakeholder items to the requirements
  • You can add multiple stakeholder to the same requirement
  • You could at least manually check with the coverage, that at least one stakeholder is assigned to a requirement

  Best regards