Atego launches new version of its Atego Exerpt requirements data synchronization solution

Based on the proposed OMG Requirements Interchange Format (ReqIF) standard, Atego Exerpt provides an effective and efficient means of automating large-scale requirements distribution in real world projects. It provides an environment for smooth requirements interchange both across departmental and enterprise boundaries and between heterogeneous data repositories. It ensures that requirements are easily communicated between all project stakeholders, processed and acted on.

“The launch of Exerpt 2.2 greatly extends the functionality of our requirements synchronization solution,” said Hedley Apperly, Atego’s Vice-President of Product and Marketing. “By improving the exchange of requirements between different tools and tool versions, Atego Exerpt enables concurrent design for Systems-of Systems, reducing time to market. It also reduces the number of expensive late changes caused by out-of-date requirements, significantly improving quality and productivity.”

In order to meet the individual needs of the different design disciplines involved in the development process, the Variant Specification Exchange function in Atego Exerpt 2.2 now supports multiple views of the same design element as individual requirements specifications rather than as a single specification. Atego Exerpt 2.2 automatically recognizes them and updates accordingly.

Atego Exerpt 2.2 now generates an Exchange Summary document for each export, which provides a graphical view of the requirement exchange specifications and traceability as well as textual details about the specifications and their structure. The Exchange Summary enables partners receiving an exchange archive to assess its contents and plan the import/update process.

Atego Exerpt’s Difference Report, which describes the differences between the imported files and the requirements stored in the requirements management tool, now provides a hyperlink for IBM Rational DOORS to the corresponding requirement affected by the change. Additionally, Atego Exerpt 2.2 can now create a “Change View” for each updated module, and append an additional attribute to the module containing the changes to the requirements.

For the audit entries generated by Atego Exerpt, the audit trail view has an additional pane providing shortcuts to important data in the audit record. For an export audit record, the shortcut pane provides direct access to the exchange archive and the generated exchange summary document. For an import: audit record, the imported exchange archive is provided as well as the Difference Report that describes the differences between the imported files and the requirements stored in the requirements management tool.

Atego Exerpt 2.2 also includes a Replication Maintenance Utility which enables company-wide replication setups to be configured and replication data to be maintained, so it is now possible to execute periodic cleanups on the replication data.

“Increasingly complex supplier-consumer relationships dominate the product development life cycle and the primary source of risk is the lack of coherence in requirements engineering and collaboration between the various stakeholders,” added James B. Gambrell, Chairman of Atego. “The launch of Atego Exerpt 2.2 significantly improves our requirements data synchronization solution helping to remove risk and drive down development costs even further.”