Truereq FAQ
|
| |
|
|
| |
 |
| General Product Questions |
Q. What is Truereq?
A. Truereq makes ASP-based collaborative requirements software for product managers. Truereq has been built from the ground up as a truly collaborative software development tool, finally closing the information gap between product engineers, management and 'the voice of the customer.' Truereq anchors cross-functional responses to market and technology issues, producing a fertile breeding ground for opportunity identification, product definition, and product innovation. |
| |
Q. Can you say that again in English please?
A. Truereq is software for product managers, built by product managers. It allows you to define the customer-driven requirements of a product before you go and commit money and build it. |
| |
Q. What benefits does Truereq provide?
A. The adoption of stage-gate and other similar methods has lead to a linear, left-brain sequential type of thought centered on completion of one project at a time. The field of product development is now ready for a collaborative framework for establishing product innovation. The benefits of this new framework include:
* Recognition of opportunities revealed by customers, and of sudden trends in the market and technology.
* Cross-Functional process that creates a common framework between the diverse views of management, engineers, and the company's customers.
* Encourages teamwork through collaborative work space tools.
* Allow management to have a firm grasp of requirements issues and processes towards development through an innovative dashboard and simple to use technology.
* Allows diverse teams with different 'world views' to share one common goal centered around product innovation.
* Allows for the easy integration of customers, suppliers, market research and other external third party data. |
| |
Q. Is Truereq a PLM solution?
A. Truereq is not a PLM suite for full lifecycle development. We concentrate on helping product and process management professionals get the product requirements right. We don't do version control, bug tracking or portfolio management. We help you define, specify and innovate new products. |
| |
Q. I do all my requirements using Microsoft Office. Everyone in my company has Microsoft Office. We are all very happy. Why do I need to spend more money on a product management tool?
A. Word, Excel and Project were designed to do word-processing, numerical manipulation and project management. Truereq gives you a central web-hosted application designed for product managers that makes your life easier. Now you can track requirements, create web survey forms on the fly to consolidate customer feedback instantly, create phase management processes, automate sign-off procedures, and create a central shared space for your projects. You get an Executive Dashboard for project status, and detailed requirements for engineers. Reports are generated immediately, and you have an instant forum for collecting the diverse views of each of the groups you interact with. |
| |
| back to top |
| |
|
| System Requirements and Platform Support Questions |
Q. Which platforms do you support?
A. Truereq is a Java-based client-server application which is ASP hosted. You simply download a small Java client on a Windows, Mac or Linux desktop. Only Windows clients are fully supported at this time, but we will be adding other platforms in the coming months. The client talks to the server using HTTP(S) transport, making it easy to integrate with firewalls. |
| |
Q. What are the system requirements?
A. * Windows 98 or higher
* 128 MB RAM or greater recommended
* 50 MB of available hard disk space
* DSL or better. 56 kb/s is supported although the connection will be slow. |
| |
| back to top |
| |
|
| Truereq Feature Set Questions |
Q. How does Truereq let users capture and define their requirements?
A. Requirements can be entered into Truereq three ways:
1.
Manually entered, using an easy to use graphical interface.
2.
Imported from a standard CSV formatted file.
3.
Entered on a custom web form that is connected to a user-definable folder inside your Truereq Workspace. |
| |
Q. Does Truereq offer a centralized repository to store requirements?
A. Yes. The Truereq Requirements Tree. is a centralized information hub visible to all users where they can create and store information about products and requirements. It is organized in a familiar folder-based tree structure, and supports drag-and-drop for easy organization. Once a requirement is added to the Tree, users can then attach other related items to that requirement, such as surveys, rankings, Reports or external documents. |
| |
Q. Does Truereq offer multiple 'templates' to define requirements? (i.e. a 'simple' requirements template and a 'complex' requirements template, where both will then follow a different process towards resolution)
A. Yes. Users can create a template for the workflow phases that products, requirements and issues follow to resolution. This template is connected to a phase list for each of the three item types, with user-selectable default phases. Each type of item can support one template. |
| |
Q. Does it offer to sort and prioritize requirements and features (the result of one or more requirements) and how is this done?
A. Yes. You can use the drag-and-drop features of the Tree to organize your requirements by priority. Customers can create "Must Have" and "Like to Have" folders under a product, then prioritize their requirements and organize them by folder. Additionally, Truereq supports ranking of any subset of items in the Tree, based on user-defined criteria. The subset of items appears as a list related to a ranking, and users can go in and order that list based on criteria they can choose. For example, you can set up ranking criteria of .Development Time. and .Customer Interest," add the current set of features from the Tree that you are considering for the next version of your product, and then get individuals to go to that ranking and reorder the requirements. The results are provided in a Ranking Report, and can be used to make prioritization decisions. |
| |
Q. Does Truereq offer requirements versioning and how is this done?
A. Yes. You can create individual requirements that are in sequence or related by naming them appropriately, then storing them together in the Tree or in separate folders. There is no automatic method of tracking requirements versions at this time. |
| |
| Q. Does Truereq offer workflow management capabilities to define how a requirement flows from start to finish? |
| A. Yes. Your Truereq Administrator can set up a phase list for products, requirements and issues, which includes owners and notification periods for each phase. They can also select a subset from that phase list which will appear by default whenever a user creates an item of that type. |
| |
Q. Does Truereq offer workflow management capabilities
to execute a requirements process including roles support (preferably supporting an organizational structure)?
A. Yes. You can set owners for products, requirements and phases, along with sign-offs for each phase. For example, the Product Manager can be set as the owner of a requirement, which could have the following phases: Idea, Requirement, Design, Development, Testing, and Deployment. The Product Manager could set up a list of gatekeepers who need to sign off at each phase transition, with a different list for each phase. The choice of gatekeepers mirrors your organizational structure. |
| |
Q. Does Truereq offer support for change requests and how can this be linked to requirements?
A. Yes. You can use the comments feature to capture change requests.
Depending on the results of your discussion and analysis, such requests can lead to the creation of an issue, the creation of a new requirement, or the modification of an existing requirement. |
| |
| back to top |
| |
|
| Release Management Questions |
Q. Does Truereq offer traceability analysis capabilities? How is this done?
A. Yes. All changes to the database are tracked in the background, and recorded in a log. While there is no way to parse that log at present, we are capturing the information and will be building in an interface for displaying selected portions of that log for review in a future version. |
| |
Q. What kind of status reporting facilities does the product offer?
A. *
Reports - Users can list the status of products and requirements, based on their phase lists, signoffs and due dates.
* Notifications - Users are notified when they have a sign-off, or when a requirement or product which they own is coming up for a phase change.
* Email Notifications . Users can request a summary of their daily notifications via email, for offline reporting.
* Executive Dashboard . Users can see at a glance the number of requirements and issues at each phase in their development process. |
| |
| back to top |
| |
|
| Integration Questions |
Q. What integration capabilities does Truereq offer (e.g. Mercury, Silk, Project)?
A. Truereq includes a bidirectional XML API for complete interoperability with other applications. Truereq also supports a standard CSV format for importing, as well as HTML exporting for reports. |
| |
| back to top |
| |
|
| Collaboration Questions |
Q. What kind of collaboration options does Truereq offer?
A. Truereq has been built from the ground up as a collaborative tool. The Requirements Tree is a common information hub which all users interact with. They can add comments to any item, and all other users will see those comments and be able to respond. They can add requirements as appropriate, either directly into your current product, or into designated locations such as a folder for 'Requests for Enhancement.'
* Users can add issues as items in the Tree, and create discussion threads for that issue to ensure swift resolution.
* Users can upload attachments to the Tree, either individually or in folders. Once a file is attached to the Truereq Requirements Tree, it is visible to all users. A user can open it in its originating application by double-clicking it. Because any Tree item, including attachments, has a comments area, you can encourage discussion directly related to any document you upload, such as white papers or research results.
* Truereq has a set of simple-to-use Java-based tools, which enable the product manager to quickly and easily post web-based surveys. These surveys canvas customers, employees and suppliers for product feedback on highly specific issues, using the Internet. Questionnaires can be built on the fly, and all the responses are calibrated and consolidated by Truereq into one central repository. Discussion and comments are welcomed at each stage of the process, as is rigorous sign-off and accountability on potential issues, time-scales and requirement priority. |
| |
| back to top |
| |
|
| Access Control Questions |
Q. What kind of security and content access capabilities does the product offer?
A. There are three levels of access: Administrator, Normal and Guest.
1. Administrator . These users can perform all actions in the Workspace, including adding other users with Administrative privileges.
2. Normal . These users can perform most actions in Truereq. Normal users cannot add or edit users or groups, and cannot edit or delete an item unless they own it. Most of your users should be in this category.
3. Guest . These users have Read Only privileges. They can view your Workspace but cannot delete, edit or add any information. |
| |
Q. Do you have role-based access control?
A. There are role-based access rules involving item ownership and signoffs.
* When a user creates an item in the Tree, they are by default set as the owner. Only they or someone with Administrative privileges can edit that item, although anyone can make comments about it.
* When an owner creates a signoff list of gatekeepers for a phase, only that gatekeeper, the owner, or someone with administrative privileges can sign off for that phase. |
| |
| back to top |
| |
|
.