Tool Mentors > Rational RequisitePro Tool Mentors > Adding Templates to Your Rational RequisitePro Project

Purpose

This tool mentor describes how to use Microsoft Word documents as templates for documents in your Rational RequisitePro® projects. The templates are referred to as document "outlines" within RequisitePro.

Related Rational Unified Process (RUP) information: Activity: Set Up Tools.

Overview

Every new document in RequisitePro is based on a document type. The document type includes a default file extension, a default requirement type, and default text and formatting (regarding fonts, tabs, and so on) and is controlled by an associated outline. RequisitePro provides the following outlines for requirements and use-case development:

  • Product Requirements Document
  • Software Requirements Specification
  • Modern Software Requirements Specification
  • Multiple Use-Case Specification
  • Test Requirements Document
  • Functional Test Cases

In addition, RequisitePro provides the following RUP outlines for business modeling, and requirements and use-case development:

  • Business Vision
  • Business Glossary
  • Business Rules
  • Business Use-Case Specification
  • Business Use-Case Realization Specification
  • Supplementary Business Specification
  • Requirements Management Plan
  • Stakeholder Requests
  • Vision
  • Glossary
  • Use-Case Specification
  • Software Requirements Specification (with use cases)
  • Software Requirements Specification (without use cases)
  • Supplementary Specification
  • Test Plan

Accessing Outlines

You can access outlines for your documents in several ways:

  • In RequisitePro, outlines are associated with document types. To create a document, click File > New > Document and then click the Document Type drop-down list box to select an outline on which to base the new document. To add a new document type and outline to a project, select the project in the Explorer, click File > Properties, click the Document Types tab, and click the Add button.
  • The outlines, which are based on Word .dot files, are located in the following RequisitePro installation directory: \Program Files\Rational\RequisitePro\outlines.
  • Word templates can be accessed through the RUP treebrowser (click Templates > Microsoft Word).

Creating Custom Outlines

You can use your existing Word documents to create custom outlines. A RequisitePro outline is a reference document used to control the formatting of Word documents in RequisitePro. This is useful for maintaining consistency across documents of the same type.

RequisitePro outlines are composed of two files, which are stored in the outlines directory in your RequisitePro installation:

  • An outline file, which has a .def extension, is a simple, unformatted text file that contains an outline name, a description, and a reference to a Word template.
  • The Word template, which has a .dot file extension, contains the paragraph styles and other information, such as formats, page layout information, attributes, attribute definitions, and system defaults that control the appearance of your RequisitePro document.

Tool Steps

To add a new outline to your RequisitePro project, do the following:

  1. Create a Microsoft Word template
  2. Create an outline file
  3. Add your outline to RequisitePro
  4. Create a document type based on your outline

1. Create a Microsoft Word template To top of page

  1. Start Word outside of RequisitePro.
  2. Open the file you want to use to create a Word template.
  3. Edit the file, as needed, to prepare the content for use as an outline.
  4. Save the file as a Word template with the extension .dot. See the Microsoft® Word documentation for more information about creating templates.

2. Create an outline file To top of page

An outline file is created in a text editor and saved with a .def extension. The outline file is unformatted text file that contains an outline name, a description of the outline, and a reference to a Word template. The .def and the .dot files, created in procedure 1 above, must have the same name with different extensions; for example, usecase.def and usecase.dot. Both files must be stored in the outlines directory in your RequisitePro installation or in a secondary outlines directory referenced in RequisitePro by clicking Tools > Options/Directories/Working Path.

  • Open a text editor, such as NotePad.
  • Create a new text file containing the following three lines of information, separated by returns:
    • The outline's full (logical) name, up to 64 characters in length. Be sure that this logical name is unique in the outlines directory.
    • A description of the outline, up to 256 characters in length.
    • The Word template's file name (with the .dot extension).
  • Save the text file in the RequisitePro outlines directory or a secondary outlines directory using the same file name as the template but with the extension .def.

For example, the usecase.def file includes the following lines:

RUP Use Case Specification
Rational Unified Process supplied template used to specify a use case.
rup_ucspec.dot

3. Add your outline to RequisitePro To top of page

Copy the .dot and .def files to the outlines directory in your RequisitePro installation directory or a secondary outlines directory. The path of a typical outlines directory is: C:\Program Files\Rational\RequisitePro\outlines. Your installation may vary, depending on the Rational products you've installed.

If you use a secondary directory, be sure that the path is defined in RequisitePro. On the Tool Palette, click Tools > Options, and in the Directories/Document Outlines text field, type the path and directory name for your custom outlines.

4. Create a document type based on your outline To top of page

  1. In the Explorer, select the project, and then click File > Properties. The Project Properties dialog box appears.
  2. Click the Document Types tab, and then click the Add button. The Document Type dialog box appears.
  3. Do the following:
  • In the Name text box, enter a name for the document type (up to 64 characters).
  • In the File Extension text box, enter a three-character text string, or, if long file names are supported, a longer extension. (File extensions can contain a maximum of 20 characters in RequisitePro.) The file extension is applied to all documents associated with the document type.
  • Select a default requirement type in the list, or click New to create a new requirement type.
  • Select an outline from the Outline Name field.
  1. Click OK to close the Document Type dialog box.
  2. Click OK to close the Project Properties dialog box.

For More Information

Refer to the following topics in the RequisitePro online Help:

  • Creating and modifying document types (Index: document types > creating)
  • Creating document outlines (Index: outlines > creating)

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