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Coverage View

Coverage View

Owned by Bruno Marotta
Feb 25, 2025
5 min read

Overview

The Coverage View provides an overview of project requirements or subsets of requirements from the point of view of completeness. The view helps answer questions such as how well high-level requirements can be traced to lower-level requirements, or other types of work items such as test cases. It helps identify gaps in coverage that may require attention.

The view displays a customizable chain of linked requirements or other work item types, organized into columns. This arrangement helps users assess the extent to which these requirements cover the entire domain. A completeness calculation aids in this assessment. For example, you can determine if customer-level features are appropriately broken down into technical requirements, and whether these are in turn covered by test cases.

To navigate to the coverage view, select Coverage in the Boards menu. Alternatively, if you are already on an easeRequirements module you can select the Coverage option from the top right navigation panel.

The effective use of the coverage view depends on the practices of your organization and its development process. You need to take into account how different types of requirements or other types of work items are structured, as well as how they are linked together and used. An organization might have different practices for different situations, so different coverage views can be defined and saved in the Coverage View.

The sheer number of requirements in a project may also be a challenge to understanding the coverage, so identifying significant subsets of the requirements and organizing them in different views is also an effective practice.

User Interface

A coverage view is displayed as a table whose cells contain requirements or other types of work items. The columns, called “levels”, indicate relationships between the requirements. For example, the first column might contain high-level Customer Requirements, while the second column contains lower-level Functional Requirements, representing a relationship between the two sorts of requirements. The relationship is defined by links between the requirements.

By default, the relationship involves adjacent columns, but it is possible to have a relationship between non-adjacent columns. This is indicated with the option Column Basis in the coverage view configuration.

By inspecting the table, users can quickly identify gaps in coverage by the appearance of cells labeled “Not covered”. For example, a Customer Requirement that has no related Functional Requirement is easily spotted by that label appearing in an adjacent cell in the Functional Requirement level. Each level except for the first also displays a completeness percentage.

Coverage views with different configurations can be saved and are displayed to the left of the coverage view. Saved views are available for other users.

Coverage View Operations

Purpose

Operation

Comment

Purpose

Operation

Comment

Open saved coverage view

  • Select the desired view in the left panel.

 

Create new coverage view

  • Select New View.

  • Configure the first column in the dialog:

    • Enter a label for the column.

    • Determine the source of the work items for the column using one of the options:

      • Work item types: Select <any> for items of any type or select one or more types.

      • Queries: Select an existing query.

    • Select Save.

  • Configure the second column in the dialog:

    • Select Add Level.

    • Enter a label for the column.

    • Determine the source of the work items for the column:

      • Work item types: Select <any> for items of any type or select one or more types.

      • Queries: Select an existing query.

    • Determine the link relationships between the columns.

    • Select Save.

  • Optionally configure additional columns as above.

  • Select Save as.

  • Enter a name for the view.

  • Select Save.

As of the third level, the option Column Basis becomes available, making it possible to select a different level as the anchor of the relationship rather than the level immediately to the left.

Create new coverage view from existing view

  • Select a saved view.

  • Modify the view configuration as desired.

  • Select Save As.

  • Enter a name for the new view.

  • Select Save.

 

Rename coverage view

  • Select “…” next to the name of the view in the left panel.

  • Select Rename View.

 

Delete coverage view

  • Select “…” next to the name of the view in the left panel.

  • Select Delete View.

 

Update level configuration

  • Select the update icon (pen) in the header of the desired column.

    image-20250225-125133.png

  • Modify the level configuration in the dialog.

  • Select Save.

 

Add level

  • Select Add Level.

  • Enter a label for the column.

  • Determine the source of the work items for the column:

    • Work item types: Select <any> for items of any type or select one or more types.

    • Queries: Select an existing query.

  • Determine the link relationships between the columns.

  • Select Save.

 

Remove level

  • Select the remove icon in the header of the rightmost column.

    image-20250225-125231.png

  • Select Save.

Only the rightmost level can be removed.

Toggle non-covered work items

  • Select the “show not covered” (filter) icon in the header of the desired column.

    image-20250225-125259.png

To return to the normal display, select the filter icon again.

Display all links of a work item

  • Select the “+” icon next to the display of links in a work item cell.

By default only one link is displayed.

Link or unlink work items

  • Select “…” in a work item cell.

  • Select the desired action:

    • Create linked work item

    • Link existing work items

    • Remove work item link

  • Complete the ensuing dialog.

 

Open work item

  • Select the work item ID in a cell. By clicking on the arrow pointing up next to the work item ID, the work item opens on a new tab.

 

Determine display fields

  • Select Fields.

  • Select the fields to be displayed in the work item cells.

  • Select Save.

 

Refresh coverage view

  • Select Refresh.

 

Formula for calculating coverage completeness

given a = number of rows in previous column b = number of work items not covered (a - b) / a * 100