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Suspect Links

Owned by Support Advocate (ease solutions)
Last updated: Oct 31, 2024 by Ron B. Bugay
3 min read

Overview

easeRequirements allows you to use Jira issue links to define the relationships and dependencies between requirements or other types of issues. When one requirement depends on another requirement, it can be useful to know when the latter requirement changes, since that may require corresponding changes in the dependent requirement.

easeRequirements introduces the concept of suspect links to help you spot such cases and take appropriate action. easeRequirements automatically monitors changes in your requirements and flags linked issues as "suspect" in order to identify them for review. This feature allows users to change requirements and then determine which other requirements might be affected by the changes. After review, the suspect flag can be removed.

Suspect links are identified in the following ways:

  • The Suspect Report (see below) provides a list of requirements with suspect links in a given project.

  • In the section "Issue Links" in a requirement's Detail view, any link types with suspects are marked as “(suspect)”.

  • Requirements with suspect links are marked in the Coverage View and Traceability Matrix.

  • Requirements with suspect links can be identified in the Jira Issue Navigator using the search functionhasSuspectLink()- see Advanced Search.

To configure the rules for flagging suspect links see Configuring the Suspect Logic.

New entries are added to the suspect report for subsequent changes that meet the criteria of a suspect logic rule. This ensures that the revisions are noted for review. V4.20

Suspect Report

To create a Suspect Report, select Requirements > Suspect Report from the main navigation bar, select the relevant project and the “Go” button. The report is a table with a row for every suspect link. The Search field can be used to search the report for rows containing a given piece of text.

Report Options

Include links to other projects

Include cross-project links flagged as suspect.

Period

Restrict to issues with suspect flags created within the specified time period.

Link type(s)

Restrict to specific link types.

The link type name, not the link description, is used to specify the link type (e.g. “Trace”, not “trace to”). The report shows the link description from the point of view of the changed issue (e.g. “trace to”).

User

Restrict to changes made by the specified users.

Report Columns

Changed Issue

The issue whose change triggered a suspect rule.

Linked Issue

The dependent issue that might be affected by the change.

Link Type(s)

The outward description of the link (or links if there are more than one) from the changed issue to the dependent issue.

User

The user who made the change.

Suspect Timestamp

The date and time of the change.

Action

Provides the following actions:

  • Compare the differences between the two issues.

  • Review the exact change that triggered a suspect rule.

  • Clear the suspect flag.

How to clear the suspect flag

There are three ways to clear the suspect flag:

  • Suspect Report:

    • In the Report in the Action column of a given requirement, use the option Clear.

    • In the Report in the first column of a given requirement, tick the checkboxes of suspect links you wish to clear, select the button Clear selected suspect links and select Clear in the dialog to confirm. V4.20

  • Detail view: In the section "Issue Links” in a requirement’s Detail view, use the option Clear.