Wednesday, November 18, 2015

VSTS Extensions - Requirements Integrator

In his presentation at Microsoft's Connect(); event, Brian Harry revealed the new VS Marketplace, where a wide variety of VSTS (the ALM tool formerly known as VSO) extensions are available for download.  I was fortunate enough to participate in dogfooding the extensibility model for VSTS, and my extension is now available on the Marketplace.
The Requirements Integrator extension is meant to bridge the gap between external requirements management systems and VSTS for Agile and Scrum projects.  Since CMMI already has the notion of requirements, I didn't see the inherent value in allowing my extension to import requirements into that type of project.  Having worked with external systems that manage business requirements as well as systems that manage the SDLC process, I could see where a tool that enabled traceability between requirements and Epics, Features, PBIs and Tasks might come in handy.
For now, import functionality is limited to MS Excel.  The plan is to expand that to encompass products like HP ALM, Sparx Enterprise Architect, and others.  Please feel free to visit the main page for the extension's repo on GitHub to see roadmap items, log issues, or create pull requests of your own.  Candid feedback is always welcome!

6 comments:

  1. I was wondering if you're intending to create a tab on the work item page to show all the requirements it covers?
    It could be a usefull view too.

    Thanks.

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  2. That's a great suggestion. I'd love to see a pull request for that type of feature. :)

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  3. Hi Josh,
    I've installed the requirements integrator without error on my instance of VSTS in the cloud. Selected a xlsx file to import using the template but when I click import nothing happens but it repeats message ...
    "It appears you do not have any requirements. Please use the Import button to add requirements."
    Any idea what I can do to trouble shoot?
    Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. Sure! I would check the file name or the contents for any special characters, for starters. I'm assuming you haven't renamed the columns on the spreadsheet at all? That might be another area. If both of those check out, I would be more than happy to take a look outside of this forum to see what I can do to help you out.

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  4. I am having an issue with my requirements. I was able to use this just fine for one project. I was able to link the requirements to the Use Cases without any issues. This new project that I am working on I keep getting the error that it appears you do not have any requirements as I am trying to link the 4th requirement. I have removed all special characters. I removed all of the descriptions. I have not renamed any columns. I am not sure what else to do

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  5. I have the same issue exactly for the 4th element that I want to link

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