Requriements management in Smartsheet

Smartsheet has a lot of functionality that resembles Valispace, Vissure and DOORS. The only part that is really missing to use it as a basic requriements management tool is means of linking one cell ( or prefferably a full row) to more than one cell/row. E.g. if one has a requirement from which one would like to device two requiremnts, one for each susbsystem, I haven't found a way to connect that single row to two (or more) rows in other sheets without adding individual columns for each of the sub-systems. Adding those extra rows would break the idea of similarity between sheet structure and the ability to roll-up information across all sheets. Tips on how to achieve this and how to e.g. have a report that can report on link-trees is much appraciated.
Answers
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Are you able to provide some screenshots of manual mock-ups that show what you are wanting to accomplish?
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Each node is a sheet with requirements. One requirement in one row may derive into three sub-requirements, one in each of the sub or subs-sub-systems. The overall structure starts from the top, so a solution must be able to link out from multiple cells/row into one and once cell/row must be able from a single cell/row to multiple cells/rows in other sheets.
And one would need a report or tree-structure ( possible to do via API as well) that illustrates the connectivity. So if a derived requirement is fulfilled at the bottom level, one can see that the requirement from it was derived some levels up, is also fulfilled.
Makes sense? -
Hi @Cgrinde
This looks like a set-up that is best facilitated through Smartsheet's Control Center add-on (here's more information).
Using just the core Smartsheet app, you could Copy Rows from your System Requirements Specification to each sub-system. However you're right, those rows won't be linked. You would need to have a unique identifier in the row so your sheets 3. 4. and 5. can use cross-sheet formulas to look backwards into the System Requirements sheet to pull back data (e.g. an Index Match formula).
Another alternative is to create three Reports for 3. 4. and 5 instead of sheets, then use the Reports to work on the same row across all Reports/source sheet. In this instance, you could have hidden columns in the sheet that pertain to each Subsystem, then use the Report to surface those hidden columns.
As a final note, another add-on, DataMesh, can do something like this for you automatically. It can copy rows and create cell-links at the same time so the copied rows stay live and update as the source sheet updates. Here's more about DataMesh.
Cheers,
GenevieveNeed more information? 👀 | Help and Learning Center
こんにちは (Konnichiwa), Hallo, Hola, Bonjour, Olá, Ciao!👋 | Global Discussions
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Thank you.
Not very keen om taking on a ton of customizations and work-arounds.I'll propose this as a product improvment. Done correclty, which I think is technically feasible, it would open up a new kind of use, displacing costly software like Visure and IMB rational DOORS.
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