Project Hierarchy and Linked Projects

Working with Linked Projects

Projects can be linked to each other in a hierarchical structure to allow the re-use of documentation common in multiple products.

The standard scenario is to create documentation for components (in Module Projects) and refer to the documentation in these components through traces from a Master Project (that represents a Product or System) to one or more Module Projects.

Note! the relationship between two linked projects are always hierarchical i.e. there is a Parent/Child, Master/Linked relationship where the Master project linking to the Linked project is aware of the project linking. The linked project is however not aware of it being linked and does per default when open outside the context of the Master project not display linked traces to the master project.

Accessing Linked Project Items

When a Master Project is opened, all linked projects are automatically loaded as well. The Project Explorer displays the Document Object types of the Master Project and below them, the Linked projects and their Document Object types.

To display the Project Overview of a linked project, use the Current Project dropdown in the Project Explorer.

To access the File Explorer of a linked project, select the corresponding project name under the File Explorer.

How to link and unlink Projects

To link a Master Project to a Module Project, select Add/Remove button in the Project Hierarchy to select the project you want to link to.

Note! It is not possible to create circular linked-project structures.

The hierarchy of linked projects can be of arbitrary depth. The project linking hierarchy is displayed when clicking Project Hierarchy in the Navigation Bar.

Note! To access a Master Project and its Module Projects, you have to use credentials for the project in question. If the credentials in the sub-project are identical to those in the master project, you will be automatically logged in.

To unlink a project, select the Add/Remove button for the project to unlink and click Save to store the new state.

Cross Project Tracing (tracing between Linked Projects)

It is possible to create traces from the Master Project to your Linked projects (e.g.: You can trace a requirement in Product 1 to a specification in sub-module A.) and vice versa.

Note! Traces from master projects to sub-projects are not automatically updated to the latest state when a linked item is updated.

Consequently, you have to manually update traces (in the Trace Explorer, see below) to these document objects every time the document objects in the sub-project changes.

The Project Settings contains an option to configure the system to automatically update the traces between linked projects (Project Settings).

A trace between linked projects that are not of the latest revision is called an Obsolete Trace. Updating a child item in a linked trace relationship, causes this state as the trace from parent to child are per default not automatically updated. The child item is depicted with the Obsolete Trace icon in the Trace Explorer.

The Trace Explorer provides the function Trace to the latest revisions. Linked projects are ignorant of the traces from the master project. Traces from the master project will not appear in linked projects when the linked project is opened separately. This also applies to traces from linked projects to their master project.

Note! Traces from a master project to any unlinked projects still exist but are not displayed after the project has been unlinked.

Displaying linked traces

Traces to a linked project are always explicitly displayed with the linked project name prepending the Document Object ID. When a linked project is opened in the Master project context, traces between the projects are displayed.

When a linked project is displayed in isolation, traces to the Master project are not displayed.

Copy Project

To copy a project, select a Copy Project in the Actions dropdown.

Note! When copying a project, the following applies:

• Only the most current revisions of the document objects are copied. No previous revisions are copied.

• The project history is NOT copied.

• Document Object locks are NOT copied

• Test Runs are not copied but the Test Cases and Executed Test Cases are copied including their internal traces.

• Signatures are not copied.

Give the copied project a new name.

Note! The new name must not be the same as an existing project name (case-insensitive)!

Finally, click OK to initiate the copy operation. Wait for the confirmation message that indicates the success of the operation.

Since the source project will be temporarily unavailable for other users during the copying operation, make sure affected users are notified before the copy action is initiated so they can log off in due time!

All objects in the created copied project will be internally updated to reflect the new name, including objects in Word Documents.

Note! Copying in linked projects: If the project to be copied is a project in a linked project structure with items in other projects tracing to items in the project to be copied, these incoming traces from document objects in other projects will not be automatically copied and tracing to the resulting project. These traces need to be recreated manually!!

Note! Backlinks in External Issues: if the project contains document object that trace to items in external systems (such as Jira, GitHub, Azure DevOps etc.), these traces will be recreated in the project BUT if the external items contain fields for backlink information to Aligned Elements Document Objects, these backlinks in the external items are not updated to reflect that items in the resulting project now also point to these external items!