Do you prefer Word or Excel for importing into Requirements Gateway?

[johnny_icon]

I'd like to preface this with the thought that this topic might deserve its own group in the community, but I thought I'd start here in Large LabVIEW Application Development

The more I author or co-author Requirements Specifications, the more I gravitate towards using the Requirements Gateway. I really like to integrate as many software tools as I can to make my work more efficient (who doesn't?). Although I know there are other alternatives to importing requirements (i.e. Doors, etc.), most of my clients are likely to have Word or Excel, so I tend to develop specs in these formats. When I was at Sun, we always used the IEEE spec. The truth is, many customers I encounter have no formal processes for developing software, and as I become a better programmer and integrator, I'm trying to encourage my clients towards better software development practices.

I see advantages to using either Word or Excel, but was wondering what this community thought the advantages and disadvantages of using one vs. the other (I relaize you could also use both).

Word:

Advantages:      With Word, you can add things like diagrams and drawings of various aspects of the system like high level hardware wiring and architecture to software drawings like UML, etc. You can also specify Styles in Word to help facilitate the import.

Disadvantages: The document can become rather lengthy text, and often customers are put off by something so formal and droll.

Excel:

Advantages:     The Requirement can be organized into various sheets within an Excel workbook. This way you can separate GUI requirements from hardware I/O, etc. You can also quickly review requirements in a simple list. A customer might be much more inclined to review simple lists like this rather than a long document.

Disadvantages: Although its possible to include diagram and drawings, those types of features are more suited to Word, so I consider Excel implementation to be limited to lists.

Just reaching out to the community with this question since I suspect many have already experienced the pleasures and pitfalls of these 2 choices.

[Elijah_K]

I think that this is the perfect forum for this topic, as good requirements are a fundamental piece of large systems!

I've seen many customers use a hybrid of requirements formats.  Many store them in Doors and export them as PDFs or Word documents to avoid having to distribute licenses for Doors.

I will say this: requirements that include test vectors may be best stored in Excel as this makes importing the numeric values into an actual unit test much easier.  The Unit Test Framework stores the test parameters in a simple text format that can easily be edited using Excel, so importing large sets of test parameters can be made easier.  To see the format, you can right click on a unit test and select 'Open in External Editor.'

That's just my 2 cents.