Can you please give me guidance on how I could use Confluence for requirements management?

[Zaldy Parian]

I've seen posts with regards to Jira+Confluence for trace ability of requirements. But it's not clear to me where/how to start. 

Do I need to have another app for this? If yes, which app should I use?

[DPKJ]

@Zaldy Parianthis purely depend upon your requirement management needs, and what you are using currently.

Benefits of Confluence,

• If your requirement are in form of documents, then using confluence will make your life easier.
• You can start simply by using requirement blueprints in confluence.
• Confluence - Jira have native connections that you can use to establish connectivity also.

What plugins offers,

• Mostly they make your life easier by forcing some sort of discipline in your requirement mangement
• Also things like IDs, versioning, traceability, export are well defined and managed.

There three kinds of plugin in requirement management,

1. Based on confluence
   1. Prime example of this is Requirement Yogi
   2. It manages all requirements as confluence documents
2. Base of Jira using Jira database
   1. These plugins store requirement data in Jira issue
   2. Workflow is part where these plugins shine
3. Based on Jira but uses separate database
   1. Plugin like RMsis fall in this category
   2. They use separate database to keep requirements isolated
   3. They provide traceability with Jira issues, and I have seen that it has confluence plugin also.

If you have specify your expectation with Requirement Management tool, sorting things will be much easier.

[Zaldy Parian]

Thanks for your quick response, @DPKJ .

We are currently using TestRail for our test management and Jira for defect management.

And in a couple of months our CRM replacement project will kick off. Hence the need to manage requirements (epics/user stories) soon. I would assume our project team and SI will formulate their RTM using an excel file. I wanted to simply upload it into Confluence, if possible.

I wanted to have a dry run on how to do it with sample 3 to 5 lines of dummy requirements in excel. If you could direct me to the steps/instructions on how to do this, that would be super. I will also check out the requirement blueprints you mentioned above.

Regards.

[DPKJ]

@Zaldy ParianI suggest you don't go to confluence for requirement management unless you have a large set of MS Word like document as requirements.

If your requirement are in form of excel sheet, you can simply start by importing them in Jira as an Issue (as most of your workflow is based out of Jira you can create Requirement Issue Type, and use it).

Now, Jira doesn't provide versioning, baseline and traceability (tabular). So you will need some plugins for this.

If versioning, baseline and traceability are very important to you, you will have to use plugins for requirement management in Jira. As I mentioned earlier there are two categories in this,

1. Uses Jira as DB
2. Non uses Jira as DB to keep requirement isolated

[Zaldy Parian]

Alright, I'll search for Issue Type = Requirements process and go from there. 

I'll update this as soon as I get into something tangible. 

[DPKJ]

Sure, I am happy to help.

List down your expectation from Requirement  Management Tool and establish matrix for each strategy. This way it will be easier for you to foresee problems you might face in each strategy.