Manage Navigation Backlinks in External Requirements Documents

You can insert backlinks in external requirements documents that you can then use to navigate from an external requirement to the linked item in MATLAB^® or Simulink^®. Backlinks have corresponding forward links that point from items in MATLAB or Simulink to external requirements or to imported referenced requirements that serve as proxy objects for the external requirements. If the forward link that corresponds to the backlink no longer exists, the backlink is stale and you can remove it.

You can insert backlinks in:

• Microsoft^® Word documents

• Microsoft Excel^® spreadsheets

• IBM^® DOORS^® modules

• IBM DOORS Next projects

Enable Bidirectional Traceability

To create backlinks when you create direct links to requirements in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and IBM DOORS, you must enable bidirectional traceability:

1. Open the Requirements Editor.

2. In the Links section, click Preferences.

3. In the Requirements Settings dialog box, select the Selection Linking tab.

4. Under When creating selection-based links, select Modify destination for bidirectional linking.

Note

You cannot enable bidirectional traceability for IBM DOORS Next. Instead, insert the backlinks after you create the link. For more information, see Insert and Remove Backlinks.

For more information about creating direct links, see Link Directly to Requirements in Third-Party Applications.

Insert and Remove Backlinks

If you did not create backlinks when you created the forward links, you can insert the backlinks afterwards by updating the backlinks. Updating the backlinks also removes stale backlinks. To update the backlinks:

1. Open the Requirements Editor.

2. Display the loaded link sets. In the Requirements Editor, click Show Links.

3. Select the link set that contains the forward links that you want your backlinks to match. Right-click the link set and select Update Backlinks.

4. A dialog box displays the number of links checked and the number of backlinks added and removed. Click OK.

Alternatively, you can update the backlinks programmatically by using the updateBacklinks function.

To remove all forward links and the corresponding backlinks:

1. In the Requirements Editor, click Show Links.

2. Select all of the links in the link set except for one, then click Delete.

3. Save the link set by clicking Save.

4. Remove the stale backlinks by updating the backlinks.

5. Navigate to the external requirement that has the last remaining backlink and delete the backlink.

6. In the Requirements Editor, select the remaining link and click Delete.

7. Save the link set by clicking Save.

You can remove stale backlinks only when the link set contains at least one link. If the link set does not contain links, create a temporary link to the requirements document from which you want to remove backlinks, then remove the backlinks.

Note

Requirements Toolbox™ only removes backlinks in IBM DOORS Next when the current configuration context in MATLAB matches the configuration context in IBM DOORS Next.