Possibility of defining “Validated by” link constraints between ERM and ETM

Update 2026 from the Jazz France user group

Context : In the IBM ERM (Requirements Management) and ETM/QM (Test Management) environment, test cases in QM can be linked to RM artifacts using the “Validated by” relationship.

Example: the QM Test Case 364 is linked via “Validated by” to the RM artifacts 45130, 43907, 43390 and 43391:

45130 is a Heading artifact

43907 is an Information artifact

43390 and 43391 are Requirement artifacts

According to the internal methodology, only links from QM Test Cases to Requirement artifacts are meaningful and allowed. Links from Test Cases to Heading or Information artifacts are considered methodologically invalid.

Problem : Currently, there are no configurable link constraints between QM and RM in ERM/ETM. As a result:

All “Validated by” links are technically possible, regardless of the RM artifact type.

Users can create “Validated by” links from QM Test Cases to Heading or Information artifacts, even though these links have no methodological meaning in the defined process.

Impact :

Methodological inconsistency: the tool allows links that are not compliant with the internal methodology.

Risk of misinterpretation: reviewers and stakeholders may believe that non‑Requirement artifacts are actually validated by tests.

Degradation of traceability quality: coverage and validation reports can become misleading or inaccurate.

Additional workload: project teams must perform manual checks to detect and clean invalid links.

Training and support overhead: users must be educated to “know what not to do” instead of being guided by the tool.

Goal of the idea :

Provide the ability to configure link constraints between QM and RM for the “Validated by” relationship, so that:

Only selected RM artifact types (e.g. “Requirement”) can be linked from QM Test Cases.

Non‑relevant artifact types (e.g. “Heading”, “Information”) are excluded and cannot be targets of “Validated by” links.

Why it is useful ? :

Ensures alignment between the tool behavior and the internal methodology.

Prevents the creation of meaningless or misleading links between QM and RM.

Improves the quality and reliability of traceability and coverage analyses.

Reduces manual verification efforts and the risk of human error.

Simplifies user training, as the tool itself prevents non‑compliant usages.

Contributes to better auditability and compliance of the validation process.

How should it work ? :

Provide an administration/configuration interface (at project area or global level) to define link constraints between QM and RM.

For the “Validated by” link type (QM → RM):

Allow the administrator to select which RM artifact types are authorized targets (e.g. “Requirement”).

In the QM/ETM UI, when a user creates or edits a “Validated by” link:

Only RM artifacts of allowed types should be selectable in the link picker.

Attempts to link to a non‑authorized artifact type should be blocked or result in a clear error message.

To avoid methodological inconsistencies, it shall be possible to define the link constraints with artefact types (for both source and target).

And for a better User Experience (UI simplification)  : The OSLC delegated Doors Next artifact selection window must be configurable to be able to include only specific artifact types and also to focus only on artefacts in a module (not base artifacts).