Functional requirements

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Functional requirements state what the system must be able to do. The requirements provide:

• Parameters for designing the system.
• Criteria for testing the system (used in initial release and future iterations and upgrades).
• Planning guidelines for developing the system (improve existing or add new functionality).
• Documentation for standards compliance (link requirements to relevant international or national descriptive standards)
• A framework for structuring user-end documentation (step-by-step procedures for how to do things in the system).

Functional requirements are organized hierarchically, with high-level requirements broken down into sub- and sub-sub-requirements. To facilitate cross-references and links, each requirement has been assigned an alpha-numeric code: the alpha prefix designates the type of requirement (FNC = functional requirement), the number establishes its position in the hierarchy. Six main functional requirements have been identified:

• FNC-1 Establish a system of control
• FNC-2 Add / edit content
• FNC-3 Translate content
• FNC-4 Access content
• FNC-5 Import / export content
• FNC-6 Administer the system

Each functional requirement includes some or all of the following information:

Requirement name	Descriptive name assigned to requirement.
Requirement number	FNC-x.x.x (unique tracking number assigned to requirement)
Requirement specification	Brief description of requirement: users of the application must be able to do X, system must do X.
Source quotation	Links to standards or other documents: why must the applicable be able to do X?
Associated metadata requirements	Links to metadata requirements: what data must the application capture in order to be able to do X?
Associated quality requirements	What design and interface features must the application have to do X well?
Associated technical requirements	Links to technical requirements: what system architecture, hardware / software configurations, and programming rules must the application implement to do X?
ICA-AtoM implementation	Brief description of how ICA-AtoM implements X.
Known issues	Brief indication of known problems or limitations in the current version of ICA-AtoM that should be addressed in future releases.
Use cases	Links to descriptions of user-end scenarios relating to the requirement and how they are handled in ICA-AtoM.
User Manual sections	Links to the User manual sections that provide step-by-step instructions for doing X.

Note that most of this detail will only be found at the lower-level requirements. Higher-level requirements will typically only include the requirement name, number, specification, and source quotation, with links to the lower-level sub-requirements.