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Fan Tutorial 1 - Specify Product - Part 1

In this tutorial, we will go through one of the primary user flows that can get you started using Valispace:

  • Gather and Write Requirements

  • Breakdown Requirements

  • Review and Improve Requirements

  • Approve and Release Specifications

The first two aspects, ie “Gather and Write Requirements” and “Break down Requirements” are covered in Part 1, and the rest in part 2 of the specify product tutorial. This first tutorial will take approximately 15 -20 minutes to complete. All the values and requirements are arbitrary

(1) Create a new Project

  • In the top left corner, click on the project/workspace dropdown menu next to the Initials of your user account (1)

  • Verify that you are in the correct workspace. If you are not, select your workspace from below.

We recommend you to create the tutorial project in the “Training workspace”. If you are in the default workspace, you can select the “Training Workspace” and create the new project.

  • In the list of projects, scroll down and select + Create new project (2)

  • Once you select, you will be taken to our “Quickstart” Feature. Click on the Simple Createof the option “Empty project”

  • Upon clicking, You will be asked to Enter a unique (not yet existing) project name (e.g. ValiFan_yourname) (1) and press Create Project (2). In the Project permissions, you can choose to use the same permissions as for the workspace, which means that the users who have access to the workspace will also have access to the project. You can also set up custom permissions to select the user permissions yourself. For this tutorial, you can select “Use workspace permissions (Read & Write)” for the Project Permissions.

The project name does not recognise special characters except “_' and “-”. Also spaces are not accepted.

  • Now you can see the Dashboard of your project. Navigate to About (1) in the left navigation panel, and feel free to add information about your project. Here, you can also change the name of your project (2) at any time.

  • You can always collapse or expand the main navigation pane by clicking the arrow (3) next to it.


(2) Define Stakeholder Requirements - Import Requirements


Most design and development of systems follow the V cycle. The first process in a V cycle is understanding the business needs and eliciting the stakeholders' needs. These stakeholder needs are then converted to Stakeholder Requirements. The stakeholder's requirements can be directly created in Valispace, imported through CSV/xlsx, or even created through the AI-powered “ValiAssistant”. So for this part, we will try the import method.

We have received a file from our stakeholders and will import these requirements to Valispace.


To do that, download the following CSV file:

Valifan_stakeholder_Requirements.csv

  • Go to the Requirements Module by clicking on Requirements in the left navigation pane (1)

  • Upon entering the Requirements module, Click on the Import Requirements (2)


Once the option is selected, you can choose a specification or create one directly within the importer wizard. In our case, we will create the specification within the importer wizard.

  • Select Create a Specification , type Stakeholder_requirements, and click Continue.


    The next step would be to upload the CSV to let the importer wizard read and import the file. Once the import is done, you can review the requirements before adding them to the specification.
    The following steps are shown in the video below.

    Importing Stakeholder Requirements

During the import of requirements, we demonstrated a new feature of Valispace “Valify”. After mapping the attributes and importing the requirements, you have a message screen where you can use “Check Now” to use the “Valify” feature.
The “Valify” option let you to convert the numerical values to the requirement valis automatically. Valis are design parameters of components, requirements or analyses which can be used in calculations and documentation. A Vali has a numerical value and contains additional information such as type, unit, formula, description, and minimum/max requirements.

Doing so, the you can compare the requirement valis with the design vali’s from the components module in future as the project progress. The you can opt to Valify or not within the importer wizard


(3) Add System Requirements

In a typical system engineering flow, the systems requirements are created with the help of the stakeholder requirements. Most technical developments are designed against strict requirements, e.g. on mass, power consumption and budget. Valispace maintains a complete overview of whether your design fulfils all these requirements.

Now we will create a few system requirements manually within valispace

  • Click on + Specification (1) and enter Fan_Specs (2) and click Create (3)

Creating new specification

  • Click on Fan_Specs (1). Within this specification, click on Create Requirements(2). You can also click on the blue “+” at the end of the right corner  + Add Requirement (2)

  • Create a new requirement manually

  • In the pop-up menu, verify that you have selected the correct specification. Then, add a unique identifier (1), e.g. R-Fan-001 and type The Mass of the fan should not exceed 300g under “Requirement text *” (2)

Creating a new requirement step 2

Having the tick mark on Check for possible Valis checks for the numeric values within the requirement and converts it directly into valis through the valify feature.

  • Using the same method but without ticking Check for possible Valis, create another requirement called R-Fan-002 with the requirement text: The Mass of the propeller shall not exceed 50g.

For the second requirement, during the creation, we did not use “Valify” feature. In case, you don't want to valify automatically, you have the option to create valis within requirement manually. Lets see how we can do that.

Creating Requirement Valis within a requirement

  • Double-click on the text column of the requirement R-Fan-002 and delete 50g

  • Type $ on the text column, and a popup showing the list of valis/objects inside the project opens.

  • On the top right corner of the dialog box, select the option to create new

  • Input the following details. Name: req_mass_propeller, Formula and unit: 50g and Display unit: g

Creating a Requirement vali manually

Break down requirements with parent and child relationships

  • Click on column (1) on the right side of the table

  • Verify that the Parents and Children boxes are checked (2)

Verifying if the parents and children columns are checked

  • In the requirements table, find the second requirement you created called R-Fan-002. In the parents column, double-click on cell(1)

  • In the drop-down menu, type in R-Fan-001 to link both requirements. Note that the children are automatically added to the requirement R-Fan-001

Creating parent- child relationship

  • By clicking on the Connections Graph(2) tab found at the top centre of the requirements table, you can see and verify this relationship

Connections graph showing parent-child relationship

Try this : You can generate requirements/breakdown requirements through ValiAssistant. For example, Click on the ValiAssitant, choose the option Generate Requirements, and type a prompt like Create 2 safety requirements for designing a fan. The steps are shown below in the video:

Creating requirements through Valiassistant

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