IBM Rational DOORS Reviews

• Traceability
• Impact analysis
• History
• Baseline sets
• DXL scripting
• Publication with Rational Publishing Engine (separate product)

IBM Rational DOORS allows requirements to be efficiently and effectively tracked, traced, and managed throughout the project lifecycle. Managing requirements in documents, e-mails, spreadsheets etc. becomes unwieldy. Anybody that has attempted this will find IBM Rational DOORS a godsend.

Some users complain of a clunky interface, but DOORS NG which is planned to succeed DOORS over the next 5-10 years addresses these issues and is a good up and coming alternative to DOORS.

I've used it for 12 years.

Most of the issues of deployment in my experience tend to be people related issues. For instance, resistance to change in processes, and learning a new tool.

IBM Rational DOORS is a very mature stable solution.

I have not encountered any issues with scalability. I have experience of supporting databases containing hundreds of thousands of requirements with no issues that cannot be mitigated through good schema design.

IBM Rational DOORS customer service are approachable and easy to deal with.

IBM Rational DOORS technical support are prompt and good at resolving issues.

I have used other tools such as RDD-100, CaliberRM and in-house developed solutions.In all cases I have simply moved into new roles in other organisations with the opportunity to use IBM Rational DOORS.

With a qualified DOORS Deployment Professional, the initial setup is relatively straightforward. They should be able to design and build a schema to support your process. templates can be created to make project setup relatively straightforward.

I normally work as part of a vendor team.

The largest ROI would normally be achieved on bigger projects, but an ROI is possible across many smaller projects so long as consistency is maintained in terms of process and schema across the projects.

Consider the overall cost of ownership beyond the initial license costs. You will need to budget for development of your process, designing and building the schema, training and ongoing database administration and support to users of the tool.

Over many years I have evaluated and used many other COTs and bespoke requirements management tools. I have found IBM Rational DOORS to be the most flexible and powerful solution available for serious requirements management.

Develop good requirements development and management process firstly then design and implement a DOORS schema and training around your process. Simplicity and consistency is the key to a successful implementation. Management buy in and support is also essential.

We have different generations of all products. It lets us select and see unique attributes for each release or generation. You can use attributes to define a selection area to see which equipments are for the old versions and which ones are for the new versions. This inbuilt view is what I like in IBM Rational DOORS. So, for a database and a set of requirements, it will select and show unique attributes for a release or a generation.

Complexity, performance, openness are the three areas that can be improved. The IBM architecture and specifically Jazz looks more complex. There are a lot of servers. It's quite complicated. 

The search capabilities lack in IBM Rational DOORS Classic for customers who have a database with a requirement of more than 25,000 records. For example, you can search easily for a module, but it's really difficult to look for keywords through the whole database because all the modules are separated into small components, which makes the search quite complex. This is something that's really annoying because when we want to make an impact analysis, we would like to analyze the product globally.

It's quite difficult to manage. The fact that you can interact externally with data makes it complex. The approach is complex and doesn't work as expected. For example, when I tried to experiment with exporting some records, the tool crashed, but I couldn't find out the root cause, that is, whether it happened because of Rational Windows or lack of memory. It was just crashing. Logs weren't very clear. 

IBM can try to use more recent technology for different aspects and make it easy. They can also provide free integration from DOORS Classic to DOORS. Currently, all the customization in Excel is lost, which makes it very complex. It would be a feature to make new versions compatible with features in the past versions.

Actively, I would say three years and non-actively, maybe five years. I was working in the QA department, and I was reviewing and validating the main equipment with IBM Rational DOORS. So, I know the tool, but it took a bit longer before I start to work much more actively with IBM Rational DOORS.

We discovered some tech stability issues with IBM Rational DOORS Classic and did not convert to IBM. I'm not really convinced about the solution. Basically, IBM doesn't really support or doesn't want to improve IBM Rational DOORS Classic anymore. However, there are still a lot of customers who have been using this solution for years, some of them even for 13 years or so. 

I'm not sure about the support for other solutions, but the problem is that they don't really want to invest any more in IBM Rational DOORS classic. It's quite easy for a technical person to customize and do benchmarking to identify the root cause and proposed solution, but I think that IBM is not going in that direction. So, I'm not really happy. 

They are quick at replying for sure. However, I'm not really convinced about the solution, so I would expect to have a technical person who is experienced and find solutions. 

When I discovered and reported a performance issue, I got a reply that it is a well-known problem. I never saw that issue in the report. It looks like some of the bug information is not accessible to everybody.

I managed to install it without any serious or issues, so it was quite okay. I had a lot of exceptions at different moments, but I managed to find solutions on the web. 

IBM is a bit too expensive in terms of pricing. Customers are paying a lot for the license, and the price is quite high for this kind of environment. It is quite high as compared to what we can get today with other solutions. 

I am validating this solution. I still have a lot of solutions that look promising, such as Jama and Polarion. 

I'm more concerned about the effort to extract the system and to train people. In the world of requirement management, usability is really important from a UAT factor. Some other solutions have a better user interface, and they are easier to understand than IBM Rational DOORS in general. Even though I have experience in IBM Rational DOORS and I'm quite familiar with DOORS concepts, I find other solutions, such as Jama or Polarion, easier to use.

Our requirement is not for a huge database, just around 30,000 records. It's a shame that IBM Rational DOORS Classic is so slow in accessing such a small number of records. It's really new to the data architecture approach from the past, that is, from Telelogic.

In the new version, they no longer support Excel. So, we have to redo the whole configuration of the project, which takes a lot of time and energy. When I look at other solutions based on the results of the benchmark analysis, they look easier to work or install.

I'm also looking into the capability to export, and I got several issues with IBM, especially with the OSAC interface. There are some questions on the IBM website to assess whether it will really work or whether it is a limitation. Because it is not a well-defined limitation, you have to try. When you try and spend a lot of time and energy and do extra work, you find the limitations in what you can do, which makes it very slow.

In the past, IBM Rational DOORS was the best solution for me because it was the only one but today, people are not really attached to IBM Rational DOOR. They have to use it, but I'm not convinced that they're really attached to it.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten. It is complex, doesn't work as expected, and isn't easy to illustrate. I would expect IBM to have something better prepared, better integrated, and more compatible with I could do in the past.

We primarily use the solution for governmental management.

The recommendation aspects of the solution are good.

It's difficult to set the code on the solution. 

The testing part needs to be improved, but they have too much legacy to move to the latest IBM versions. 

I do not believe there are any more plans for this product. It's now a legacy solution. They should just ensure that they keep the technical support they have in place to assist existing users.

The solution is stable.

The solution isn't scalable.

We previously used a different solution, but the change was the company's choice.

The initial setup was complex.

The solution can be used in the studio environment, but you need to manage it correctly.

I would rate the solution six out of ten.

The primary use for the product is requirements management. That is essentially prioritizing and planning product delivery.  

What I like the most is probably requirement traceability in configuration management.  

Usability and user-friendliness could definitely be improved as far as ease-of-use. The documentation could also be easier to use, I would say. Maybe, in general, they need to see things more from an end-user's perspective in their future development.  

I am not using this product at my current company, but I probably have approximately 20 years of experience using DOORS (Dynamic Object Oriented Requirements System).  

DOORS is a very mature and stable product these days.   

When it comes to scalability, I think it is a little bit expensive to get more users onboard. I do not think there are practical limitations to scaling the use, it just might be costly to take on additional licenses to scale.  

We have used the product's technical support for some issues and we did have a positive experience with them. They were able to resolve the issues that we had in a reasonable amount of time.  

It is not cheap. It is expensive to onboard additional licenses.  

I would definitely recommend DOORS to people who need this kind of solution. You would probably need to have a reasonably large-sized project to use it because of the cost. But I can definitely recommend it if the need is there.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate IBM Rational DOORS as about a seven-of-ten, I reckon. What would need to be included to improve that score is probably cloud hosting.  

• Traceability
• Audit trail
• Configuration Management for Requirements

• Doing Impact analysis
• Producing documents
• Rich-text editing

Integration with MS Word.

I've been using it for 15 years, and am also using it alongside Rational DOORS Next Generation 6.0.

Replacing a word document is always hard.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

We provide it.

It's very good.

I've tried many of them, and found that this one is the best.

It depends on the organizations size and needs.

We are a vendor and implement it for our clients.

Things are delivered to the customer on time, with less mistakes and missing features.

There are a few other requirements management tools, but none are at this level of solving complex situations.

Make sure you know your pains before starting the process.

I am a consultant and this is one of the solutions that my company uses to help our clients.

Rational DOORS is used to help our customers with system engineering. I use it to design complex systems like trains and cars. DOORS is used to collect all of the requirements for these big systems and then we try to organize the requirements. We make sure that the system functions in compliance with the requirements. 

Using this solution will streamline processes and generally improve the quality of them.

The most important feature is that it is able to manage a lot of requirements.

It helps to maintain global compliance during all of the stages of development. When you specify the functionality of the system, it is able to show that the system is compliant with the needs. Moreover, it is easy to maintain compliance based on the design.

This solution is able to manage a lot of data.

It is very customizable and easy to scale.

Implementing processes should be easier.

The interface is not very user-friendly and has not evolved in a long time. People like to have a nice tool that is up to date with the latest technology, and this is not the case with DOORS.

I have been using IBM Rational DOORS for more than ten years.

Rational DOORS is very reliable compared to the other tools that I have used. It works very well.

It is very scalable. You can start with a few sets of data and then add more as needed, so it's very scalable. It is also easy to customize and I am satisfied with it.

Depending on the project, we may have one or two people using this solution, all the way up to perhaps 50 people.

I have never spoken with anyone at IBM's support.

I have also used REQTIFY. 

The initial setup is complex, although it is linked to the complexity of the project.

If you have something very simple then the setup will be straightforward but if you have something complex then it will be more difficult. For example, if you are designing a launcher to send satellites into space then you want to have enough information about it before you start the system. These systems are very expensive to develop, so you want to demonstrate that it will be of good quality and be able to handle the operations required to achieve the goals of the project.

It takes between one week and one month to deploy, depending on the requirements.

I can perform the deployment myself, although sometimes we need to involve many people. There are engineers, quality teams, and validation teams. Many parts of the business can be involved in the deployment.

Because this is an expensive solution, if you want to realize ROI then you have to use it for big projects.

This is an expensive solution. Licensing fees are billed annually and there is no support included with what I pay.

There is another solution called Rational DOORS Next Generation that has a nicer interface and it is easier to use, but it is less scalable.

The difficulty with implementing this solution is that you are asking the organization to change its processes. The important part is, however, that you are trying to improve the quality of the systems. You have to maintain the customer's vision and show that the goals will be reached, but done more efficiently. In the end, you have to give the customer every assurance that the work is done in its entirety.

This is a solution that I recommend. If people need to write specifications in the context of engineering then I think that this is the best solution on the market. If on the other hand, you want to manage requirements, then I don't think that it is an appropriate tool.

Similarly, DOORS is a good tool because you have to maintain compliance with all of the requirements during development. If you have a supplier with no needs or requirements then it is not at all an appropriate tool.

Overall, it is a good solution but they need to update the user interface. If they also lower the price then it would be perfect.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

The features that I've found most valuable are organization, trace, connection to other products via external links, and DXL.

It helps us to manage and track requirements for complex products. This allows for quick and easy safety certification.

It needs word processing captioning as well as references within a module.

I've used it for 12 years.

We had no issues with deployment.

There have been no issues with stability.

It has scaled for our needs.

Customer services is great.

Technical support is also great.

We used Interleaf and other tools, but they don't allow for easily readable trace and control.

The initial setup was easy. It's easy to provide access to users.

We implemented it in-house, though it does require basic knowledge of the tool.

We've found that floating licenses work best.

Don't use Citrix or a virtual environment to implement a global solutions. It causes problems when linking between tools.

• Traceability
• VRTMs

Requirements development, and doing everything from functional requirements to system requirements, means we can verify that there are no orphan or childless requirements, which ensure full traceability in a short amount of time using the available tools.

I've used it for six years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

8/10.

8/10.

No previous solution was used.

It was very straightforward.

It was done in-house.

It's better if your partners use the same tool, which makes for better sharing of files and artefacts.