Traceability Matrix Overview

Innoslate's Traceability Matrix provides an interactive matrix view that allows you to visually represent relationships between groups of entities.

Innoslate includes the ability to display a relationship to groups of entities through an interactive matrix view, called the ‘Traceability Matrix.’ The ‘Traceability Matrix’ displays a group of entities to another group of entities in a Matrix form. This view allows users to create relationships from entity to entity listed on the X- and Y- axis by clicking on the correspoding cells in the Matrix. 

Navigating to the Traceability Matrix

To access the Traceability Matrix, simply click on the 'Open' dropdown in any view. This matrix displays all the entities included in the current view. If you select a specific entity and open the Traceability Matrix, it will only show that entity and its children. These entities will be displayed on the Y axis.

Traceability View

Top X Axis Options

To display entities for the X Axis, users have the following options to utilize from the left sidebar as shown below.

• Hierarchy (Default)

The Hierarchy fetch option will display parents of hierarchies to display on the Top X Axis.

• Query

The Query fetch option will display the results of a search query when typed into the field.

• Related

The Related fetch option will fetch all related entities based on the selected relationship.

Toggling a Relationship

To toggle a relationship, click the box which represents the intersection between the two entities you would like to relate. If the box does not already have an “X,” a new relationship will be created between the entities. If the box already has an “X,” the relationship will be removed between the two entities.

All changes made to the ‘Matrices’ will be queued until the matrix is saved. The matrix will be saved automatically when leaving the view or clicking the ‘Save’ button. To discard unwanted changes, click the arrow next to the ‘Save’ button and select the ‘Discard Changes’ menu item.

Paging the Traceability Matrix

Both available matrices utilize a paging system when large hierarchies of entities are to be displayed. This enables extremely large matrices to be displayed without major performance penalties. Click the right arrow button on the right side of the footer to view the next page of x-axis entities.

Searching the Traceability Matrix

To easily navigate through a Traceability Matrix users can search the Y- or X-Axis by hovering their cursor over the areas highlighted above. The top magnifying glass will search the X-Axis and the lower magnifiying glass will search the Y-Axis. Note, the image above has been modified for displaying purposes. These icons will only appear one at a time when users hover their cursors over these areas on the Traceability Matrix.

Upon clicking on the respective magnifying glass, a search field pops up for users to search the column or row. The Search field will pop up in the same location of the Matrix, however the field indicates row or column for clarification, as shown below.

Search Axis Field

 

Search Column Field

The search looks for the query in the name field of the entities on the matrix. Upon entering a query, the search field updates and indicates how many entities contain the query and provides users the option to use the arrows to navigate up and down (or left and right) on the selected axis for the queried entity. These options are highlighted in black below. The entities containing the query will be highlighted in yellow and the current entity that it is focused on will be in orange also shown below.  

Traceability Matrix Settings

Indicator Options

The indicator options allows users to choose how the highglighted X and Y entities are indicated when hovering the cursor over the appropriate cell in the matrix. Each option will be shown in the video below. Note, the left sidebar will always reflect the entity's name number and description.

Axis

The corresponding X- and Y-axis entities are highlighted on the corresponding axis. The focused entities are also reflected on the left sidebar.

Cross

A blue cross appears on the cells and throughout the Matrix. The middle of the cross is the focused cell and follows the cursor. The the X- and Y-axis entities are highlighted for that cell's corresponding entities. The focused entities are also reflected on the left sidebar.

Text

Nothing is indicated on the cells but the corresponding entities on the X- and Y-axis are reflected on the left sidebar only.

Checked Cell Options

The symbols indicating the relationship in the cells can be changed with the settings menu. Below is an image of each option available. 

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Traceability Assist

‘Traceability Assist’ will automatically identify likely relationships using pre-trained machine learning models. The suggested relationships will highlight in green. The darker the color green, the higher confidence a relationship should be present.

Suspect Assist

‘Suspect Assist’ will automatically identify related entities which have few similarities and low confidence of correctness. The suspect relationships will highlight in red. The darker the color red, the higher confidence a relationship should not be present.