IBM DOORS Reviews

We used DOORS to elicit and gather user needs and then document them. We would then document these needs with diagrams and pictures that could be used to implement products and tests. We also used it for traceability purposes.

System engineers, software requirements engineers, software development engineers, software manual test engineers, software automated test engineers, software DevOps teams — these were the people who mainly used this solution.

We went from an ad hoc Word document to a table-driven model that could be reviewed without submitting any documents. That was a big help.

This solution is the Cadillac of similar solutions. I liked that we could export to Excel and Word. We could also link to other off-shelf tools.

Compared to other tools that I have used over the past 20 years, DOORS is the best of the best. It's expensive. It's a heavy-duty tool. 

It would be nice if it could be scaled-down so that it could be installed and implemented without much learning or training. That would also make the price more attractive.

You have to pay the premium price, but if you're a startup company or a medical device company, you'll want to create traceability immediately. It's actually simpler to use it straight out-of-box. It requires a lot of administrative work. The initial setup is not very easy — at least on-premise. A lot of training is required. It should be easier to use. 

I began using this solution in 2000. I used it at my old company; I don't use it anymore.

This solution was very stable. It took our staff a while to transition from previous technology to DOORS. Otherwise, the tool itself was very stable. In the end, people saw the difference. Especially when it came to traceability from the system requirements to the product requirements, to the software requirements.

The technical support was very good. Better than Microsoft.

An implementer did the initial installation. Based on what I heard, it's not easy to install. I don't want to say it was complex, but it wasn't very easy either. It's not just like installing  Word or Microsoft Office — it wasn't that easy.

We were a big organization complete with different teams. There were some disagreements on how the tool should be set up, how the traceability should be set up, etc. These discussions delayed the delivery or the final implementation. Otherwise, it could have been set up quickly. A lot of customers made it much harder. 

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine.

IBM DOOR is the best tool you can purchase; it's the Cadillac of all tools. Don't be scared of its vast amount of features. Use only what you need, and don't panic about the complexity or the completeness of the tool

It handles large-scale requirements analyses including traceability and impact, but in addition also has its own accessible scripting language, DOORS Extension Language (DXL), which allows users to tailor the tool to suit their more specific needs and processes. Extensions built through DXL have offered a much greater ability to tailor Rational DOORS for a variety of specific processes and needs.

I use it to support a variety of customers. Using it, I have been able to quickly and accurately perform holistic analyses of data. I am able to create a traceability and impact analysis report of a set of 20+ documents in minutes, and then use the tool to help verify that the data is accurate.

"Out of the box" Rational DOORS, in most cases, will not have many desired features for specific needs. DXL allows a user to customize it to fit many of those specific needs, but such extensions require lots of training and time. Therefore, while the rooms for improvement can be filled, it requires a trained expert user - or users - to access the full Rational DOORS functionality. It is not friendly to new users, and has a steep learning curve.

I’ve used it for one year.

I have not had any performance issues between a Rational DOORS database of 100 requirements vs. one with 10,000+, beyond an expected increase in processing time for dealing with more objects. Even with 100 to 10,000 requirements, processing time for common tasks only goes from a few seconds to a few minutes.

In most cases with clients, initial set-up involved importing a document corpus into Rational DOORS, then verifying that it was imported successfully. Regardless of the format of the original documents, I have not had trouble configuring documents then importing them into Rational DOORS, which supports imports of CSV, ReqIF, rich and plain text, FrameMaker files, and several others. Rational DOORS 9.6 also supports importing documents/spreadsheets to update current data.

I run my own engineering office in Switzerland for training companies on a freelance basis. I have used the most recent version for several projects.

This solution is very simple to use.

I really like the customization that can be done using the DOORS Extension Language (DXL). I have developed a lot of tools and it is quite nice. For example, I have a tool that I wrote that can perform a trace analysis for automatic reporting. It only works on classic DOORS because it would have to be reprogrammed in JavaScript or another language.

The UML editing and reporting features are good.

There are problems with the communication between DOORS and Microsoft Office. It doesn't matter which version of MS Office is used. When trying to communicate between Excel and DOORS or Word and DOORS and vice versa, problems arise. I would like to expect a more professional application here. A tool to gradually import scripts into DOORS Next Generation (DXL to Java) would be very helpful. Merging classic DOORS with next-generation DOORS using a web client would be a great idea.

I would like to see a much more professional way to generate documents.

A tool to import scripts, step-by-step into DOORS Next Generation would be very helpful.

The merging of classic DOORS with Next Generation DOORs using a web client would be a great idea. 

I have been using IBM Rational DOORS since 1999, version 0.1.

I have never had any problems with DOORS for any of my clients. It runs fine.

I have worked on smaller projects in the past and everything has worked fine, including the requirements and visibility. My clients have been happy and this has caused them to grow by purchasing additional licenses.

That said, this solution does not scale as well as I thought it would, so improvements could be made with respect to scalability.

Before using this solution I did everything in Microsoft Word.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I have done everything myself over the years.

I have been using classic DOORS version 9.6.1.11 and I was interested in switching to IBM DOORS Next Generation, but it is not as easy as I thought. The complexity is quite different and it is not very user-friendly. You used to have your own client and database, but now that it is mixed with the web, it doesn't make sense for me to use it.

Unfortunately, I think that DOORS was a nice tool and it is a pity that it has been ruined by IBM. The technical support is a mess and it is not the quality from the past.

I still really enjoy working with this tool. Even though it has been taken over by IBM, it is something that I have to live with.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

IBM Rational DOORS is used as a requirements management tool. It enables you to do full requirements development and testing.

The most valuable feature of IBM Rational DOORS is the full requirements development and testing.

It would be helpful if Microsoft provided a more user-friendly interface for updating and querying updates. Additionally, if there was a way for users to notify developers of any changes in requirements, it would allow for faster and more efficient updates to the solution's architecture. This could be in the form of a notification system that alerts developers of any changes that need to be made. Additionally, the solution is document-driven and it should be more digital.

I have used IBM Rational DOORS for approximately 20 years.

I rate the stability of IBM Rational DOORS a ten out of ten.

We have two people in the company that uses the solution.

We do not have plans to increase usage. We are moving towards a more digital environment where we are using SysML and UML to write requirements instead of text-based messages. IBM Rational DOORS should have the capability to model these requirements, but currently, the add-on they have is not effective.

While a large number of requirements may be present, managing them effectively is a separate challenge. There are various tools available for managing requirements, such as IBM Rational DOORS, but they may not always be sufficient. Effective requirements management is crucial in this field.

The field of engineering is evolving, moving away from traditional methods of management, such as using tools, such as  IBM Rational DOORS to organize and allocate textual requirements. The 2018 DOD strategy for digital engineering highlights this shift towards utilizing models rather than documents in the digital environment. However, many people are still stuck in the old ways and unaware of this change. It is important to keep in mind that the new way of doing things also involves developing architectures using the modeled requirements.

I rate the scalability of IBM Rational DOORS a ten out of ten.

I rate the support of IBM Rational DOORS a ten out of ten.

I have used Excel spreadsheets prior to using IBM Rational DOORS.

The return on investment in system engineering is difficult to quantify as it primarily involves writing clear and comprehensive requirements. While a team may be dedicated to this task, measuring the return on investment can be challenging.

IBM Rational DOORS is highly expensive.

I rate IBM Rational DOORS a nine out of ten.

There are numerous projects that we are using with IBM Rational DOORS. They are isolated from each other and then we receive requirements from outside sources, load them into DOORS, and use them to do traceability into architectures developed in MagicDraw.

It has improved our ability to do traceability back to our initial requirements. The traceability allows us to be able to rapidly advise our sponsors.

I like being able to sort and categorize the requirements and the exporting functions.

I would recommend that fuzzy logic be added to the search capabilities. I think there is probably room to improve by offering free training.

I have been using IBM Rational DOORS for the past ten years.

IBM Rational DOORS is stable.

I think overall it is scalable and has measured up to everything we have tested it with.

I would rate technical support a six on a scale of one to ten. I have tried to contact them twice and never heard anything back.

Neutral

My initial setup and integration were more complex than I was expecting.

I believe they did the deployment in-house.

I would tell them to be very cautious about how they initially import their requirements into the product because that initial import seems to carry more weight and effect than I would have anticipated.

I would rate IBM Rational DOORS a seven out of ten.

I use DOORS to support my customers, who are heavy users of the tool. I try to figure out what's wrong whenever they have some issues. For example, if they need some help, I use the tool to recreate my customers' environments and work with it to find solutions for them. About 10 people in my company do the same thing as me.

When you install DOORS locally, you have the flexibility to do what you want with the solution. You can add functionality and do many things that you can't do with other tools or do well enough to satisfy your users' requirements. For example, you can save linked versions when you do baselines, and then I can handle linked changes between different baselines. You can't do this with other tools, or it's hard to do.

The web application DOORS Web Access doesn't have the same functionality as the standard client, so it's not a real substitute. For example, web Access only provides writing requirements, but you can't do much more with it. If you want to change multiple attributes or something like that, it's better to use the standard client. I would also like to see some improvements in the reporting.

I've been using Rational DOORS off and on since 2001.

DOORS is stable. I have seldom have problems with it.

DOORS is a file-based data storage system, so it isn't that useful for large user communities. If they want to work with the standard client, it is crucial to have a solid connection between the client and the database software because there's a lot of communication back and forth, so the scalability is not so great. Some of my customers have installations with upwards of 100 clients. 

IBM support for DOORS is helpful and quick. You get a real solution in a short time most of the time.

Setting up DOORS is easy, and I can handle it by myself. The initial installation takes around an hour, but the total deployment depends on your environment. However, you can handle it with a remote install, and installing the client itself takes only a few minutes. 

I rate IBM Rational DOORS eight out of 10. 

We use it to manage requirements. For the defense projects, we basically do a waterfall design methodology. So, we input the customer's requirements at the top level, and we flow down through all of the design requirements and the testing requirements. We keep it all managed through DOORS.

Many of our defense customers give us the requirements in a DOOR file, so we can instantly import it. Nobody has to sit there playing with spreadsheets or anything else. In minutes, we have the requirements, and we can begin the flow down to the various levels of the design as we work on it. The thing that we like about it is the fact that it's compatible with what our defense and also space customers use.

I like the way we can simply link requirements with one another and with test descriptions and then automatically produce reports that are required to show compliance to our customers. It is a combination of requirements management and reporting that I like, but I really have very little to do with the reporting part of it. I don't know how easy or hard it is to create those reports.

One thing that I would like to see is a lower-cost version of it that we could use for smaller projects. Sometimes, we do projects for commercial customers who would benefit from something like DOORS, but it's just so expensive. It's just a monster, so a lower-cost version would be the thing that we'd like to see.

I have been using this solution on and off for about eight years.

It is incredibly stable. We've never had a problem with its stability.

In the projects we've done, we've never bumped into a limit where we needed to do anything to accommodate the project. It just works. So, we've never had to scale it.

In terms of the number of users, we're limited to about three people who use it, and they're all hardware and software engineers. 

It is being used extensively. We use it every day. We could apply it to other things. If there was a lower-cost version of it, we would probably use it more widely through our projects, so that's really more a function of the cost of the product than the usability of it. 

I didn't have any encounters with them.

DOORS is the only system we've used for this purpose. In other cases, we create massive spreadsheets that have links in them and are completely unmanageable, but they do the work.

I wasn't involved in that.

I don't personally know what the numbers are. I just know that one of the reasons we've limited it to three seats is a function of cost.

I would rate IBM Rational DOORS a 10 out of 10. The main reason is that it's what our customers use and what we've been using for many years now, and I don't see any reason to change, frankly.