IBM DOORS Reviews

We use DOORS to document system requirements and inherit customer equirement maintain standard and conformity. It helps in traceability of requirements and restricts changes to requirements by anyone. In order to make changes to the requirements, one needs RCR (Requirements change request) which would be reviewed and approved before applying changes. It would help in impact analysis and version tracking.

It is a great tool for requirement gathering and elicitation. It brings all the business analysts in a team on the same page as everyone has the same understanding on requirements.The traceability to system requirements, customer requirement and test cases helps all teams to reference each other's work in an easier manner.

IBM DOORS has helped in keeping requirements wording and structure standard across all customer documents. It's export functionality helps in producing quality requirements with ease within short time frame. This helped in supporting multiple clients at the same time with lesser chances of errors.

• The product is less configurable in terms of Menu options. The replication of data is not as easy as excel across the rows/columns. In order to replicate, the user needs to go to each cell and make the change
• Upon losing connection to VPN/internet, DOORS can lose the content written and this requires it to be redone. The product should at least send a notification to the user about lost connections to avoid rework
• The images added in DOORS are not exported easily in word documents. They do not scale as expected

I used the tool for two years.

The software came pre-installed with the machine but DOORS upgrade took long time. It slows the machine and additional RAM is required on machines with DOORS.

Customer service is good as we got an IBM consultant to fix issues or code, but his support is limited to minor bugs. Major enhancements and bugs had to be escalated and sent to IBM which had a longer turn around time.

I have used HP Quality Center but DOORS provides better standardization and maintainability of requirements.

It was straightforward as it came pre-installed on my company machine.

It was through a vendor team. The implementation and training was smooth, but the enhancements and bug fixing took long time.

It is an expensive software but worth the spending for a larger firm which require standards across customers.

I was not offered any other option. The company has used this tool for years for requirement gathering and maintenance.

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
• Baselines
• Ability to customize using DXL

Having clear requirements is essential in delivering the right product.

I've used it for 18 years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

8/10

8/10

When I started using DOORS, there were several other relational management tools in use at Boeing (where I worked then). We set DOORS as our standard. Now, I work for another Large US Aerospace Company, and DOORS is our standard.

The setup is very simple. It licenses, and runs the two executables, server and clent, and you are done.

Although DOORS is very easy to use, the actual database needs to be set up correctly and users must follow a well-defined process. This is where most customers have issues with DOORS.

The best advice is to use tokens so you can use all the appropriate IBM tools.

Over the years supporting requirements management, I have participated in many trade studies where tools were evaluated. DOORS won most every time. Tools under consideration were Slate, Requisite Pro, RDD100, RTM, Razor, and TcSE.

• 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 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.

• Configuration management
• Requirements linking
• Access control
• DXL5

It enables us to manage our customers' requirements effectively and efficiently.

They need to improve the DOORS change proposal.

I've used it for six months.

No issues encountered.

It can crash, but it doesn't happen too often.

I've not used their customer service.

No previous solution was in place.

We did it in-house, but I wasn't involved.

Use right license model to suit your needs.

Get someone who is familiar with the product to manage

I use Rational DOORS to define requirements during the software development process and share databases with our suppliers.

Rational DOORS' most valuable feature is that you can write any kind of requirement you want.

Rational DOORS doesn't support the agile process.

I've been using Rational DOORS for over ten years.

Rational DOORS is stable about 70-80% of the time.

Rational DOORS is easy to scale.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We used a vendor team.

I would give Rational DOORS a rating of nine out of ten.

Our primary use case of this solution is mainly to manage all of the requirements, from the user requirements to the system requirements to the sub-system requirements. Also to manage traceability, the baseline, and the different baselines of the requirement. 

Traceability is the most valuable feature of this solution. I like that is has the capacity to manage traceability from one level of requirement to another.

The HMI is difficult to use and the user interface should be better.

The program is very stable.

It's a bit difficult to say how scalable this program is, because you are driven by the number of license that you have. I can't remember the model we're using, but I believe it is a floating license mode. Eventually, if you have too many people connected at the same time on IBM Rational DOORS, the last one can't access to the program. So the scalability is limited by the license scheme. We have around 10,000 users currently. 

Our technical support is managed internally. We don't have access directly to IBM. 

I did not manage the setup of the program, but I believe it is quite straightforward.

If you have a high number of requirements to manage and if there is a need to sustain these baseline of requirements for a couple of years, it is the right solution for you. However, if you have a small project, it's not mandatory.

In the next release of this product I would like to see a better user interface. I would like it to have the capacity to include drawing and to produce KPIs on the requirement baseline. Also, the kind of dashboard is not very convenient. 

On a scale from 1 to 10, I rate this product a seven.