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Requirements Management

Learn how to create, edit, and manage requirements in Glossa.

Written by Ali
Updated this week

Overview

Requirements are the core building blocks of your Glossa projects. Each requirement captures a specific need, feature, or specification from your discovery process, complete with citations back to the original source conversation or document.

How Requirements Are Created

Automatic Generation from Files

When you upload a file to a project, Glossa automatically generates requirements from the content:

  1. Upload a document, meeting recording, or other file to your project

  2. Processing typically takes 2-6 minutes depending on file size

  3. All requirements are initially created in draft status for your review

  4. Each requirement includes citations to the specific parts of the file where it originated

Manual Creation

You can also create requirements manually:

  1. Go to the Requirements tab in your project

  2. Click New Requirement or Create Requirement

  3. Fill in the requirement details:

    • Title (required)

    • Description

    • Priority

    • Status

    • Type

    • Category

  4. Optionally associate the requirement with an existing file (though not a specific section within that file)

  5. Save the requirement

Note: When creating a requirement manually, you set the initial status. If you don't select a status, it will remain blank.

Requirement Fields

Each requirement has the following attributes:

Field

Description

ID

Auto-generated unique identifier (e.g., PAW-PAWS-0001)

Title

Short name for the requirement

Description

Detailed explanation of what's needed

Priority

Importance level of the requirement

Status

Current state (see statuses below)

Type

Type of requirement (see types below)

Category

Grouping based on your organization's Library. Assigned through Capability Review or manually. See the Library article.

Quality Score

AI-assessed quality rating (see AI Review)

Requirement ID System

Requirements are automatically assigned unique IDs that concatenate:

  • First few characters of the client name

  • First few characters of the project name

  • Incrementing number

Example: For client "Pawsitive" and project "Pawsome CRM", IDs would be: PAW-PAWS-0001, PAW-PAWS-0002, etc.

Requirement Statuses

Requirements can have the following statuses:

  • Draft - Initially created, awaiting review

  • In Progress - Actively being worked on

  • Approved - Reviewed and validated

  • Deferred - Postponed to a later phase

  • Canceled - No longer needed

  • Merged - Combined with another requirement (see Conflict Detection)

  • Sent to Jira - Exported to Jira (see Jira Integration)

Requirement Types

Each requirement must be classified as one of four types:

  • Functional - Features and capabilities the system must perform

  • Non-functional - Quality attributes like performance, scalability, usability

  • Security - Security controls and requirements

  • Compliance - Regulatory or policy requirements

These types are fixed and cannot be customized.

Categories

Categories are organizational groupings drawn from your Capabilities Library. Each category can contain nested capabilities — specific components with scope items, assumptions, complexity drivers, and typical hours.

Key points about categories:

  • Categories come from your organization's Library, built by importing historical SOWs

  • Categories can also be created manually

  • Each category can contain multiple capabilities (two-level hierarchy)

  • Each requirement can belong to only one category

  • Categories are assigned to projects through Capability Review (recommended) or manually

  • Categories are reusable across projects

See the Library article for details on building and managing your Library, and the Capability Review article for how categories get assigned to projects.

Quality Score

Each requirement receives an AI-generated quality score based on standard criteria. This is part of the AI Review feature. See the AI Review article for complete details.

Quick overview:

  • Quality scores flag requirements that are vague or unclear

  • Criteria used depend on your project's Requirement Level:

    • Broad Strokes: Clear, Correct, Feasible

    • Balanced: Traceable, Unambiguous, Testable, Clear, Correct, Feasible

    • Granular: Traceable, Unambiguous, Testable, Clear, Correct, Feasible, Independent, Atomic, Implementation-Free

  • You can re-run the review after editing a requirement to get an updated score

  • Users cannot manually adjust scores

Managing Requirements

Viewing Requirements

Access your requirements from the Requirements tab in your project. The requirements table shows:

  • All requirement fields

  • Number of associated tasks

  • Quality score

  • Status and priority indicators

Filtering and Sorting

Filter by:

  • Type (Functional, Non-functional, Security, Compliance)

  • Priority

  • Category

  • Quality Score

  • Status

Sort by:

  • ID

  • Name

  • Tasks (count)

  • Quality Score

  • Priority

  • Status

  • Type

  • Category

  • Updated By

Editing Requirements

Editing a Single Requirement

You have two options for editing individual requirements:

Option 1: Quick Edit from Table

  1. Click the three-dot menu (⋮) at the end of any requirement row

  2. A side panel opens with all editable fields

  3. Make your changes

  4. Save

Option 2: Full Requirement View

  1. Click on the requirement to open the full detail view

  2. Edit any fields

  3. View and manage citations, acceptance criteria, and tasks in their respective tabs

  4. Save changes

Bulk Editing Multiple Requirements

You can update fields across multiple requirements at once using Bulk Edit:

  1. On the Requirements tab, use the checkboxes to select the requirements you want to update

  2. Click the Edit button in the toolbar (the button shows how many requirements are selected, e.g., "Edit (4)")

  3. A Bulk Edit panel opens on the right side of the screen with four fields: Priority, Status, Type, and Category

  4. Each field defaults to "No change" — only update the fields you want to change. Fields left on "No change" will keep their existing values on each requirement.

  5. Click Apply Changes

Tips for bulk editing:

  • Use filters first: You can filter the requirements list before selecting checkboxes, and your selections are preserved when you change filters. This makes it easy to find and select specific requirements across a large list — for example, filter by "Draft" status, select the ones you want, then clear the filter and select more.

  • Partial updates are fine: If you just need to move 20 requirements to "In Progress" status, set only the Status field and leave Priority, Type, and Category on "No change."

Linking Requirements

Requirements can only be linked to each other through the Conflict Detection system:

  • Requirements flagged as potentially contradictory or overlapping are automatically linked

  • You cannot manually create dependencies between requirements

  • For organizing related requirements, use Categories from your Library to group requirements by functional area

Duplicate Requirements

Glossa's Contradiction Checker automatically detects duplicate and overlapping requirements. See the Conflict Detection article for details on how duplicates are identified and resolved.

Bulk Actions

Bulk Edit: Select multiple requirements using checkboxes, then click Edit to update Priority, Status, Type, and/or Category across all selected requirements at once. See "Bulk Editing Multiple Requirements" above for details.

Export: You can bulk export requirements to CSV format. See the Exporting Requirements article.

Acceptance Criteria: You can generate acceptance criteria for multiple requirements at once by selecting them in the table and choosing Generate ACs for All Requirements.

Best Practices

When Creating Requirements Manually

  • Write clear, specific titles that describe what's needed

  • Include enough detail in the description for developers to understand the scope

  • Set an appropriate status, priority, and type

  • Associate the requirement with a file if it relates to uploaded content

Organizing Requirements

  • Use Categories from your Library to group related requirements by functional area — see the Capability Review article for how to assign categories to a project

Quality Management

  • Run AI Review on requirements to identify unclear or vague language

  • Address low-quality scores before sharing requirements with development teams

  • Re-run reviews after making significant edits to requirements

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