Still Using Word or Excel?

When it comes to tracking and managing your requirements, Excel, Word, and other general-purpose tools (like issue trackers, and wikis) are readily available and your team already knows how to use them.

As a result, many teams end up using such tools to manage their requirements. But they are outdated tools for managing requirements. Why? Using such “general purpose” tools to track and manage your requirements can lead to:

• Incomplete Requirements
  • As these are all general-purpose tools, it is very hard to gather requirements in a structured fashion. This often leads to incomplete requirements – one of the biggest reasons for project failures in a large study by The Standish Group.
• Incorrect Requirements
  • Requirements documents created using Excel and Word usually are stored on the author’s computer, and are not accessible by others in real-time.
  • This makes it harder to share, discuss, validate, and track changes – frequently leading to incorrect requirements which often cause project delays & failures.
• Lost Requirements
  • Most importantly – it is very easy for requirements to drop through the cracks when using Excel/Word/wikis to manage them. Even critical requirements can be lost when the author forgets, is reassigned, or leaves your organization.

Accompa is an easy-to-use and proven software used by 100s of companies of all sizes (from Fortune-500s to growing startups) to manage their requirements.

It is customizable to fit your organization’s needs. It is also affordable – it starts at just $199/month.

It has the following features that help you avoid the shortcomings of general-purpose tools…

Store & Manage Structured Requirements, in a Central Repository

• Store structured requirements in a central, web based database – instead of in unstructured documents and emails on the PCs of individuals like product managers or engineers.
• Create, track & manage requirements, features and use cases for your products/projects right from your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Safari) – without installing or maintaining any software.
• Access securely from anywhere (work, home or road) with any computer connected to the Internet.
• Enable multiple users to simultaneously access up-to-date requirements.

Customize to Fit Your Needs

• Customize Accompa right from your web browser, to fit the unique needs of your organization and users.
• Create unlimited custom fields to capture and track all aspects of your requirements.
• Create custom views to manage requirements for multiple products/projects.
• Define custom user roles to implement access privileges based on a user’s role in your organization.
• Integrate Accompa with other software used by your organization (such as bug trackers, test case tools, in-house applications, etc.) using Accompa REST API. Implement Single-Sign-On (SSO) to integrate user login with your Active Directory or LDAP.

Automate Gathering of Requirements With Custom Web Forms & Emails

• Gather feature requests over the web using custom web forms called “SmartForms.”
• Gather feature requests via email using custom email addresses called “SmartEmails.”
• Create unlimited number of SmartForms & SmartEmails for use in gathering requirements from customers as well as internal stakeholders such as Sales and Support teams.
• SmartForm and SmartEmail submissions are automatically converted into requirements using custom rules to save you valuable time. Review these submissions easily and process them for further action.

Track Changes & Dependencies Automatically

• Track dependencies and relationships between requirements easily – and avoid missed requirements which often lead to project failures.
• Perform quick impact analysis when changing, removing or deferring a requirement from a project.
• Meet your auditing & change management goals easily using baselines and automatic change history tracking.
• Ensure completeness of requirements in a project using features such as traceability matrix.

Share Requirements & Collaborate in Real-Time

• Share requirements across different departments of your organization in real-time – securely over the web.
• Collaborate via easy-to-use tools such as integrated discussion boards.
• Identify the most popular requirement themes using our powerful Social Tags.
• Get automatic email alerts on requirements, discussions, products and projects of interest to you.

Prioritize Requirements Using Systematic Methodology

• Prioritize requirements using repeatable, systematic methodology based on ROI (Return on Investment) metrics.
• Create custom formula to calculate ROI of your requirements, to fit criteria important to your organization.
• Say goodbye to prioritization based on ad-hoc methods and judgment calls.
• Focus your resources on highest value requirements – instead of just requirements that seem interesting.

Save Time & Eliminate Hassles Using Powerful Capabilities

• Find requirements of interest to you instantly using Accompa’s powerful search.
• Group and manage requirements and features in a hierarchical structure using interactive trees.
• Create and use requirements baselines to achieve powerful change management capabilities.
• Import from Excel with just a few clicks; Export with a single-click to Microsoft Word, Excel or HTML.

Generate Requirements Documents Using Intuitive Wizards

• Save time and reduce hassles involved in creating requirements documents such as MRD (market requirements document), PRD (product requirements document) or SRS (software requirements specifications).
• Create requirements documents (MRD, PRD or SRS) right from Accompa using intuitive wizards.
• Export with a single-click to Microsoft Word, HTML, or PDF to work on them further.