Weight requirements by risk

Requirements differ in how much they matter to your business, and weights capture that difference. When you rate each requirement's risk, Tosca Cloud calculates a weight that ranks it against the others.

Those weights contribute to your requirement metrics, so your results reflect risk instead of a flat pass/fail count. This lets you prioritize your testing and communicate release readiness to stakeholders.

Before you start

You weight a requirement and its linked items using three columns on the Requirements page: Damage class, Frequency class, and Weight. Here's what they describe:

  • Damage class: Helps you define how much damage it would cause if the requirement failed.

  • Frequency class: Helps you define how often the requirement is used.

  • Weight: Calculates automatically and combines the two classes into a final risk score, calculated as 2^Damage class × 2^Frequency class.

High damage and frequency scores produce a far greater weight than low scores.

Weight a requirement

Define the two class values and let Tosca Cloud calculate the Weight, or define it manually.

To weight a requirement automatically, follow these steps:

  1. On the Requirements page, locate the requirement you want to weight.

  2. Enter a value from 0 to 10 in the Damage class field.

  3. Enter a value from 0 to 10 in the Frequency class field.

  4. Select Save.

To set the weight yourself instead, enter a value directly in the Weight column. A manual weight overrides the calculated value and stays fixed regardless of the class values.

Weight a test case link

When a requirement has multiple test cases linked to it, you can individually assign a weight for each test case link to control how much it contributes to the requirement's calculation of coverage specified, coverage run, and run results.

Unlike a requirement, damage and frequency classes don't apply to test case links, so you directly assign a test case link's weight. To do so, enter a value of 0 or greater in the Weight field and select Save.

Keep the following in mind when you choose a weight for test case links:

  • If you don't assign a weight, Tosca Cloud uses a default of 1, so any links you haven't weighted contribute equally to the metrics calculation.

  • If you enter 0, Tosca Cloud excludes a test case link from the requirement's metrics.

What's next

After you weight your requirements and their test case links, it's time to analyze their metrics for coverage and run progress insights.