Link Checker

What it is and why it exists

Requirement texts often point to other artifacts, standards, supplier documents or intranet pages. Over time, artifacts are deleted or moved to other configurations, and web pages change their addresses. The links stay in the text and quietly break.

A reviewer who clicks a broken link loses time and trust in the specification; an auditor may see it as a sign of poor document control. DOORS Next has no built-in way to check every hyperlink in a module. Link Checker was created to find all of them in one run, without changing anything.

Problems it solves

• Links to deleted artifacts or to artifacts that are not part of the current stream or baseline.
• Links to web pages that return "not found", have moved or no longer answer.
• No overview of link quality before a review, a baseline or a delivery to a customer.
• Checking links by hand, one artifact and one click at a time.

Benefits

• Complete check of every hyperlink in a module, with no limit on the number of artifacts.
• Clear diagnosis for every broken link: not found, gone, no access, unreachable or timed out.
• Read only: the widget never changes an artifact, so it can be used by anyone, at any time.
• Faster reviews and audits: fix the problems before reviewers or customers find them.

How to use

1. Open a module and click Find broken links. The widget reads every artifact and checks every link in its text.
2. Review the totals and the list of artifacts with broken links. Click an artifact to see each broken link, its text, address and the problem.
3. Use Show in module or Highlight in module to go to the artifacts, and fix the links in the editor.
4. To check only some artifacts, select them in DOORS Next; the widget checks them straight away. Check links again repeats the check after you have fixed them.

Good to know

• Each address is checked only once per run, however many artifacts use it.
• Some websites do not reveal their answer to other sites. In that case Link Checker reports whether the server is reachable at all.
• A setting limits the check to links between DOORS Next artifacts only.