Configuring QVscribe for MS Office (Word and Excel)

The QVscribe Configuration Window allows users to customize how QVscribe analyzes requirements and displays analysis results.

These configuration settings apply to QVscribe for Microsoft Office, including:

Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel

Configurations allow teams to tailor requirement analysis to match their organizational standards and authoring processes.

Selecting a Configuration

The way QVscribe analyzes requirements depends on the active analysis configuration.

To select a configuration:

Open the QVscribe tab in the Microsoft Office ribbon.
Select a configuration from the configuration dropdown menu.

Selecting a configuration will apply that configuration to the QVscribe analysis in the active worksheet or document.

⚠️ Note: All users can select configurations, but modifying configuration settings requires the “Configuration Author” role.

Overview of the Configuration Window

The QVscribe Configuration Window contains the following main tabs:

Problem Types
Glossary
Unit Consistency
Exclusion Prefixes
Templates

These settings allow configuration authors to customize the quality indicators used during requirement analysis.

Problem Types

The Problem Types tab allows users to customize the types of language issues detected during requirement analysis.

The tab contains sixteen categories,each representing a class of words or phrases associated with a specific quality indicator.

Each category contains two lists:

QVscribe Words
Words used during QVscribe analysis.

Example Words
Common examples of words typically associated with that problem type.

The QVscribe list is pre-populated with the example words but can be modified to match your organization’s requirements standards.

Managing Problem Type Words

Adding a Word or Phrase

Click Add below the list.
Enter the new word or phrase.
Click OK.

Editing a Word or Phrase

Select the word from the list.
Click Edit.
Modify the word or phrase.
Click OK.

Removing a Word or Phrase

Select the word in the list.
Click Remove.

Glossary

The Glossary allows organizations to define approved terms and definitions to promote consistent language across requirements.

Using a glossary helps:

improve requirement clarity
reduce ambiguous language
standardize terminology across teams

Glossary entries can also allow specific terms or acronyms that might otherwise trigger analysis warnings.

Managing Glossary Terms

You can:

Add new terms
Edit existing terms
Remove terms

Glossary lists can also be:

Imported from a .csv file
Exported for reuse

Unit Consistency

QVscribe detects measurement units within requirements and verifies they are used consistently.

The Unit Consistency configuration maintains a list of:

unit names
unit types
common abbreviations

Units can be:

added
edited
removed
enabled or disabled

You can also specify whether a unit belongs to the International System of Units (SI).

This allows filtering of SI or non-SI units in requirement analysis.

Exclusion Prefixes

Requirements documents often include explanatory sections such as:

comments
rationale
background notes

These sections are not intended to follow strict requirement writing rules and should not affect quality analysis.

The Exclusion Prefixes tab allows configuration authors to define prefixes used to mark text that should be excluded from analysis.

Example prefixes may include:

Rationale:
Note:
Comment:

⚠️ Note:
The paragraph must begin with the prefix for QVscribe to exclude it from analysis.

Templates

QVscribe provides assistance for authors using the Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax (EARS).

The Templates tab allows configuration authors to enable or disable EARS conformance checking.

When enabled, QVscribe will:

detect EARS structures
evaluate requirement conformance with EARS templates
include EARS results in the requirement quality analysis

If EARS does not align with your organization’s authoring approach, this feature can be disabled.