Argument verification

The assessment of an assurance case is based on the review of the provided evidence. When the evidence changes then the argument assessment should also be updated or some other actions should be started depending on the scope of changes. NOR-STA can connect to integrated repositories like SharePoint, Jira or Confluence to check for the changes of evidence. Detected changes can be reported for the assurance case user and the defined actions can be performed automatically.

The verification process is performed in three steps:

  • Verification rules can be specified for a project or template. The rule specifies an event type like new evidence, modification or removal and a reaction for the event like removal of the assessment or setting negative assessment.
  • The user can run the verification check in an assurance case to get the list of evidence changes and affected argument elements. The user can go directly to the listed elements of the argument to review it and react manually. NOR-STA will stop reporting a problem when the assessment of the impacted argument elements is updated or confirmed after the evidence change. NOR-STA reads the time of last modification of files in the connected repositories to check this.
  • The user can also run the actions proposed by NOR-STA according to the defined verification rules. The default action is to delete all the assessments of affected elements. This will make the assessment of the argument incomplete and create the need for review and reassessment of the argument.

The verification function is one of the new features in NOR-STA 7.5. The new version also brings some other new features:

  • diagrams of modular arguments:
    • users can edit the layout of modular diagrams,
    • diagrams can be exported to SVG and PNG;
  • report for modular arguments to Word and PDF customizable with Visual Basic script,
    • the default report template produces the list of evidence in argument modules;
  • extended function of synchronization with the template:
    • synchronization of interfaces and verification settings,
    • new tags for template elements to be skipped in the synchronization or synchronized once only;
  • improved integration with SharePoint: adaptation for Seamless SSO.

To learn more how NOR-STA supports assurance case management go to the Assurance case page.