Non Functional Requirement Checklist

Security

1. Login requirements - access levels, CRUD levels 
2. Password requirements - length, special characters, expiry, recycling policies 
3. Inactivity timeouts – durations, actions 

Audit

1. Audited elements – what business elements will be audited? 
2. Audited fields – which data fields will be audited? 
3. Audit file characteristics - before image, after image, user and time stamp, etc 

Performance

• Response times - application loading, screen open and refresh times, etc 
• Processing times – functions, calculations, imports, exports 
• Query and Reporting times – initial loads and subsequent loads

Capacity 

• Throughput – how many transactions per hour does the system need to be able to handle? 
• Storage – how much data does the system need to be able to store? 
• Year-on-year growth requirements 

Availability 

• Hours of operation – when is it available? Consider weekends, holidays, maintenance times, etc 
• Locations of operation – where should it be available from, what are the connection requirements? 

Reliability 

• Mean Time Between Failures – What is the acceptable threshold for down-time? e.g. one a year, 4,000 hours 
• Mean Time To Recovery – if broken, how much time is available to get the system back up again? 

Integrity 

• Fault trapping (I/O) – how to handle electronic interface failures, etc 
• Bad data trapping - data imports, flag-and-continue or stop the import policies, etc 
• Data integrity – referential integrity in database tables and interfaces 
• Image compression and decompression standards 

Recovery 

• Recovery process – how do recoveries work, what is the process? 
• Recovery time scales – how quickly should a recovery take to perform? 
• Backup frequencies – how often is the transaction data, set-up data, and system (code) backed-up? 
• Backup generations - what are the requirements for restoring to previous instance(s)? 

Compatibility 

• Compatibility with shared applications – What other systems does it need to talk to? 
• Compatibility with 3rd party applications – What other systems does it have to live with amicably? 
• Compatibility on different operating systems – What does it have to be able to run on? 
• Compatibility on different platforms – What are the hardware platforms it needs to work on? 

Maintainability 

• Conformance to architecture standards – What are the standards it needs to conform to or have exclusions from? 
• Conformance to design standards – What design standards must be adhered to or exclusions created? 
• Conformance to coding standards – What coding standards must be adhered to or exclusions created? 

Usability 

• Look and feel standards - screen element density, layout and flow, colours, UI metaphors, keyboard shortcuts 
• Internationalization / localization requirements – languages, spellings, keyboards, paper sizes, etc 

Documentation 

• Required documentation items and audiences for each item