Tracebility Matrix in Software Testing

What exactly is Traceability Matrix?

First of all by name itself Trace gives the meaning that something has to be traced. Similarly for Software Testing everything has to be traced. In large projects each and every data has to be maintained for future reference. So there is a concept called Traceability Matrix.

So while preparing Traceability Matrix it can be done using Excel sheet or any other Test Management Tool  like Quality Center also. While preparing  Traceability Matrix in Excel these are the main things which need to be concentrated i.e,
Sample Template
Requirements ID  Req ID1.1  Req ID1.2  Req ID1.3  Req ID1.4  Req ID1.5 

Test Cases id
TC1.1
TC1.2
TC1.3
TC1.4
TC1.5

If a Tester leaves the organization and if he doesnot fill the report of   Traceability Matrix, how will the New Tester come to know what and all Test Cases have been written to which Requirement IDs.

So  Traceability Matrix  gives the entire coverage of How many Test Cases have been written, how many Test Cases executed, which defect has been raised on which Test Cases etc.

In Quality Center Test Coverage analysis prepares automatically all the reports and generates it after linkage is done by Testers of Test Cases to Requirements.