1. Requirements

1.1 Notes

NPR 7150.2, NASA Software Engineering Requirements, does not include any notes for this requirement.

1.2 History

1.3 Applicability Across Classes

2. Rationale

Configuration status accounting (CSA) provides a way for a project to determine the content of configuration items (CIs) throughout the life cycle by capturing the status of submitted products such as data, models, scripts, code, and their associated change requests. It also allows project managers to monitor the developing software and know, based on status accounting reports, the contents of versions and releases of software. See also SWE-063 - Release Version Description.

3. Guidance

4.5.3 Status Accounting
"While the status information can be compiled by hand, it can be a tedious process. Many tools exist that provide an integrated configuration management system for all kinds of documents, including source code, and that can generate the status reports when requested. Some of these tools are free or low-priced." 

3.1 Configuration Status Accounting

Configuration status accounting generates and/or maintains records of the status and contents of the software throughout the life cycle. This function keeps track of the changes and the contents of versions and releases.  Both the acquirer and the provider need to have a status accounting system. See also SWE-063 - Release Version Description, SWE-080 - Track and Evaluate Changes, SWE-084 - Configuration Audits, SWE-085 - Release Management, 

When preparing status accounting records, consider the intended audience for those records and prepare them so that the receiver can obtain the information they need quickly and clearly. Consider the following information for CSA records:

• Stages of incompleteness, correctness, and obsoleteness for each CI.
• Identify each stage (e.g., draft, under review, ready for integration/delivery, operational, superseded).
• Status of each CI (version, whether it is checked-out when it was last updated, who made the changes, and what was changed).
• Status of change requests/problem reports. See also Topic 5.01 - CR-PR - Software Change Request - Problem Report, 

The SMA (Safety and Mission Assurance) Technical Excellence Program (STEP) Level 2 Software Configuration Management and Data Management course   provide a set of questions useful for determining the type of status accounting data that is important to a project. If the answers are important, then the appropriate data needs to be collected and reported as part of CSA. A few of those questions are shown below:

3.2 Data Management

When establishing status accounting activities, consider coordinating or applying the same concepts as part of data management activities.  A basic description of data management is provided in SWE-079 - Develop CM Plan.

Once the information to be captured, collected, and reported has been defined, it is captured in the CM plan (see SWE-079 - Develop CM Plan and 5.06 - SCMP - Software Configuration Management Plan).

3.3 Additional Guidance

Additional guidance related to this requirement may be found in the following materials in this Handbook:

3.4 Center Process Asset Libraries

See the following link(s) in SPAN for process assets from contributing Centers (NASA Only). 

4. Small Projects

Projects with limited personnel and access to an automated CM tool that has reporting features may find that those features are helpful in fulfilling this requirement.

5. Resources

5.1 References

5.2 Tools

6. Lessons Learned

6.1 NASA Lessons Learned

No Lessons Learned have currently been identified for this requirement.

6.2 Other Lessons Learned

No other Lessons Learned have currently been identified for this requirement.

7. Software Assurance

7.1 Tasking for Software Assurance

7.2 Software Assurance Products

• None at this time
  

  
  

  Software Problem reporting or defect tracking data Software configuration management system data Software assurance audit results of the change management processes. Software version description document(s).

7.3 Metrics

• None identified at this time.

7.4 Guidance

The software engineering guidance in SWE-083 (this requirement) provides guidance on the types of configuration records that should be kept. Particularly important are the records of the items and their versions in each baseline, and the records of the configurations that are being delivered and described in the version description documents that accompany a delivery. Confirm that all the configuration management records are being kept and that they are accurate.

7.5 Additional Guidance

Additional guidance related to this requirement may be found in the following materials in this Handbook: