The new Advanced Requirements module adds versioned requirements reuse, variant management, and end-to-end traceability, giving release owners a clearer evidence trail from requirement to test.
Requirements management moves closer to release governance
Advanced Requirements brings enterprise requirements management into the SDP portfolio. Teams can manage requirement versions, reuse approved content, support product variants, and report across the requirement lifecycle.
For release leaders, the material benefit is traceability that can be reviewed rather than reconstructed. When a release decision is challenged, teams need to show which requirements changed, which tests cover them, and where evidence resides. This module is designed to make that chain more available for governance, audit, and portfolio reporting.
The module is separately licensed. Organizations should confirm licensing and establish ownership for requirement baselines, reuse policies, and variant definitions before broad rollout.
CI & Code centralizes UFT test assets and execution evidence
The new CI & Code module enables UFT tests to be stored directly in its repository and automatically imported into SDP. Test suites can run on demand or on a schedule, with results stored securely in the platform.
This matters where test assets and execution evidence are split across several tools. Centralizing supported UFT test storage and results can reduce manual evidence collection and make release reporting less dependent on cross-tool reconciliation.
CI & Code is also separately licensed. Architecture teams should assess it against their current source control, CI, artifact, and test orchestration standards rather than treating it as an automatic replacement for existing tooling.
Pipeline integrations and test APIs improve delivery evidence
SDP 26.3 extends the connection between delivery automation and quality records:
- Harness CI integration can collect pipeline and test results, run pipelines, and support webhook communication.
- GitLab workflow runs can appear as separate pipeline views in SDP.
- Automated test attachments can be added to the latest automated runs.
- The automated test result injection API now supports coverage, quality stories, tags, sprint, environment, run-by user, and custom fields.
- Custom entities now have public REST API and Swagger support.
These changes allow teams to retain more context with automated results. A failed test is more actionable when it is tied to the relevant requirement, quality story, environment, sprint, and pipeline run. Data standards still matter: inconsistent tags or environment names will weaken reporting, no matter how complete the API payload is.
Stronger workflow controls protect test and record integrity
The release expands business-rule coverage in areas that frequently create audit and operational risk. Rules can now prevent changes to item attachments, lock finalized manual run steps through UI and REST updates, and react to attachment additions or edits with email or webhook actions.
Reference-field business rules also enforce modified lookup-list filters during API and bulk updates. This closes a common governance gap where UI validation exists but integration or bulk paths can save values that no longer meet policy.
For teams operating under formal controls, these capabilities support clearer separation between execution, review, and evidence preservation. Rule sets should be tested against service accounts, bulk imports, and exception workflows before production enforcement.
Better dashboards, search, and planning controls
Several usability changes affect how leaders and practitioners find and interpret delivery data:
- Dynamic dashboard filters can synchronize the scope of multiple linked widgets.
- Exact-phrase matching is available in global and context search.
- String, list, and reference filters gain Starts with, Contains, and Does not contain operators.
- Epics can be assigned to release-specific milestones when the relevant space parameter is enabled.
- Excel exports show additional reference fields in an ID - Name format.
- Backlog Items, Features, and Defects grid and board views now have a default 100,000-item display limit.
Dashboard synchronization helps avoid a familiar reporting problem: adjacent widgets showing different scopes without the viewer noticing. The new grid and board limit also requires attention. Large spaces should use filters as part of normal work practices, not only after users reach the display threshold.
Predefined cross-release cycle-time and resolution-time widgets are deprecated. OpenText recommends replacing them with custom widgets for data accuracy. Teams should inventory executive dashboards and validate metric definitions before the old widgets create misleading trend reports.
AI response governance becomes more targeted
DevOps Aviator knowledge sources can now be scoped to selected entities or workspaces. This enables administrators to limit a source to a specific product, team, or defined context rather than exposing it broadly.
Users can also set a default reply language, while administrators control selectable additional languages through the GENAI_ADDITIONAL_SUPPORTED_LANGUAGES parameter. Knowledge scoping is the more consequential change for enterprise governance because it supports better separation of product information, team-specific guidance, and access boundaries.
Administration and integration changes to plan for
Data access category management now supports up to 126 categories and includes grid-based search, sorting, and filtering. Space-level API keys can be temporarily deactivated and later restored with the same secret, which is useful for controlled incident response or planned access suspension.
Swagger has been upgraded to OAS 3.0. Existing spaces retain OAS 2.0 as the default, so integration owners should plan migration deliberately, test generated clients, and avoid assuming an automatic contract change. External-actions documentation has also been reorganized into end-to-end guidance by action type, including CORS and user identification.
How Merito helps
Merito helps enterprises turn release capabilities into governed operating practices. We can assess the current SDP configuration, design requirements and test traceability models, define API and pipeline data standards, and validate business rules before enforcement.
For 26.3, the priority is not enabling every feature. It is selecting the capabilities that improve release evidence, preserve data integrity, and fit the organization's delivery controls.
Merito is an authorized OpenText reseller and services partner. Our OpenText SDP team can scope licensing, sizing, and rollout for 26.3, and our enterprise upgrade services help you plan and validate the upgrade with minimal disruption to release schedules.
