ASIL Calculation in Codebeamer: Safety Ratings Without the Headache

Feb 3, 2026

Because managing Functional Safety shouldn’t feel like rocket science.

TL;DR

ASIL compliance is non-negotiable—but it doesn’t have to be a nightmare.
With Codebeamer’s support for automatic calculation, custom logic using choice IDs, and built-in warnings, you get:

  • Fewer errors
  • Faster risk analysis
  • Happier functional safety auditors

If you’re navigating the twists and turns of automotive development, chances are ASIL has already crossed your path—possibly more than you’d care to count. ASIL—Automotive Safety Integrity Level—is a crucial part of determining how safe your systems need to be. It helps answer questions like:

What happens if this fails?

How often could that happen?

Can the driver do anything about it?

These are very important things. But the calculation itself can get quite tedious when done manually.

The Three Building Blocks: S, E, C

ASIL is determined based on three factors:

  1. Severity (S) – How bad is the outcome?
    (e.g. S1: Light injuries → S3: Life-threatening)
  2. Exposure (E) – How often could this happen?
    (e.g. E1: Very rare → E4: Frequent)
  3. Controllability (C) – Can the driver react or avoid it?
    (e.g. C1: Easily controlled → C3: Difficult to control)

Each of these has a predefined scale, and when you plug them together, you get your ASIL rating:
QM, A, B, C, or D. ASIL D being the most critical, while QM stands for a Quality Managed process, meaning it’s a standard development process with no additional attention needed for ensuring safety.

Now here’s where Codebeamer steps in with a little magic.

Enter ASIL: Automated

In Codebeamer, once you define S, E, and C for a hazard or function, the system can automatically calculate the ASIL level for you.

You just:

  1. Set the values for Severity, Exposure, and Controllability
  2. Configure the computation and let it do its thing
  3. Get your ASIL result: instantly, and always up-to-date

Bonus: you can even adapt the output logic to fit your internal standards or functional safety framework, in case of stricter in-house rules and risk management strategy. If you need custom mappings, just go for it.

The Pro Move: Use Choice Option IDs

Here’s a little behind-the-scenes tip we prefer using:

Instead of using labels like “S1” or “E3” in our formulas, we reference the choice option IDs.

Why?

  • They’re admin-defined
  • They stay stable and consistent
  • Your formula becomes cleaner, safer, and easier to update and maintain

So instead of writing:

(severities.name == "S3" && exposure.name == "E4" && controllability.name == "C3") ? "ASIL D" : empty

…you use something like:

(severities.id == 3 && exposure.id == 4 && controllability.id == 3) ? "ASIL D" : empty

Where 3, 4, and 3 are the IDs of your configured choice options, and severities, exposure, and controllability should be replaced with the field’s property name. This is a simplified example for a single ASIL level, but the formula can be extended to incorporate all levels.

And you can still show the friendly labels to users, while the logic runs invisibly in the background.

Built-in Safety Checks

Worried about consistency across your system hierarchy?

Codebeamer can alert you when ASIL levels don’t align between parent and child items—so you don’t “accidentally” decompose a D-level item into three QM-level sub-requirements.

It’s like having a friendly functional safety expert double-checking your logic every step of the way.

Need help setting up your ASPICE logic in Codebeamer?
Drop us a line — this is what we do.