There are two operational settings for the Grader Tool: (1) normal use as a functioning software system; (2) use as an example in software engineering courses.

The Grader Tool is intended to be general public domain software. As such, there is no specific operational setting in which it must be installed. The setting for which it is appropriately suited is an classroom environment of some form, where users maintain a record of grades and need to access them in various ways.

As noted in the preceding section on system personnel, there are two primary customer for the Grader Tool, and they are representative of customers in a particular university department. As such, the tool's requirements reflect the point of view of the customer base, including their work setting.

For use as a pedagogical example, the Grader Tool has been designed to fit the curriculum used by Gene Fisher in undergraduate and graduate software engineering courses at Cal Poly University. These courses are two-quarter sequences that cover standard aspects of software engineering, with emphasis on the practical application of formal methods. For the most part, the concepts covered in these courses, and hence the concepts embodied in the Grader Tool, are mainstream software engineering. Other instructors may therefore find the Grader Tool and its development artifacts useful as course examples.