Basis of Presentation	3 Months Ended
Jun. 30, 2013
Basis of Presentation [Abstract]
Basis of Presentation	Note 1 - Basis of Presentation The accompanying unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements ("financial statements") include the accounts of Compuware Corporation and its wholly owned subsidiaries (collectively, the "Company", "Compuware", "we", "our" and "us"). All inter-company balances and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation. The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America ("U.S. GAAP") for interim financial information and with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Article 10 of Regulation S-X. Accordingly, they do not include all of the information and notes required by U.S. GAAP for complete financial statements. U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, contingencies and results of operations. While management has based their assumptions and estimates on the facts and circumstances existing at June 30, 2013, final amounts may differ from these estimates. In the opinion of management of the Company, the accompanying financial statements reflect all adjustments, consisting only of normal recurring adjustments, necessary for a fair presentation of the results for the interim periods presented. These financial statements should be read in conjunction with the Company's audited consolidated financial statements and notes thereto for the year ended March 31, 2013 included in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). The condensed consolidated balance sheet at March 31, 2013 has been derived from the audited financial statements at that date but does not include all information and footnotes required by U.S. GAAP for complete financial statements. The results of operations for interim periods are not necessarily indicative of results expected to be achieved for the full fiscal year. Basis for Revenue Recognition The Company derives its revenue from licensing software products; providing maintenance and support services for those products; providing hosted software; and rendering professional and application services. Our software solutions are comprised of license fees, maintenance fees, subscription fees for hosted software and software related professional services fees. We sometimes enter into arrangements that include both software related deliverables (licensed software products, maintenance services or software related professional services) and non-software deliverables (hosted software, professional services unrelated to our software products or application services). Our hosted software and application services do not qualify as software deliverables because our license grant does not allow the customer the right or capability to take possession of the software. For arrangements that contain both software and non-software deliverables, in accordance with ASC 605 "Revenue Recognition," we allocate the arrangement consideration to the non-software deliverables as a group, and to the software deliverables as a group (the "Deliverable Groups"). We determine the selling price to allocate the arrangement consideration to the Deliverable Groups based on the following hierarchy of evidence: vendor specific objective evidence of selling price ("VSOE," meaning price when sold separately) if available; third-party evidence of selling price if VSOE is not available; or best estimated selling price if neither VSOE nor third-party evidence is available. We currently are unable to establish VSOE or third-party evidence of selling price for either our software related deliverables or our non-software deliverables as a group. Therefore, the best estimate of selling price for each Deliverable Group is determined primarily by considering various factors, including, but not limited to stated renewal rates in a contract, if any, the historical selling price of these deliverables in similar stand-alone transactions and pricing practices. Total arrangement consideration is then allocated on the basis of the Deliverable Group's relative selling price. Once we have allocated the arrangement consideration between the Deliverable Groups, we recognize revenue as described in the respective software license fees, maintenance fees, subscription fees, professional services fees and application services fees sections below. In order for a transaction to be eligible for revenue recognition, the following revenue criteria must be met: persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists, delivery has occurred, the fee is fixed or determinable, and collectability is reasonably assured. We evaluate collectability based on past customer history, external credit ratings and payment terms within various customer agreements. Software license fees The Company's software license agreements provide our customers with a right to use our software perpetually (perpetual licenses) or during a defined term (time-based licenses). Assuming all revenue recognition criteria are met, perpetual license fee revenue is recognized using the residual method, under which the fair value, based on VSOE, of all undelivered elements of the agreement (i.e., maintenance and software related professional services) is deferred. VSOE is based on rates charged for maintenance and professional services when sold separately. The remaining portion of the fee is recognized as license fee revenue upon delivery of the products. For revenue arrangements where there is a lack of VSOE for any undelivered elements, license fee revenue is deferred and recognized upon delivery of those elements or when VSOE can be established. However, when maintenance or software related professional services are the only undelivered elements, the license fee revenue is recognized on a ratable basis over the longer of the maintenance term or the period the software related professional services are expected to be performed. Such transactions include time-based licenses and certain unlimited capacity licenses, as the Company has not established VSOE for the undelivered elements in these arrangements. In order to comply with SEC Regulation S-X, Rule 5-03(b), which requires product, services and other categories of revenue to be displayed separately on the income statement, the Company separates the license fee, maintenance fee and software related professional services fee (which is included in professional services fees) associated with these types of arrangements based on its determination of fair value. The Company applies VSOE for maintenance related to perpetual license transactions and stand-alone software related professional services arrangements as a reasonable and consistent approximation of fair value to separate license fee, maintenance fee and software related professional services fee revenue for income statement classification purposes. The Company offers flexibility to customers purchasing licenses for its products and related maintenance. Terms of these transactions range from standard perpetual license sales that include one year of maintenance to large multi-year (generally two to five years), multi-product contracts. The Company allows deferred payment terms with installments collectable over the term of the contract. Based on the Company's successful collection history for deferred payments, license fees (net of any financing fees) are generally recognized as revenue as discussed above. In certain transactions where it cannot be concluded that the fee is fixed or determinable due to the nature of the deferred payment terms, the Company recognizes revenue as payments become due. Financing fees are recognized as interest income over the term of the related receivable. Maintenance fees The Company's maintenance arrangements allow customers to receive technical support and advice, including problem resolution services and assistance in product installation, error corrections and any product enhancements released during the maintenance period. The first year of maintenance is generally included with all license agreements. Maintenance fees are recognized ratably over the term of the maintenance arrangements, which generally range from one to five years. Subscription fees Subscription fees relate to arrangements that permit our customers to access and utilize our hosted software delivered on a software-as-a-service ("SaaS") basis. Subscription fees are deferred upon contract execution and are recognized ratably over the term of the subscription. Professional services fees The Company provides a broad range of IT services for mainframe, distributed, web and mobile environments, including mobile computing application development and integration, package software customization, cloud computing consulting, development and integration of legacy systems, IT portfolio management services, enterprise legacy modernization services and application performance management. The Company also offers implementation, consulting and training services in tandem with the Company's software solutions offerings, which are referred to as software related professional services. Professional services fees are generally based on hourly or daily rates. Revenues from professional services are recognized in the period the services are performed provided that collection of the related receivable is reasonably assured. For development services rendered under fixed-price contracts, revenues are recognized using the proportional performance method and if it is determined that costs will exceed revenue, the expected loss is recorded at the time the loss becomes apparent. Application services fees Our application services fees consist of fees related to our Covisint on-demand software including associated services. The arrangements do not provide customers the right to take possession of the software at any time, nor do the arrangements contain rights of return. Many of our application services contracts include a services project fee and a recurring fee for ongoing platform-as-a-service ("PaaS") operations. Certain services related to these projects have stand-alone value (e.g., other vendors provide similar services) and qualify as a separate unit of accounting. Services that have stand-alone value are recognized as delivered. For those services that do not have stand-alone value, the revenue is deferred and recognized over the longer of the committed term of the subscription agreement (generally one to five years) or the expected period over which the customer will receive benefit (generally five years). The recurring fees are recognized ratably over the applicable service period. Deferred revenue Deferred revenue consists primarily of billed and unbilled maintenance and subscription fees related to the future service period of maintenance and subscription agreements in effect at the reporting date. Deferred license, software related services and application services fees are also included in deferred revenue for those arrangements that are being recognized over time. Sales commission costs that directly relate to revenue transactions that are deferred are recorded as "prepaid expenses and other current assets" or non-current "other assets", as applicable, in the condensed consolidated balance sheets and recognized as "cost of application services" or "sales and marketing" expenses, as applicable, in the condensed consolidated statements of comprehensive income over the revenue recognition period of the related customer contracts. Research and development Research and development ("R&D") costs primarily include the cost of programming personnel and amounted to $25.2 million and $25.6 million for the three months ended June 30, 2013 and 2012, respectively. R&D costs related to our software solutions are reported as "technology development and support" and for our application services network, the costs are reported as "cost of application services" in the condensed consolidated statements of comprehensive income. Income Taxes The Company accounts for income taxes under the asset and liability method, which requires the recognition of deferred tax assets and liabilities for the expected future tax consequences of events that have been included in the financial statements. Under this method, deferred tax assets and liabilities are determined based on the differences between the financial statements and tax bases of assets and liabilities and net operating loss and credit carryforwards using enacted tax rates in effect for the year in which the differences are expected to reverse. The effect of a change in tax rates on deferred tax assets and liabilities is recognized in the period that includes the enactment date. The Company does not permanently reinvest any earnings in its foreign subsidiaries and recognizes all deferred tax liabilities that arise from outside basis differences in its investment in subsidiaries. The Company records net deferred tax assets to the extent it believes these assets will more likely than not be realized. These deferred tax assets are subject to periodic assessments as to recoverability and if it is determined that it is more likely than not that the benefits will not be realized, valuation allowances are recorded which would increase the provision for income taxes. In making such determination, the Company considers all available positive and negative evidence, including future reversals of existing taxable temporary differences, projected future taxable income, tax planning strategies and recent financial operations. Interest and penalties related to uncertain tax positions are included in the income tax provision. The Company's effective tax rate for the first quarter of 2014 was 16.7% as compared to 37.0% for the first quarter of 2013. The decline in the effective rate was primarily due to the recording of a benefit related to stock compensation as a result of a change in our expectation regarding the tax deductibility of compensation for a certain officer during the first quarter of 2014. The tax deductibility of this officer's compensation is no longer subject to the tax deduction threshold for officer compensation. Accordingly, a deferred tax asset was recorded related to the stock compensation that was previously expected to be disallowed for tax purposes. Cash paid for income taxes was $3.7 million and $3.1 million for the first quarters of 2014 and 2013, respectively. Recently Issued Accounting Pronouncements In July 2013, the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") issued Accounting Standard Update ("ASU") No. 2013-11, "Presentation of an Unrecognized Tax Benefit When a Net Operating Loss Carryforward, a Similar Tax Loss, or a Tax Credit Carryforward Exists." The amendments in this ASU provide guidance on the financial statement presentation of an unrecognized tax benefit when a net operating loss carryforward, similar tax loss, or tax credit carryforward exists. The amendments should be applied prospectively to all unrecognized tax benefits that exist at the effective date and are effective for fiscal years, and interim periods within those years, beginning after December 15, 2013. We plan to adopt this ASU in fiscal 2015 and do not expect it to have a significant impact on our financial statements. In December 2011, the FASB issued ASU No. 2011-11, "Balance Sheet (Topic 210)". The amendments in this ASU require improved disclosure information about financial instruments and derivative instruments that are either offset or subject to an enforceable master netting arrangement or similar agreement. Subsequently in January 2013, the FASB issued ASU 2013-01, "Clarifying the Scope of Disclosures about Offsetting Assets and Liabilities", which clarifies the types of instruments and transactions that are subject to the offsetting disclosure requirements established by ASU 2011-11. These ASUs should be applied retrospectively for all comparative periods presented for annual periods beginning on or after January 1, 2013 and interim periods within those annual periods. The requirements of these ASUs were adopted during our quarter ended June 30, 2013 and did not have a significant impact on our disclosures.

Note 1 - Basis of Presentation

The accompanying unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements ("financial statements") include the accounts of Compuware Corporation and its wholly owned subsidiaries (collectively, the "Company", "Compuware", "we", "our" and "us"). All inter-company balances and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation.

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America ("U.S. GAAP") for interim financial information and with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Article 10 of Regulation S-X. Accordingly, they do not include all of the information and notes required by U.S. GAAP for complete financial statements. U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, contingencies and results of operations. While management has based their assumptions and estimates on the facts and circumstances existing at June 30, 2013, final amounts may differ from these estimates.

In the opinion of management of the Company, the accompanying financial statements reflect all adjustments, consisting only of normal recurring adjustments, necessary for a fair presentation of the results for the interim periods presented. These financial statements should be read in conjunction with the Company's audited consolidated financial statements and notes thereto for the year ended March 31, 2013 included in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). The condensed consolidated balance sheet at March 31, 2013 has been derived from the audited financial statements at that date but does not include all information and footnotes required by U.S. GAAP for complete financial statements. The results of operations for interim periods are not necessarily indicative of results expected to be achieved for the full fiscal year.

Basis for Revenue Recognition

The Company derives its revenue from licensing software products; providing maintenance and support services for those products; providing hosted software; and rendering professional and application services. Our software solutions are comprised of license fees, maintenance fees, subscription fees for hosted software and software related professional services fees.

We sometimes enter into arrangements that include both software related deliverables (licensed software products, maintenance services or software related professional services) and non-software deliverables (hosted software, professional services unrelated to our software products or application services). Our hosted software and application services do not qualify as software deliverables because our license grant does not allow the customer the right or capability to take possession of the software. For arrangements that contain both software and non-software deliverables, in accordance with ASC 605 "Revenue Recognition," we allocate the arrangement consideration to the non-software deliverables as a group, and to the software deliverables as a group (the "Deliverable Groups"). We determine the selling price to allocate the arrangement consideration to the Deliverable Groups based on the following hierarchy of evidence: vendor specific objective evidence of selling price ("VSOE," meaning price when sold separately) if available; third-party evidence of selling price if VSOE is not available; or best estimated selling price if neither VSOE nor third-party evidence is available. We currently are unable to establish VSOE or third-party evidence of selling price for either our software related deliverables or our non-software deliverables as a group. Therefore, the best estimate of selling price for each Deliverable Group is determined primarily by considering various factors, including, but not limited to stated renewal rates in a contract, if any, the historical selling price of these deliverables in similar stand-alone transactions and pricing practices. Total arrangement consideration is then allocated on the basis of the Deliverable Group's relative selling price.

Once we have allocated the arrangement consideration between the Deliverable Groups, we recognize revenue as described in the respective software license fees, maintenance fees, subscription fees, professional services fees and application services fees sections below.

In order for a transaction to be eligible for revenue recognition, the following revenue criteria must be met: persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists, delivery has occurred, the fee is fixed or determinable, and collectability is reasonably assured. We evaluate collectability based on past customer history, external credit ratings and payment terms within various customer agreements.

Software license fees

The Company's software license agreements provide our customers with a right to use our software perpetually (perpetual licenses) or during a defined term (time-based licenses).

Assuming all revenue recognition criteria are met, perpetual license fee revenue is recognized using the residual method, under which the fair value, based on VSOE, of all undelivered elements of the agreement (i.e., maintenance and software related professional services) is deferred. VSOE is based on rates charged for maintenance and professional services when sold separately. The remaining portion of the fee is recognized as license fee revenue upon delivery of the products.

For revenue arrangements where there is a lack of VSOE for any undelivered elements, license fee revenue is deferred and recognized upon delivery of those elements or when VSOE can be established. However, when maintenance or software related professional services are the only undelivered elements, the license fee revenue is recognized on a ratable basis over the longer of the maintenance term or the period the software related professional services are expected to be performed. Such transactions include time-based licenses and certain unlimited capacity licenses, as the Company has not established VSOE for the undelivered elements in these arrangements. In order to comply with SEC Regulation S-X, Rule 5-03(b), which requires product, services and other categories of revenue to be displayed separately on the income statement, the Company separates the license fee, maintenance fee and software related professional services fee (which is included in professional services fees) associated with these types of arrangements based on its determination of fair value. The Company applies VSOE for maintenance related to perpetual license transactions and stand-alone software related professional services arrangements as a reasonable and consistent approximation of fair value to separate license fee, maintenance fee and software related professional services fee revenue for income statement classification purposes.

The Company offers flexibility to customers purchasing licenses for its products and related maintenance. Terms of these transactions range from standard perpetual license sales that include one year of maintenance to large multi-year (generally two to five years), multi-product contracts. The Company allows deferred payment terms with installments collectable over the term of the contract. Based on the Company's successful collection history for deferred payments, license fees (net of any financing fees) are generally recognized as revenue as discussed above. In certain transactions where it cannot be concluded that the fee is fixed or determinable due to the nature of the deferred payment terms, the Company recognizes revenue as payments become due. Financing fees are recognized as interest income over the term of the related receivable.

Maintenance fees

The Company's maintenance arrangements allow customers to receive technical support and advice, including problem resolution services and assistance in product installation, error corrections and any product enhancements released during the maintenance period. The first year of maintenance is generally included with all license agreements. Maintenance fees are recognized ratably over the term of the maintenance arrangements, which generally range from one to five years.

Subscription fees

Subscription fees relate to arrangements that permit our customers to access and utilize our hosted software delivered on a software-as-a-service ("SaaS") basis. Subscription fees are deferred upon contract execution and are recognized ratably over the term of the subscription.

Professional services fees

The Company provides a broad range of IT services for mainframe, distributed, web and mobile environments, including mobile computing application development and integration, package software customization, cloud computing consulting, development and integration of legacy systems, IT portfolio management services, enterprise legacy modernization services and application performance management. The Company also offers implementation, consulting and training services in tandem with the Company's software solutions offerings, which are referred to as software related professional services.

Professional services fees are generally based on hourly or daily rates. Revenues from professional services are recognized in the period the services are performed provided that collection of the related receivable is reasonably assured. For development services rendered under fixed-price contracts, revenues are recognized using the proportional performance method and if it is determined that costs will exceed revenue, the expected loss is recorded at the time the loss becomes apparent.

Application services fees

Our application services fees consist of fees related to our Covisint on-demand software including associated services. The arrangements do not provide customers the right to take possession of the software at any time, nor do the arrangements contain rights of return. Many of our application services contracts include a services project fee and a recurring fee for ongoing platform-as-a-service ("PaaS") operations. Certain services related to these projects have stand-alone value (e.g., other vendors provide similar services) and qualify as a separate unit of accounting. Services that have stand-alone value are recognized as delivered. For those services that do not have stand-alone value, the revenue is deferred and recognized over the longer of the committed term of the subscription agreement (generally one to five years) or the expected period over which the customer will receive benefit (generally five years). The recurring fees are recognized ratably over the applicable service period.

Deferred revenue

Deferred revenue consists primarily of billed and unbilled maintenance and subscription fees related to the future service period of maintenance and subscription agreements in effect at the reporting date. Deferred license, software related services and application services fees are also included in deferred revenue for those arrangements that are being recognized over time. Sales commission costs that directly relate to revenue transactions that are deferred are recorded as "prepaid expenses and other current assets" or non-current "other assets", as applicable, in the condensed consolidated balance sheets and recognized as "cost of application services" or "sales and marketing" expenses, as applicable, in the condensed consolidated statements of comprehensive income over the revenue recognition period of the related customer contracts.

Research and development

Research and development ("R&D") costs primarily include the cost of programming personnel and amounted to $25.2 million and $25.6 million for the three months ended June 30, 2013 and 2012, respectively. R&D costs related to our software solutions are reported as "technology development and support" and for our application services network, the costs are reported as "cost of application services" in the condensed consolidated statements of comprehensive income.

Income Taxes

The Company accounts for income taxes under the asset and liability method, which requires the recognition of deferred tax assets and liabilities for the expected future tax consequences of events that have been included in the financial statements. Under this method, deferred tax assets and liabilities are determined based on the differences between the financial statements and tax bases of assets and liabilities and net operating loss and credit carryforwards using enacted tax rates in effect for the year in which the differences are expected to reverse. The effect of a change in tax rates on deferred tax assets and liabilities is recognized in the period that includes the enactment date. The Company does not permanently reinvest any earnings in its foreign subsidiaries and recognizes all deferred tax liabilities that arise from outside basis differences in its investment in subsidiaries.

The Company records net deferred tax assets to the extent it believes these assets will more likely than not be realized. These deferred tax assets are subject to periodic assessments as to recoverability and if it is determined that it is more likely than not that the benefits will not be realized, valuation allowances are recorded which would increase the provision for income taxes. In making such determination, the Company considers all available positive and negative evidence, including future reversals of existing taxable temporary differences, projected future taxable income, tax planning strategies and recent financial operations.

Interest and penalties related to uncertain tax positions are included in the income tax provision.

The Company's effective tax rate for the first quarter of 2014 was 16.7% as compared to 37.0% for the first quarter of 2013. The decline in the effective rate was primarily due to the recording of a benefit related to stock compensation as a result of a change in our expectation regarding the tax deductibility of compensation for a certain officer during the first quarter of 2014. The tax deductibility of this officer's compensation is no longer subject to the tax deduction threshold for officer compensation. Accordingly, a deferred tax asset was recorded related to the stock compensation that was previously expected to be disallowed for tax purposes.

Cash paid for income taxes was $3.7 million and $3.1 million for the first quarters of 2014 and 2013, respectively.

Recently Issued Accounting Pronouncements

In July 2013, the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") issued Accounting Standard Update ("ASU") No. 2013-11, "Presentation of an Unrecognized Tax Benefit When a Net Operating Loss Carryforward, a Similar Tax Loss, or a Tax Credit Carryforward Exists." The amendments in this ASU provide guidance on the financial statement presentation of an unrecognized tax benefit when a net operating loss carryforward, similar tax loss, or tax credit carryforward exists. The amendments should be applied prospectively to all unrecognized tax benefits that exist at the effective date and are effective for fiscal years, and interim periods within those years, beginning after December 15, 2013. We plan to adopt this ASU in fiscal 2015 and do not expect it to have a significant impact on our financial statements.

In December 2011, the FASB issued ASU No. 2011-11, "Balance Sheet (Topic 210)". The amendments in this ASU require improved disclosure information about financial instruments and derivative instruments that are either offset or subject to an enforceable master netting arrangement or similar agreement. Subsequently in January 2013, the FASB issued ASU 2013-01, "Clarifying the Scope of Disclosures about Offsetting Assets and Liabilities", which clarifies the types of instruments and transactions that are subject to the offsetting disclosure requirements established by ASU 2011-11. These ASUs should be applied retrospectively for all comparative periods presented for annual periods beginning on or after January 1, 2013 and interim periods within those annual periods. The requirements of these ASUs were adopted during our quarter ended June 30, 2013 and did not have a significant impact on our disclosures.