Documenting questions

[darren]

I have an EA project structured the following way.

* Architectural Model
* Analysis Model
* Design Model
  ** Services
     *** Subsystem1
     *** Subsystem2
     *** Subsystem3
* Data Model
* Package Model
* Component Model

Under each subsystem are the structural and behavioral diagrams etc to explain what it is/does.

The data, package and component models contain all the databases/tables/classes/interfaces/components of the entire system. They are used like a library for diagrams for the design models.

My problem is trying to produce a single document that will contain all the relevent information for each subsystem. We are going to be outsourcing the programming work and want to hand the designs of each subsystem out without releasing a copy (or readonly copy) of the entire EA project.

However when I tell it to produce a document on Subsystem1 for example, and turn on every option I can find, the document does not report on the properties/methods/attributes of any of the databases/tables/classes/interfaces/components that are found in the data, package and component models.

Basically I want it to report on any object that was referenced in the diagrams.

I don't want to create a document for each model because I don't want to give them all that information. I don't want to create a document on each class/interface that I use because I may miss one or worse, I need to recreate the document again if it's updated.

Is there an option to do this please?

Thanks,
Darren.

[Dermot]

Hello David,

I suggest you have a look at the new Virtual Document generation available in the latest version 7.1.  This provides a method to set specific document types for specific packages and combine all these into one document.  A classic of what you have is to use the basic template for your class diagrams, the database template for Data Model etc. So see the help section that covers Virtual Documents in the latest release.

I hope this is of help.

[Geert Bellekens]

Or you can write your own documentgenerator addin.
I've done so for my latest client, and it cost me about 20 md to produce about 7 different templates for report in MS Word.
Adding number 8 would now cost me about 1/2 day.

In my experience this is still the most cost-efficient way to create decent reports from any modeling tool, especially if your goal is to procuce "hand written like" documents. If you choose to use a standard documentation tool you'll have to live with its limitations. Usually this means that you will always notice that the document is generated because of the blanks, weird layout or structure etc...