modelling business reports

[Robert Sheridan]

I am working on a reporting module for an application and would like to explicitly model which class attributes are used in which reports.  Has any one else done this?  I am not sure what would be the best way.

Thanks

[Geert Bellekens]

Robert,

We faced the same problem.
We needed traceability from the attribute level of our system information entities to our reports.
What we did was following:
- Create a class for each report. (with stereotype <<report>>)
- Create a class for each set of data used by different reports (stereotype <<reportSet>>)
- Add attributes to the reportset for each displayed field (or requested parameter)
- Add a <<trace>> dependency between the reportset and the entities

This brought the traceability in EA to the level of classes and reports. Now we had to have something for the attribute level. We decided to manage this outside of EA in an Excel sheet. For each attribute in the reportset there is a row in the excel sheet that describes the mapping between that field in the report and the attribute(s) in the system information model.

This same mapping sheet is also used to map external B2B messages to our internal system entities.

Geert

[Geert Bellekens]

Something like drawn here: http://hosted.umlcanvas.org/reportSets

Geert

[Robert Sheridan]

Thanks Geert, I will have a go.  By the way, I could not get your URL to open.

Robert

[Geert Bellekens]

That's weird, do you mind telling me what browser (+version) and operating system you are on?
We've  tested pretty much all combinations, but if there's one that escaped I would love to know.

Geert