Generating "smart" reports

[skranenburg]

Hi,

I am quite new at Sparx EA and have hit a brick wall trying to figure how to accomplish what my manager and customer want. Both of them do not understand the tool very well, so what they are asking could be impossible.

Both of them want a model that can produce a user specific report based on the parts of the model the user clicks on. For example, if I had a diagram with a car and all of its parts, the user (Solution Architect) can come in and choose the steering wheel and tires then generate a report that has the specifications that both the steering wheel and tires must have. In my manager's words, "Once a user clicks on an item, the model will add its specifications to a report 'behind the scenes', and in the end prints out a report specific to the user's needs." And they want the user to not interface at all with the model (because it can be confusing to someone not used to Sparx EA), so they want a nice UI as well. Right now, I have the logical diagrams built and am continuing to fill each element with the specifications it needs, but I have no idea how to accomplish this type of report generation.

For the UI, I've messed around with the navigation panes and a HTML generated version of the model. But the HTML version can't generate reports from what I can tell. (I should mention that I have no experience with HTML as well. In fact, I am a recent college grad in my first job and basically working alone on the MBSE side. I was promised more Sparx EA training, but COVID got in the way of that a bit.)

Any help or guidance is much appreciated!

Thanks!

[qwerty]

I can only pity you. I'm doing something similar for another autmotive company (or the same, who knows?). After more than a year we got them as far as "you can't have the cake unless you pay for it" and they now know that it's an expensive one. You will need a team (well, we have a small one but hope for the best). You will need a plan (hmm, do we actually have one?). And you need time (that doesn't seem to be an issue, although they are complaining).

Well, good luck with your first assignment :-/

q.

[skranenburg]

Thank you for the quick response, qwerty. Ya, it seems as if my best course of action is to continue to add substance to the model, but explain to my manager that what he is asking for is unrealistic. Hopefully, we will add more people to the team. I really like MBSE and can see my career headed in that direction, but it is frustrating that I am having to do a lot of learning on my own and not much access to experts even at my own company.

[Geert Bellekens]

Hi,

I would suggest to look into virtual documents.
I often use those with a search that returns a single element. This allows me to create very tailored reports, element per element.

For complex documents I also often write a script that generates the virtual document for me, based on say a diagram, or in your case it could be the selected elements on a diagram.

Scripts don't have a GUI, but you might not even need that. The basic requirement: Generate a report based on the elements I selected is really possible with EA, and it's not months of work.
(I usually finish report requirements in a couple of days, but then again, I did have some practice)

I wrote a little article about the way I do reporting:https://bellekens.com/2015/11/12/tutorial-generate-complex-documents-from-enterprise-architect-with-a-two-step-semi-automated-approach/

Geert

[skranenburg]

Hi Geert,

Thank you for your response! I think this could help me a ton. Is it possible for these elements that are selected to be part of the report to be in different diagrams?

[Uffe]

Hello,

In my manager's words, "Once a user clicks on an item, the model will add its specifications to a report 'behind the scenes', and in the end prints out a report specific to the user's needs." And they want the user to not interface at all with the model (because it can be confusing to someone not used to Sparx EA), so they want a nice UI as well.

What you are describing there is essentially impossible.

Regardless of what the advertising might say, EA is not an infinitely flexible toolbox that can do anything you care to ask of it. It is a UML modelling tool, no more, no less. If that's not what users want, they need to get a different tool.

You can do a little bit of automation by writing an Add-In. Add-Ins can react to certain user interactions, such as selecting an element, and make changes to models in response. But you will never be able to turn EA into a different tool.

You can get arbitrarily complex documents out of EA models using the built-in document generation facility or, when that is insufficient, virtual documents or scripts which use the DocumentGenerator API (my preferred approach). That's not the problem (although getting the documents just so can be time-consuming).

The problem, rather, is what appears to be a desire to use EA to generate documents without the users having to understand what they're doing.
This approach never works. How is a user supposed to correct any issues in a generated document if they can't navigate the EA GUI?

Adding your own windows to EA isn't a viable approach. You can't fundamentally change how users interact with models through the EA client.

Working with UML modelling is different from working with plain Word documents, or spreadsheets, or presentations. If the powers that be don't want to spend the money to train the users to the level where they understand the basic concepts of how EA works, any effort spent adapting the tool is just bad money thrown after good.

I really like MBSE and can see my career headed in that direction, but it is frustrating that I am having to do a lot of learning on my own and not much access to experts even at my own company.

A word to the wise: tread lightly. If you want to be a systems analyst or architect, you don't necessarily want to be the person who does the tool adaptations. It's not the same thing.


/Uffe