Learning Automation

[chanacampos]

Hi all,

I've been using and recommending EA for a few years now and just held a session at KLM/Accenture on how to really exploit its features...HOWEVER, it turns out that several developers and architects want to use features that will probably require use of the Automation functionality.

OK - now here it comes.

I need to learn how to do this with EA. I have read the general Automation API - but this doesn't really take me where I need to go in terms of concretely understanding Automation in general. Does anyone have a suggestion about a good learning source for this sort of thing in general? I'm thinking MSDN...but, are there other sources?


Cheers,

Chana

[Phil_Bachmann]

Get your hands on an Automation Client (Visual Basic 6 is probably best), and practice with that.

VBA built into MS Office applications does the job too.

[mch]

Hi Chana,

I completely agree with Phil, the only way to learn automation is to do it!

As an analyst who hadn't done any coding for quite a while I was reluctant at first. But I got hold of an opensource C# IDE, looked at the EA automation code samples, and successfully developed an automated document generator.

Keep on asking on the forum or feel free to drop me a line if you have any specific queries.

Good luck,
Mark

[chanacampos]

Thanks guys for your replies...I do appreciate them.

As a follow-on question, I would really love to hear from anyone who has used the Automation functionality in a project...what was the need, how did they use the tool, etc. etc.? Just HOW creative ARE you guys, anyway...?


Thanks again,

Chana

[Darren Lock]

I have been using automation for a number of project activities:

A web browser interface to EA ( via IIS/ASP)
A Word Plugin to create Requirements in EA automatically from the document text.
A Utility to repeat repetitive tasks in EA.

I have used VB6, ASP & VB.Net to achieve this.

If you want a free Automation client then use VBScript which is free to download from MSDN ( I think IE installs it but there is a later version on MSDN). OK you don't get an IDE. You can use the Microsoft Script Debugger to run & debug the scripts (again this is a free download). You can also use VBA in the Microsoft Office Products (Tools->Macro-Visual Basic).

[fwoolz]

Hello all,

As an aside, if you use the corporate edition & an underlying RDBMS, it's possible to do quite a bit with plain old database queries.  For example, I've used MySQL with EA & Microsoft Access as a front end to access (no pun intended) and manipulate the EA model database.

BTW- Since the .EAP file is in reality a Microsoft Jet database, Access can be used directly to work with EAP files (make sure the correct version is used, however, depending on your Jet settings in EA).

Cheers,
Fred Woolsey

[pneutam]

It's probably a darn site quicker to access the database directly also. I am generating Word documentation using EA automation, but it's a bit sluggish (as is most automation - not an EA fault). This is exacerbated by .Net interop (using C#).

I found that using the project interfaces xml functions and the Xmi export a lot quicker for reading EA info  than the normal autmation interface.

Ahh the need for speed

Ben

[Darren Lock]

Good point. I forgot to add that post processing of the XMI export can be quite effective.

I choose to use the automation interface when updating EA as I am isolated from the underlying structure of the database, referential integrity and schema change. It is good that there are so many options to choose from