The Enterprise Architect keeps the connections of a Graph in the Database.
I am looking for a way to export the information flows of a Diagram.
For this purpose i would need to sets of simple outputs:
A Matrix-View where the Names of the Elements are the X, Y-Axis and an X is drawn where they intersect
A List-View where all Information Flows are listed with their source and sinks.
I tried using a report, but i just could not get this to work for me.
It sounds like you're taking slightly the wrong approach here.
In Enterprise Architect, a diagram is not a container of information. It is a display which shows a selection of information from the underlying data store. This is in stark contrast with drawing tools, like MS Visio.
The EA data store is organized into packages, and that shows through the entire product. So if you edit an RTF document template, for instance, you will note that the internal template structure is based on a package structure -- it doesn't start from a diagram. You will also note that the context menu for a package or an element contains a Documentation sub-menu, but there isn't one in the diagram context menu. Same reason; a diagram is not a starting point for a document.
Now that said, you can create an RTF template which outputs only the information flows to/from the elements included in the generation scope, but you need to start off from a package and create your template based on a package structure. Setting up a table in a template is a little fiddly the first time but it's not impossible. In order to select only the information flows, use the Exclude Filters tab in the Generate Documentation dialog to exclude all connector types except Information Flow.
The matrix view you're looking for is known as a Relationship Matrix, located in the View menu (in EA 11.1). Again, it's based on a package structure, not a diagram structure. Relationship matrices can be included in generated documents as well.
Related
Can any one tell me if I can use visio as an output for information stored in a database, so that I can select filters to render different content into visio objects? Or is there a microsoft product that can do this?
I am unable to find a product that appears to do this
Unless I have misunderstood, this the very basic of what Visio does.
It would take too long to explain all the possible options in detail, but in summary:
there are assistants in Visio that help you connect to a datasource (Access, Excel, ODBC, ...)
these assistants draw automatically the desired diagram. If the some special case is not covered, you can easily use some code - eg VBA - to draw the diagram by yourselves.
the diagrams are dynamic
you can see the data connected to a stage shape either in the custom data window, or you can add automatic labels - smart datagraphics
you can even export to the web to show the results in a web browser.
Some videos on youtube found very quickly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBSW6-r7AZ8&ab_channel=Microsoft365
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6VMKo7_KgY&ab_channel=ComputerTutoring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfIPFiAxQcQ&ab_channel=FarazShaikh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FDq596M7KA&ab_channel=ITsEasyTraining1st
I can give you more detailed help here (file exchange is easier and great community): http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php
I am trying to formulate a proposal for an application that allows a user to print a batch of documents based on data stored in a SQL table. The SQL table indicates which documents are due and also contains all demographic information. This is outside of what I normally do and am trying to see if these is a platform/application that already exists to do such a task
For example
List of all documents: Document #1 - Document #10
Person 1 is due for document #: 1,5,7,8
Person 2 is due for document #: 2.6
Person 3 is due for document #: 7,8,10
etc
Ideally, what I would like is for the user to be able to push a button and get a printed stack of documents that have been customized for each user including basic demographic info like name, DOB, etc
Like i said at the top, I already have all of the needed information in a database, I am just trying to figure out the best approach to move that information onto a document
I have done some research and found some people have used mail merge in Word or using Access as a front end but I don't know if this is the best way. I've also found this document. Any advice would be greatly appreciated
If I understand your problem correctly, your problem is two-fold: Firstly, you need to find a way to generated documents based on data (mail-merge) and secondly, you might need to print them two.
For document generation you have two basic approaches: template-based and programmatically from scratch. I suppose that you will opt for a template based approach which basically means that you design (in MS Word) a template document (Word, RTF, ...) that acts as a template and contains placeholders and other tags that designate »dynamic« parts of the document. Then, at document generation time, you need a .NET library/processor that you will pass this template document and the data, where the processor will populate the template with the data and return the resulting document.
One way to achieve this functionality would be employing MS Words' native mail-merge, but you should know that this would involve using Office COM and Word Application Automation which should be avoided almost always.
Another option is to build such a system on top of Open XML SDK. This is velid option, but it will be a pretty demanding task and will most probably cost you much more than buying a commercial .NET library that does mail-merge out-of-the-box – been there, done that. But of course, the good side here is that you will be able to tailer the solution to your needs. If you go down this road I recoment that you use Content Controls for tagging documents/templates. The solution with CCs will be much easier to implement than the solution with bookmarks.
I'm not very familliar with the open source solutions and I'm not sury how many there are that can do mail-merge. One I know is FlexDoc (on CodePlex) but its problem is that uses a construct (XmlControl) for tagging that is depricated in Word 2010+.
Then there are commercial solutions. Again I don't know them in detail but I know that the majority of them are a general purpose document processing libraries. Our company has been using this document generation toolkit for some time now and I can say it covers all our »template-based document generation« needs. It doesn't require MS Word at doc generation time, and has really helpful add-in for MS word and you only need several lines of code to integrate it in your project. Templating is very powerful and you can set-up a template in a very short time. While templates are Word documents, you can generate PDF or XPS docs as well. XPS is useful because you can use .NET/WPF prining framework that works with XPS docs to print documents. This is a very high-end solution, but of course, the downside here is that it is not a free solution.
I'm currently working with BIRT and I am having problems trying to create a report with multiple data sources and data sets.
For example, let's say I have a wizard. This wizard allows the user to graphically select data sources in a list. After selecting a few data sources and finishing the wizard, I would like the report to be rendered with the selected data sources.
I have tried a few thing such as adding data sources/sets to an ElementFactory object, but that does not seem to work.
Does anyone know of where I can find documentation on this sort of thing? Possibly some pointers?
Thanks.
I'm trying to make a custom column (for a custom list), where the users can upload files without overwriting the previous - this way they can keep past versions of the files and upload newer ones and the new ones append. There already exist "append only" comment columns and file upload columns that I can see.
I'm working with Sharepoint designer 2007 (2010 doesn't work with the site), and I'm referencing this code I found online somewhere (http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=0qN89meu), trying to research the Sharepoint documentation on MSDN. I can open the site in designer, but don't know where to go from there (it's already running on a web server, not opening it locally).
I'm just not clear on how to start, I thought there'd be a simple "right+click -> new column" feature but I can't find it. If someone could point me in the right direction to where I could start creating columns on the site, that would be great. Thanks!
An untested idea :
Create a document library with a lookup column to the custom list.
Create an event receiver (ItemAdded and ItemUpdated) than will take the attached files and move them to the other list (with the correct lookup value). --> Code with Visual Studio
Grant to this document library only read permissions.
Adapt the view to display the related documents in the dispform of the custom list.
Advantages:
this seems to answer to your need
you gain all the usability of a document library (nothing prevent you to grant edit rights to other users, force check out, etc.)
Disadvantages:
you have to play with lookup. Can be tricky sometimes, if you play with features
you split one business entity to two entities. You will have to deal with cascading delete (if you need it).
I was wondering if there's a way to export package information from Cognos 8 from a regular user level or from the framework level.
For instance, I want the field names that cognos is pointing to on the database, i want the datatype, the description cognos uses when you right click a data element, etc..
Any suggestions?
(Unfortunately I'm not at my work computer right now) but Cognos saves everything in .xml files. I have an xml pretty printer that I use on model.xml before and after edits, so that I can use windiff to see what exactly changes in the model. I have also used an xml editor on model.xml on several occasions for global search and replace.
Having said that, I'm not sure how much of the database schema you can infer directly from model.xml, but I suspect if you had a script that could read and walk model.xml, and connect to the database to describe the objects, you could get what you need.
The answer appears to be yes, to anything that supports CWM (the Common Warehouse Model) but as for how...
One suggestion: ask IBM.
It appears that Powerdesigner 15 imports from xmi models.