Guide to creating custom reports?

[michielper]

Is there a guide on how to create customised reports that allow you to choose which elements of a model to include in the report?

[Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie]

Hi,

There's no real guide, but only some basic help on this wiki page.

Regards,

JB

[michielper]

Is there a set of standard report templates, e.g. a template for "diagrams only"?

[Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie]

Hi,

I'm not sure to understand your question. With the default "Customizable Report" you can already tune several things (hide some sections, change the way element lists are rendered...). All you have to do is to put special properties on model and/or views.

Be sure to read the included help in the Archi User Guide in the "Reporting > Jasper Report" section.

Regards,

JB

[michielper]

Thanks for that tip but I don't quite understand it. The Jasper Reports section in the User Guide (version 2.4) is extremely short, this is all it says:

Jasper Reports is the world's most popular Java reporting engine. Combine data sources and
produce pixel-perfect documents that can be viewed, printed, or exported into a variety of document
formats with this powerful reporting tool. Archi can export models in various formats using Jasper
Reports Templates.
This option is available from the "Report->Jasper..." menu item from the main "File" menu. Once a
model is selected in the Model Tree or in a View this menu item is enabled. Provide the details in the
following wizard:

Not very helpful.
The "wizzard" only lets me choose report templates but there are only two in the Archi zip file (standard and customizable). Should I manually edit the main.jrxml file? How do I do the tuning you suggest?

Thanks, Michiel

[Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie]

Hi,

Ok, I guess you don't run Archi 4 thus you don't have the latest version of the doc. You'll find it attached.

JB

[michielper]

Thanks! I am using version 3.3.2 but I will try and upgrade then!

[Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie]

FYI, those options works also with Archi 3.x (only help has been updated)

[michielper]

I can see the flags being tested in the JRXML file But I still dont see how to set those flags without editing the main.jrxml file.

[Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie]

With the Customizable report you don't have to edit any jasper file, you just have to define those properties inside the model itself.

So basically you have properties that influence the whole document (e.g. to hide some section) that have to be set at the model level (select the model and then edit its properties in the Property view), and you have properties that work at the view level.

[Eero Hosiaisluoma]

Which properties exactly could be modified in Archi - e.g. to generate a report with diagrams, text and element-tables only? By modifying Jasper xml configuration files (main.jrxml, elements.jrxml etc.) that is doable. I'd like to also learn how it could be possible to generate a model document in landscape..
BTW, this document generation feature is nicely aligned with e.g. SAFe "Model-Based Systems Engineering": document generation based on modeling e.g. for architecture concepting purposes.