Building a Report

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Reports are built within the Document class, as shown in Figure 24. In this example, three reports are defined: an Operational Concept Document (OCD), Function and performance Specification (FPS) and a simple System Description Document (SDD). The OCD has been expanded to indicate the various sub-sections within the report.

Figure 24 – Example Document Class

Report Headings

A Document section has the properties and relationships illustrated in Figure 25 and Figure 26. The Number field is equivalent to the section number within the report, without the leading number. In this example the ‘System Boundary and Acquisition Assumptions’ section would be numbered Section 1.4. The Name field will be the heading of the section within the report.

Figure 25 – Document attributes
Figure 26 – Document relationships

Execute the Sections

In a report, every section executes in a specific order.

  1. The Number and Name are printed as the section number and heading.
  2. The Description field is printed.
  3. If the Report Links box is checked then any objects that this section /Documents/ are reported as subsections.
  4. Any selected Script is executed, passing the parameters listed in the Parameters box.
  5. All External Text nodes that are related to this section by the /Enhanced by/ relationship are executed. Multiple External Text nodes can be attached to a section, creating a very flexible report generation capability.

Simple behaviour – No scripts: Report Links checked

If no script is selected and the Report Links box is checked then each element that this section /Documents/ will be reported. A section can /Document/ any of the classes within Capability Architect. In each case, the Name field of the reported element will be a subsection heading and the Description field will be the paragraph text under that subsection heading.

Default section

Figure 27 shows a Notes section that reports on three example system requirements. The report generated will look like Figure 28. Notice that the Description field is printed first and then the /Documents/ elements are created as subsections.

Figure 28 – Example simple report

Adding a script

When creating a report, we often need a more tailored presentation of data than is available with the simple reporting format. We may need to create a specific type of table presentation or draw on combined data from multiple database tables using a specific Structured Query Language (SQL) query. We may also need to perform simple tasks such as adding a diagram or changing between Portrait and Landscape orientation. For all these tasks Capability Architect relies on the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language within the Microsoft Office suite.

Capability Architect has a range of built-in scripts to support document generation. Scripts are selected from the drop-down list of available scripts. A description of each script, the parameters it requires and the schema relationships that it exploits is included in Section 0.

You can also create additional user scripts. Adding user scripts is described in Section 5.1 of this document.

Report Links Checkbox

A key reason for using scripts is to automate the selection of the elements reported in a section. The Report Links checkbox is not required because the script searches for the elements of interest. This removes the need to manually /Document/ each element to be reported.

In some instances, you may still want to use Report Links. For example, if the script is adding a diagram then you may wish to report on some specific elements in that diagram.

Building a Report