Something like rtf-template in eaDocX

[Niklas Malmer]

We’ve been using EA for a couple of years in our organization and are currently using 50 floating licences. There are some people that use it as a “production system” and quite a few that are experimenting. We are now in the process of letting EA be our production system for everything from processes to infrastructure components.

When it comes to reporting we are quite happy with the built in idea of rtf-reports with templates that can be applied on a package structure however, the template editor isn’t always the best friend and some things isn’t even possible to achieve.

After having a quick look at eaDocX it seems to be nice and capable of producing documents looking the way we want.

Since we are a large organisation with approximately 50 processes, 1000 Use Cases, 50 systems etc. We require a set of standard reports with a consistent look.

The nice thing with the built in rtf-templates is that we can create a Use Case following the standard that we’ve decided and then just apply the template on the package and we’re done (although not exactly looking the way we want).

Using eaDocX, I need to create a document for each Use Case (or create one nice looking Use Case document that I need to copy and open in EA and then change what packages/elements that should be in each section of the document. This has to be done for every Use Case.
If another person should generate or update a report that person needs to have a copy of the original report, the report information (report definition) is not saved in the EA-database like a rtf-report template.

My question is: Have I understood eaDocX right or have I missed something?

[eadocX Support]

Perhaps I can clarify how we think you might use eaDocX
“I need to create a document for each use case…” – this would be a very strange way to use eaDocX, especially as you have 1000 Use Cases!!
What you can do is create a document, and design an eaDocX Profile for Use Cases, which prints them in the way you want them to look. Do the same for Systems, processes, Requirements etc. Then choose a Package which contains some use cases etc, and generate the document. All the use cases/Processes/etc will then print in the same style.
So you can print 10, 100 or 1000 use cases, all in 1 document, and they will look the same.

If you save this document as a Word Template, then the eaDocX Profile will save with it. To create a new document containing different EA content, create a new Word Document, tell eaDocX which is your new EA Package, and generate. Or just save the document with a new name, and similarly specify the new EA Package.

You are correct that the definition of the document is not kept in the EA model: that way, a user using eaDocX does not need write-access to the model.

However, if you use the Document Management feature of eaDocX Corporate Edition, each time someone generates a document, you can keep a reference to that document in the model (this does need write-access) so that everyone can see what documents have been produced, and, if they are all saved on a shared drive, can open and copy them to create new ones.

I hope this helps!

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