Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is one of the very few tools that have the capability to generate documents on go from a centralized repository. Enterprise Architect has features to customize document contents using user templates, fragments, style sheets, cover pages and headers, and footers.

• Document Script in fragments is a new option that is introduced in Enterprise Architect 13.
• Used generally for generating complex documents from Enterprise Architect.

Custom Script vs Document Script

• Custom script (Introduced in EA 11): Script returns a value that can be used in the fragment using the ‘custom’ field.
• Document script (Introduced in EA 13): A combination of scripts and templates. The script calls another Template and passes the ID of an object to be reported

How does Document Script work?

Advantages of Document Script:

• Flexibility in reporting desired fields in the desired order
• Loop through or mix and match details in a custom way, as per the requirements.
• Removes the need to write an external add-in to generate custom documents from the model.

Steps to create Document using Document Scripts:

• From the Above business process diagram, we are going to generate all the diagram objects from the parent package.
• Initially have created a Template like the below with package and element section enabled.

• Under the Diagram Objects heading have inserted a new fragment and inside the fragment have enabled the Custom Section as below

• To create a document script Fragment -> Document Options ->Custom Query -> Document Script and in the dropdown select the script which is written for document generation.

• Reference the ID of the element or Package currently being processed by the document template, using the #OBJECTID# or #PACKAGEID#
• Process Package script does the magic of rendering the objects in an order to a document.
• Script which needs to be used in the Document script should always return an RTF

      var docGenerator as EA.DocumentGenerator;

        docGenerator = Repository.CreateDocumentGenerator();

        if ( docGenerator.NewDocument(“”) )

        { 

            docGenerator.DocumentElement(ElementID,Heading Depth,”templateName”); // Used to add the element details in rtf

             var rtf = docGenerator.GetDocumentAsRTF();

            return rtf;

       }

• For more details on attributes and methods of DocumentGenerator class please refer to Sparx Help on Document Generator class
• In the document script, a template should be referred to so that the data will be formatted and printed based on that template.
• For e.g. From the below package structure in Enterprise Architect

• If the documentation is generated at the package level (BP00100) and the script for rendering all the diagram objects of a diagram
• We need to pass the packageID as the parameter in the document script.
• In the script, the main function rtf should be returned

function main(packageID)

{

var docGenerator as EA.DocumentGenerator;

docGenerator = Repository.CreateDocumentGenerator();

if ( docGenerator.NewDocument(“”) )

{

try

{

var package as EA.Package;

package = Repository.GetPackageByID(packageID);

var diagram as EA.Diagram;

diagram = package.Diagrams.GetAt(0);

var diagramObjects as EA.Collection;

diagramObjects = diagram.DiagramObjects;

for ( var i = 0 ; i < diagramObjects.Count ; i++ ) {

var diagramObject as EA.DiagramObject;

diagramObject = diagramObjects.GetAt( i );

var currentElement as EA.Element;

currentElement = Repository.GetElementByID(diagramObject.ElementID);

if(currentElement.Type != “Note” && currentElement.Type != “ActivityPartition” && currentElement.Type != “Pool” && currentElement.Type != “Lane”)

docGenerator.DocumentElement(currentElement.ElementID,1,ACTIVITY_TEMPLATE);

}

}

catch(e)

{

Session.Output(e);

}

var rtf = docGenerator.GetDocumentAsRTF();

return rtf;

}

return “”;

}

• Templates inside the script can be mentioned as below

var ACTIVITY_TEMPLATE = “Activity_Report”;

Conclusion:

• The above described is an example of generating a document using a document script. You can download this entire sample model with document generation scripts and templates from https://sparxsystems.in/Downloads/DocumentScriptTest.eap
• Any complex logic can be used in the script but finally, it should return an RTF. 

Further Information
Please contact us or write an email to info@sparxsystems.in to have a live demo of the new EA 16 features and capabilities.