Generating document-style reports with Rhapsody as a data source

After you finish creating the report template and populating it with data points, you can generate a report in various formats.

Generating a document-style report from ( (Rhapsody)

You can generate document-style reports directly from the Rhapsody user interface.

Procedure

  1. Load a model.
  2. Click Tools > Rational® Publishing Engine > Generate report.
  3. Complete the wizard to select a template and review its report configurations.
  4. Click Finish.

Generating a document-style report by using the IBM Engineering Lifecycle Optimization - Publishing document generation wizard

You can use the document generation wizard to configure the report requirements.

Before you begin

The correct Rhapsody project must be opened and the Rhapsody web server must be running before you publish your document-style report. When the Rhapsody project is open and you generate a document-style report from Engineering Publishing, the Rhapsody web server is started automatically. If you close the web server window, on subsequent document-style report generations, PUB cannot restart the server. You can manually run a batch file to start the server again without restarting PUB: Rational_Rhapsody_HOME/ApplicationServer/startserver.bat
Note: If you have a long REST request URL, the request might not be passed to the Rhapsody server, which prevents document-style report generation from a Rhapsody model with package-nesting level higher than 3. To work around this problem, on the Rhapsody web server, modify the web server configuration to increase the allowed URL length.

Procedure

  1. In either Document Studio or Launcher, open the document-style report generation wizard by clicking Document specification > Generate > Configure and generate document.
  2. The Templates section lists the templates in the document specification. To add a template:
    1. Select the location of the templates to add:
      • From the central library: To select templates stored in Publishing Document Builder
      • From local or remote file: To select local or remote templates, you can either enter a URL to a template or click Browse to select a template.
    2. Select one or more templates to add.
      • If you selected From the central library and selected templates from Publishing Document Builder, click Add selected to add the templates to the document specification.
      • If you selected From local or remote file and entered a URL to an individual template, click Add URL to add the template to the document specification.
      • If you selected From local or remote file and browsed to add templates, when you click Open, the templates are added to the document specification.
    3. Optional: Repeat to add more templates from other locations.
    4. Optional: Reorder the templates in the document specification by selecting a template and clicking Up or Down.
    5. Click Next.
      After you add a template, the data sources and variables that are specified in the template are also added to the wizard.
  3. In the Data sources section, configure each data source.
    Note:
    • If a data source has a default value or you enter a default URI, the data source is listed as configured and the default value is used in the output unless you select another value.
    • If you move past the Data sources section and then click Back to change a data source, the section always opens to the first data source in the list.
    • To select artifacts from a specific configuration, first set Global Configuration (GC) URL in the Configuration context. Then, select an artifact by using Resource picker, otherwise Resource picker displays the contents from a default stream of the selected project area.

    1. Select a data source from one of the following locations:
      • Manual configuration: To select a local or remote data source because no other configuration information exists for this data source in the configuration layer.
      • Load from configuration layer: To select a value from the configuration metadata that was entered for the data source in the template.
    2. Depending on the selection you made in the previous step, you can enter a URL for the data source, click Browse to select one, or select a value from the configuration layer.
      Whether the value is a URL or is a value contains a URL, the typical data source URL for Rhapsody can be determined by:
      1. Identify the data source schema URL, which was used to add the schema to the template.
      2. From the data source schema URL, remove the ?metadata=schema suffix. Example:
        • Data source schema URL: https://server:port/Rational/Rhapsody/?metadata=schema
        • Data source URL: https://server:port/Rational/Rhapsody/

      You are not required to use the same URL as the data source schema. You can point to a different Rhapsody repository to access the data contained within it, because Rhapsody repositories all use the same REST API.

    3. If the resource is on a secured server, specify the Username.
    4. If the resource is on a secured server, specify the Password.
      Note: You can specify the user password or the application password that is generated by the configured third-party identity provider, such as SAML or OIDC. You must select Basic authentication method while using application password.
    5. Select the Authentication Type from the list.
      If you do not select a type, each type is tested until the correct type is found, which might increase document-style report generation time.
    6. Optional: Enter an accept header.
      The default value is application/xml, */*.
    7. Optional: If you want to use your credentials with each data source, select the Apply these user name and password values to every configured and unconfigured data source option.
    8. Click Next.
  4. In the Variables section, configure each variable.
    Note:
    • If a variable has a default value, it shows as configured and the output uses the default value unless another value is selected.
    • If you move past the Variables section and then click Back to make further changes to a variable, the section always opens to the first variable in the list.
    1. From the drop-down menu, select an option:
      • Manual configuration: To enter any value for the variable if there isn't any other configuration information for this variable in the configuration layer.
      • From configuration layer: To select a value from the configuration metadata that you entered for the variable in your template.
    2. Enter or select a value for the configuration.
    3. Click Next.
  5. In the Output section, select the output types to generate:
    • Microsoft Word
    • PDF
    • HTML
    • XSL-FO
    • Excel
    1. Optional: For the Save location, click Browse to select a path to save the file for each output type.
      You can edit the path to be a relative path from the document specification. If you don't specify a save location for the output, the file is generated in a temporary location.
    2. Optional: For the Style sheet, click Browse to select a style sheet to use for generating each type of output.
    3. Optional: Microsoft Word/Excel output only: For the Macro name, enter the name of the macro that is contained within the style sheet.
    4. Optional: Microsoft Excel output only: To insert a new sheet in the workbook, add the document break element. To specify the name of the new sheet, add it as a property of the document break. Make sure that the name is short enough to fit on the tab for the worksheet.
    5. Optional: To enter more metadata or configure other document-style report properties that are not included in the wizard, click Edit metadata properties.
    6. Click Next.
  6. Verify the template and output information in the summary window.
  7. Select which action to take when you click Finish:
    • Run the document generation: Generates the output types that you specified.
    • Run the document generation and quit PUB: Generates the output types that you specified and closes the application after you exit the Results window.
    • Save and close this wizard without generating the document: Closes the document generation wizard but keeps Launcher open.