Figured I’d start a thread on interesting Explorer diagram reports. One we’ve been asked for a couple of times is to create a relationship report that distinguishes an IDEF0 (or OV-5) Function/Activity symbol, and all of its child Function/Activities on child diagrams.
Most users who try to create this report get it wrong the first time, because they forget that on the Explorer diagram, we are relating Definitions to other Definitions (not Symbols to Symbols).
So your first instinct is to build a report that gets:
Symbols of type = ‘Function/Activity”
Which
Expand to Diagrams of Type = ‘IDEF0”
Which
Contain Symbols of Type = “Funtion/Activity”, and get the Name of those Symbols.
This report will run and give you information, but when applied to the Explorer diagram (as an Explorer Relationship Report) that has Function/Activities on it, it doesn’t yield any relationships. The reason is that on the Explorer diagram, you are looking at relationships between the Definitions defining those Symbols. So the report should be written to get:
Definitions of Type = “Function/Activity” (and get their name)
Which
Define Symbols
Which
Expand to Diagrams of Type = “IDEF0”
Which
Contain Symbols of Type = “Funtion/Activity”
Which are
Defined by Definitions, and get the Name of those Definitions
So the textual report that you’d add to the Content property of an Explorer Relationship Definition would be:
SELECT "Name"
WHERE Class = Definition
WHERE Type = "Function/Activity"
JOIN
WHERE RELATION = "defines"
JOIN
WHERE Class = Symbol
JOIN
WHERE RELATION = "expands to"
JOIN
WHERE Class = Diagram
WHERE Type = "IDEF0"
JOIN
WHERE RELATION = "contains"
JOIN
WHERE Class = Symbol
WHERE Type = "Function/Activity"
JOIN
WHERE RELATION = "defined by"
JOIN
SELECT "Name"
WHERE Class = Definition
Drag that Explorer Relationship Report definition onto an Explorer diagram onto which you have dragged all of your Function/Activity definitions, and lines will be drawn from any parent Function/Activity to child Function/Activities.
Edited: 30-Jul-2005
at 14:47
by lou varveris