Generating a Data Dictionary report and restricting it to one diagram

[former_member1194361]

Hi there,

I would like to generate a Data Dictionary report and filter

it only on the currently open diagram. How can I do that ? I

used the Report Wizard and created an RTF report with the

default Professional layout. As I stepped through the

report, I did not see a way to restrict the objects only to

a specific diagram. Now I have ended up with a 700 page

report as this data model has several diagrams.

In Erwin, you can restrict your report to only objects in a

single diagram. I am trying to re-create a similar report.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Navin,

Look in the help and find the section

Selecting Objects to Display for an Individual Item

Hans

[former_member1194361 · Accepted solution]

Hi Hans,

I searched online help within PD on "Selecting Objects to Display for an Individual Item" and did not find anything usefull.

Can you cut and paste the steps how one would do this filtering in a report.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Navin,

When creating a list of tables i.e. you can right-mouse-click on that list. And you'll see a selection possibility.

Hans

[former_member1194361 · Accepted solution]

You mean, right click on Model name in Object Browser, then select "List of" and from that list pick Tables and right click on that ?

When I do that, I get the "List of tables" window. I right click on one of the table names and did not see a way to narrow that list of a single Diagram.

The "Customize Columns and Filter" button on the top of this "List of Tables" window, does not have "Diagram" as one of the choices to filter by.

I am pretty frustrated.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Navin,

Create a report for what you want to report on. Go to the report editor to edit the report. You'll see some sections and items. i.e. List of Tables. Right clickon this one and you see the way you can select or  filter things. May be not directly on the diagram, but may be something else. Which can help you filter out what you want.

Hans

[former_member1194361 · Accepted solution]

Ok, I see.

I went into Report Edition and see Diagram in the "Available items" list, but there is no way to filter on a particular diagram.

I called 800-677-7271 to see if I could talk to a Tech support person, but was told I cannot. I have to first create a "Customer Message" in the support portal and then someone from that product team will contact.

I have done that, let's see how far it goes.

[former_member192453 · Accepted solution]

Hi Navin,

try the following:

1) open your diagram and press CTRL+A to select all the objects displayed in the diagram

2) open the Report Editor

3) Select Report ->Select Objects menu

4) On the Tables tab, click the 'use graphical selection' tool (this action will select only the objects currently selected in the diagram.

NOTE: You can do the same on the diagram tab.  You can, also, select objects on multiple diagrams and then click this option.

Preview or generate your report.

Is this what you are looking for?

Anthony

[former_member1194361 · Accepted solution]

Hi Anthony,

That is what I exactly wanted !!

And co-incidentally someone from SAP called back within few hours of opening a ticket and this was the same solution they gave.

I now have to play around with this Report Editor to format my report to print the Diagram, Follow by Table name, Table comment and then Columns in that table with it's datatype, length, nullability and comment and save this report for re-use.

[former_member192453 · Accepted solution]

Hi Navin,

Once you finish formatting your report, Select Report ->Create template from Section.

This will allow you to save your report layout as a template which you can then reuse for future reports within the same or different model. However, the 'object selection' is not saved as part of the report template.

Also, you can add multiple Sections with the same or different report items within the same report.

Anthony

[former_member1194361 · Accepted solution]

Another helpfull tip Anthony.

I did what you describe and saved as a template. Then when I open up that template. For some reason, the entire section of menu option under "Report -> Select Objects" is not availabe. I made sure to first select all tables in my diagram, before invoking this template, but it does not show that menu.

I then opened the report that was already saved in the model and for that it shows that menu option. So will have to figure out why it does not show for a template.

[former_member192453 · Accepted solution]

Hi Navin,

This is expected behavior. When you are working in a report template, the ability to select objects or to generate\preview a report is disabled. The reason for this is that in the 'report template editor', the template is not associated with a specific model.

In your existing report, try the following:

1)      Select Report -> Report Properties

2)      Select the Sections tab (I am assuming that you have only 'Section_1' at this time)

3)      Click the Add a row tool to add a new section.

4)      In the Template, column select your template from the drop down

5)      Click OK

6)      You should now have two sections in your report. If you click on Section_2, you should see that your report template has been applied. You can now select specific objects via the Report menu.

NOTE: If you don't see your template in the list, this means that you did not save your template to the report template directory.  The default location is <PowerDesigner Home>\Resource Files\Report Templates. To determine this path location, do the following in PD:

Select Tools->Resources->Report Templates and then click the Path tool

If you move your report template into this directory, it will be available for use.

[former_member1194361 · Accepted solution]

Hi Anthony,

I can go through the steps you describe. But I am a little confused. Should I do this in the data model that was open in which I created the report AND should I do this before I save it as a Template ?

Because once I save it as a template, the Report -> Report Properties menu option is not available.

What I would like to do is that once I have saved this as a template. I then open another PDM and select this template and it should ask or I should be able to pick the diagram on which I want to run the report on.

[former_member192453 · Accepted solution]

Hi Navin,

"Because once I save it as a template, the Report -> Report Properties menu option is not available."

At this point, you are in the 'Report Template Editor'. After your template is saved, close this editor.

Makes sure that your template is saved in the  <PowerDesigner Home>\Resource Files\Report Templates directory.

Open your second PDM

Create a new report: Reports -> Reports menu

Click the New Reports tool

In the New Report window, specify a name, language, and report template

Click OK

You will now be in the Report Editor and you can select objects via the Report menu.

[former_member1194361 · Accepted solution]

Once again Anthony, your suggestion worked spot on. I now have a re-usable template to generate a data dictionary report for a specific subject area....a.k.a Diagram in PD terminology.

Thanks

Navin

[navinladda]

Honestly, nothing has changed georgemcgeachie with SAP Support avenues. It took me 10 mins this morning to even find this post back and see your reply. I started with Community.sap.com and could not find Power Designer specific community directly link. Searching on Powerdesigner keyword just shows all posts which decided to use that tag.

I was looking for the SAP PowerDesigner community home like they show on the home page other featured communities.

They don't even mentioned on PD on this page : https://community.sap.com/topics/database-data-management

I found Erwin support to be stellar. In no time I was able to create a profile on their website, chat with a rep, open a ticket and get followup on my issue in few hours.

I played around with Filtered list report and it is frustrating. I had to keep a text file with comma separated table names to cut and paste for the In List of Filter when they could have easily added a Use Graphical selection.

And don't even get me started on a successfull reverse engineer of a hive database. It is a hit of miss. I have been trying that for last 2 days and leaving it overnight only to find it at 25% to reverse engineer just 40 tables....a list that I had to painstakingly build by clicking on checkboxes from our target database/schema. Even though I saved that selection criteria, it can be only embedded within the model that ultimately failed to reverse engineer and PD had to be force killed.

[GeorgeMcGeachie]

Hello Navin

Sound like a great enhancement request to me, being able to filter the content of a List report by diagram.

As suggested earlier by Anthony, the nearest you can get is a filtered report like the one below:

[GeorgeMcGeachie]

navinladda - how's this for a feature request?

Please add a 'filter by' or 'contained in' option to a List Report. This will allow the user to specify one or more objects to define the scope of a List Report. There are several different types of object that could be used in this way:

• Diagram - include objects that appear on the selected diagram(s) - possibly make use of the 'Related Diagrams' tab?
• Entity - include all subtypes (in all downward hierarchies)
• Area - only objects that are attached to the Area, or (for Links or Extended Links) linked to objects attached to the Area
• Package - only objects contained in the Package - this could be achieved by defining a List Report inside a Package (currently can't do this)

We can rely on the existing filters ('include shortcuts' and 'include sub-packages').

No doubt there may be other useful filters in EAM, XSM, OOM etc.

PowerDesigner users who are used to Erwin miss the ability to restrict the scope of tabular reports.

We could use the Report Editor to create filtered reports, but there are reasons not to:

• it takes too long to create such a report, if all you want is an existing report with the content limited to what appears on a given diagram
• most users probably don't create or edit reports, so won't have the knowledge needed to create a tabular report this way
• it's too difficult to extract tabular content from the report to hand to someone for review / editing

[navinladda]

I am back to using PD after a 2 year gap when I was using Erwin, so this old thread helped.

How can I do this Graphical selection filtering for a List Report of say Table name, Column name, datatype, length, mandatory....properties of a column.

I see the only way is to filter on table name and manually type in a list of tables with a In List operator.