Reporting, CIF and open API

We work on our own Provision reporting application using export of notebook into CIF and files with images. Our results are quite satisfactory and nowadays we are able to generate very smart reports on models we've done with advanced formatting. However we still miss some data to provide excellent outputs. Metastorms declares there is an open API, but we miss some documentation or description to find out how to get data we need.

Is there any API interface providing an access to objects in notebook and check properties that are not in exported CIF? We would appreciate to have a version of notebook to identify which notebook version was used to generate a given report. We miss such an API interface to get all the pictures of context rich workflow models or of all the layers of one model.

We have found out there is a structure for automation in file Interop.PVW.dll but there is no descriptive content to let us work with it. Does anybody has any experience with this issue?

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Comments

John Grygorcewicz

There was a old version of the API but I do not know if they have updated it or if it needed to be updated.

Regards

John

Matt_Michael

Hello,

Can you elaborate on what properties and/or objects you are missing from ProVision that you need in CIF to make your task easier? I'm sure development would be very interested in getting feedback on this. Hopefully we can find something to help you in the short term, and also provide a long term solution.

Thanks,

Matt Michael

Jan Fabian

Hi,
I would like to keep this issue as simple as possible. I will name four cases in which we miss data in CIF and in exported pictures.
1. Notebook version - assumption: the notebook is an active check-out. We would like to sign reports with the notebook version id, so it is possible to identify the version of model upon which a report has been generated.
2. Layers data - in a case there are layers made for certain model, it is possible to make export only for the layer active in the notebook. The rest of layers is not at disposal. Under 'data about layers' I mean layer with all the context - objects visible in the layer. So that we would be able to make a complete description of the model within layer
3. Context-dependent model view - if a model can be viewed under more than one context, we need export of cif with pictures for each context - again there is data an picture only for active view available in export.
4. Project Inventory - data about project inventory tree, so we can report on models in specific folder.

Regards,
Marian

Thierry Tastet

Hello Marian,

let me try & contribute to this :

Notebook version - : this is not possible on the client side reporting since you're running the report agains the currently open notebook. It's possible on the server side using Model Warehouse extract.
Layers data - : not yet possible on the client side. It's already available on the server side (Model Warehouse Extract).
Context-dependent model view -: this is currently a CIF limitation.
Project Inventory -: there are many ways to manage order using Crystal reports techniques (groupings, sub reports...). depending on the structure you want, it's generally possible to generate the appropriate document. It's not as convenient as projects but in Crystal you can specify the group entries to be printed in the order specified. Alternatively, you can follow a strict methodology (numbering and process decomposition), to make sure the order is the one you like.

Hope this helps,

Thierry.

Matt_Michael

Hello Marian,

Please note, each of these items is under consideration from Product Management as enhancements. From what I understand from Development, issue #3 would take a lot of work and would likely not be included soon.

Regards,

Matt