Throughout a system development project, it is often necessary to document and report on the analysis and design models, and the complex and detailed model data stored in the project encyclopedia.

There is a fine-line difference between documenting and reporting on a project: documenting generally means providing hard-copy or on-screen presentations of the pictures of the models and all or some particular underlying information. Reporting includes documentation, and can include intelligent information on the design models themselves, for example, creating a report that lists all classes that have no methods defined.

System Architect provides three main facilities to create documentation and reports:

Internal Reporting System: an internal SQL-based Reporting System.

System Architect Word Reports: a link with Microsoft Word. Predefined Word templates are provided and are used to access information in a System Architect encyclopedia to automatically create formatted reports in Word. Templates are written in, and can be customized in, Word’s Visual Basic for Applications. The user can create new templates as well.

HTML Report Generator: generates HTML formatted reports, including context-sensitive pictures of diagrams, with links to all definitions. Reports are automatically launched in the user’s browser of choice.

In addition, System Architect’s internal Visual Basic for Applications interface can be used to create documentation and reports.