System Architect provides an OLE DB provider that provides a virtual flattened set of System Architect tables that you might recognize as they resemble the metamodel in System Architect. With the OLE DB provider, you can use third-party tools such as Crystal Reports or Excel to access the repository information and run SQL queries against it.
The steps to use the interface vary depending upon the third-party tool you use to access the System Architect repository by its OLE DB provider. The following steps use Microsoft Excel:
1 Open System Architect, and then open the encyclopedia that contains the information you want to access.
2 Open Microsoft Excel, and then create a new worksheet.
3 Click Data > Import External Data > Import Data.
4 In the Select Data Source dialog, click New Source.
5 In the Data Connection Wizard, select Other/Advanced in the What kind of data source would you like to connect to? field, and then click Next.
6 In the Data Link Properties dialog, click System Architect Provider for OLE DB, and click Next.
7 Specify a name and description for the data source, and then click Finish.
8 Select the .odc data source, and then click OK. The Import Data dialog appears, to import the data into the existing Excel worksheet. Click OK.
