Creating document-style reports in the Requirements Management application

Rational® DOORS® Next Generation includes several document-style reports that you can generate to view information about the artifacts, modules, collections, and module views in your Requirements Management (RM) projects. If the available reports do not suit your needs, you can create custom report templates.

Before you begin

Unlike with development intelligence reports that are based on a data warehouse, you do not need to install extra components to generate the document-style reports that are included in the RM application.

Note: If you are working in a project that is enabled for configuration management, document-style reports are created by using data from the configuration in which you are currently working. If you are using IBM® Rational Publishing Engine, you can specify the configuration in which you want to create reports.

About this task

You can generate a document-style report on all the artifacts on a page, or on selected artifacts. The following formats are supported:
  • HTML
  • PDF

    The PDF font must be configured to one that has international character support for Linux or Windows systems. Otherwise, special characters might not be shown in your PDF file.

    For information about how to install fonts on Linux systems, consult the documentation for your specific Linux distribution. As an alternative, if the fonts are available in a non-default directory, you can set the true-type font directory by using the com.ibm.rational.rpe.pdf.truetypefontdirectory Java parameter. After you set a directory, the formatting driver loads the fonts from that directory. If the necessary font is not available on the operating system, you can set the substitution font on the PDF output property to an available font.

  • XSL-FO (XSL Formatting Objects)

    This is a standard unified presentation language for documents. You can use this format with post-processors to generate output that can be printed or rendered. You can also use it with scripts to post-process your results. For more information about this format, see XSL Formatting Objects.

  • Microsoft Word
    When you generate a report in this format, if you see an error message about the table of contents, right-click the message and click Update Field. If you use a Windows operating system, you can configure Word stylesheets on the Rational DOORS Next Generation server to automatically run macros. However, if you use macros on a non-Windows operating system, the following error message is written to the logs: CRRPE3137W The Microsoft Word macro was ignored. For more information about using Microsoft Word stylesheets and macros, see Using Microsoft Word stylesheets.
    Note: A limitation in Microsoft Word prevents you from following any links in the generated report. To view the linked artifact, copy the URL and paste it in your browser.
Tip: Although Microsoft Excel is not supported for report generation, you can create a custom view and export it to CSV format, which you can then import into an Excel spreadsheet.

If you insert a file into an artifact, you can download, open, and print the file in the application where it was created. For more information, see Inserting files into requirement artifacts.

Procedure

  1. You can generate a document-style report on the artifacts in your projects in several ways. Choose one of the following approaches.
    • If you are new to the RM application and want to try the reporting features, complete the following steps.
      1. In your RM project, click Reports.
      2. On the Reports page, click Generate a report.
    • If you are working with artifacts, modules, collections, or module views in the grid, you can generate a report by completing the following steps.
      1. On the Artifacts page, choose the artifacts to include in the report. You can use a filter to find and show specific artifacts. See Filters and views for artifacts in requirements projects.
      2. Click the Edit icon Edit icon and click one of the following menu items.
        • To report on artifacts or collections, click Generate Report for Artifact.
        • To report on modules, click Generate Module Report for Artifact.
        • To report on module views, click Generate Report for View.
  2. In the Create a report wizard, select the type of report to create. The list of available reports depends on the artifacts that you selected.

    When you generate a report from a module, the Create a Report dialog box stores your most recent settings. These settings persist across sessions and can be reused for generating more reports.

  3. Click Next and complete the steps in the wizard.

Results

The report is saved in the location that you specified.

Creating custom document-style reports

You can create custom report templates that are based on IBM Rational Publishing Engine, and then create your own document-style reports from those templates.

You must be familiar with the REST APIs for accessing report information. You must also have a full Rational Publishing Engine license. For more information, see Customizing document-style reports and Making document-style reports available to viewers.

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