Introduction

BizReporter is a tool for enhancing your COOL:Biz documentation capabilities to produce sophisticated model reports in Word, Excel or Access. It is built on similar principles to Rainier's highly successful ModelReporter product for Advantage Gen (formerly COOL:Gen). There is now no longer any need to understand the complex COOL:Biz metamodel or learn VBA to produce top quality custom reports from Biz.

Features

• Provides direct access to Biz model data and report creation via an easy to use GUI interface.

• Allows quick and easy creation of a variety of report types incorporating text, tables, hierarchies, diagrams and association matrices.

• A large number of standard reports (more than 250) are supplied. Ad hoc queries and custom reports can be quickly and easily defined. Output can be created in Word, Excel or HTML formats.

• Allows combination of standard and/or custom reports of various types into combination documents or 'specifications'. For example you might define a Data Model Specification document which contains Entity and Attribute Text Definitions, Entity Properties, Attribute Properties, Relationships and Entity Relationship Diagrams all in one master document. Save that specification definition and run it again and again, or distribute it to your workgroup.

• Incorporates powerful QA facilities. Check for model completeness and correctness against your own rules and generate non-conformance reports.

• Model Compare facilities give you the ability to compare data in different model versions. See what objects have been added, changed or deleted, when and by whom. Compare different models to find objects with the same name but different IDs.

• Object Hierarchy Tree Viewer lets you browse the decomposition of objects in a Tree View window. You can quickly view, for example, the Process Hierarchy or Organization Unit Hierarchy, expanding and contracting branches as desired.

• Isolated Object Finder lets you track down objects which are not used in any diagrams so you can include or remove them.

• Blank Matrix Generator allows you to quickly create (and dynamically update) your own matrices of any object against any object if you wish to record your own association information outside of Biz.

• Model Statistics feature gives you a report on the volumetrics of your model.

• All reports are based around supplied, easily customisable, Word and Excel templates. Data can be previewed 'on-line' through the user interface before reports are created.

• Report creation is fast and simple documents or queries are usually created in just a few seconds. Complex specification documents with diagrams still rarely take more than a minute to run.

• Runs standalone or can be launched from the COOL:Biz Custom Reports window

• Uses Access database formats for temporary storage of model data although Users need not have Access on their workstations to use any BizReporter features. If they do they can additionally use Access directly against BizReporter data to define their own queries and reports, copy data into other formats, etc. Because all standard reporting is table driven based on accessible SQL and an open database structure it's easy to add or edit standard reports to produce exactly what you need.

Screenshots

Various views can be found here. (This page is separate to allow faster loading).

Sample Output

Contents of all reports are completely flexible. All documents shown here are Word or Excel 97 format and were created in the times shown on a Dell Latitude P300 with 64Mb RAM running NT 4.0 using a slightly enhanced version of the Biz-supplied CONFERENCE sample model (of course BizReporter is tested with very much larger models). In addition all documents are completely unedited and were generated exactly as you find them. Note that equivalent HTML reports generate faster still, usually less than 2 seconds.

Simple standard Text-type Report (Use Case Body Text report, creation time 3 seconds)

Simple standard Table-type Report (Process and Activity Properties report, creation time 6 seconds)

Simple standard Diagram-type Report (Entity Relationship Diagrams report, creation time 6 seconds)

Specification (Data Model Specification incorporating 6 separate sub-reports, including diagrams, creation time 19 seconds)

Model Compare report (creation time 3 seconds)

Association Matrix (Process v Entity CRUD Matrix, Excel 97, creation time 7 seconds)

User Manual

The User Manual (zipped, 484k) is available for download in Microsoft Word 97 format.

Download

An evaluation version of BizReporter is available for download (now incorporating HTML generation, enhanced Model Compare and Where Used functions, Isolated Object Finder, Blank Matrix Generator with update capability, and full online help and User Manual).

The evaluation version is fully functional but time limited (30 days). Unzip the download file into a temporary directory and run SETUP.EXE.

Obtain the trial version serial number

This product is being updated and extended continually. Please check back regularly if you are interested in enhancing your COOL:Biz documentation capabilities. Please contact us with any enhancement requests or if you require any further information.

Information about this version

This is a 32-bit version for Windows NT 4.0/2000 or 95/98/Me.

Note that you do NOT need Access installed on your PC to use this program, but if you do wish to use Access to manipulate data extracted from models by BizReporter you will need Access 97 or later. Note that Jet 4.0 (the database engine used by Access) is required. This is not an issue if you have Windows 2000, Windows Me or Office 2000 installed. You can tell if you have Jet 4.0 by checking for file MSJET40.DLL on your machine. 

Without Jet 4.0 you will receive Error 3633 when attempting to create or open a BizReporter database. If you need to install Jet 4.0 please see the following Microsoft KB Articles:

Q239114 ACC2000: Updated Version of Microsoft Jet 4.0 Available in Download Center.

Q271908 INFO: MDAC Version 2.6 Does Not Contain Jet

BizReporter uses Word, Excel and HTML templates to create its reports. The Word and Excel templates are supplied in Office 97/2000/XP DOT and XLT formats. We can supply sets of templates for Office 95 if required.

Version history

BizReporter and COOL:Biz versions

You may receive an error when attempting to open KM files after PTF 2 has been applied to COOL:Biz 5.1 to upgrade it to version 5.1.2. This PTF introduced incompatibilities which required issuing a separate BizReporter executable to use after this PTF has been applied. Both versions of the executable are supplied in the download package and installed as separate icons during setup. The incompatibilities were fixed in Biz version 5.1.3 and the original BizReporter.exe should be used for that version. If you are using Biz v5.1.3 and try to open a model with BizReporter_Biz512.exe instead of BizReporter.exe an error will occur ("error -91 in procedure OpenBizModel").

 

COOLBiz version		Use
5.1.1		BizReporter.exe
5.1.2		BizReporter_Biz512.exe
5.1.3		BizReporter.exe

Pricing

Pricing for all Rainier products can be obtained via the Products page.