Design and generate business process report

1. Download the project file Electrical Appliance Hotline.vpp attached to this tutorial.
2. Start Business Process Visual ARCHITECT in a new workspace.
3. Open Electrical Appliance Hotline.vpp.
4. Before we start designing a process report, let's familiarize ourselves with the business process that we are going to generate report for. Open the Model Explorer. We can see a model As-is-Process. Inside the model, there is a business process diagram Call for Repair. Double click to open it.
   
5. Like most of the other business process diagrams, there are lanes and a number of flow objects. There are two sub-processes Issue Repair Notice and Repair Product. Let's open their process diagram.
   
   Right click on them and select Open Process Diagram from the popup menu.
   
6. Below are the two sub-process diagrams of the sub-processes.
   
7. Let's start designing a report. Select Tools > Report > Generate PDF Report... from the main menu.
   
8. In the Generate PDF dialog box, click on the drop down menu near Template and select <New> from the popup menu.
   
9. This opens the Report Template dialog box where we can design our report. We will create a template in this structure:
   
10. Name the template Process report.
11. We need to walk through the as-is process model and process the business process diagram under it. Click on the button Add Element Loop (Model) and select Model.
    
12. Then, click on the button Add Diagram Loop in the toolbar of element loop.
    
13. Double click to select Business Process Diagram from the list on the right hand side. This will walk through all business process diagrams under model.
    
14. We need to generate an image for a business process diagram. Click on the button Add Diagram Image in the toolbar of diagram loop.
    
15. Under the diagram image we need to present a list of activities (tasks and subprocesses) in the diagram. Select the diagram loop and click on Add Element Summary in its toolbar.
    
16. Select Task and Sub-Process from the list on the left hand side and click the > button to assign them to the type of shape to be listed.
    
17. Let's set the properties to be listed for tasks and subprocesses. Click on the button Add Property Column in the toolbar of element summary.
    
18. Select Name.
    
19. Repeat step 17 and 18 to add another property column for the property documentation. When we generate report, we will see a table of task and subprocess, with their name and documentation appear in table.
    
20. Let's preview the report against the template we have designed so far. Click on the button Preview Template Content in editor toolbar.
    
21. Take a look at the preview. You should see the following preview content.
    
22. We have finished editing half of the template. The rest of the template is about displaying the subprocesses' process diagrams and the lists of tasks and sub-processes in them. Select the diagram loop of business process diagram first.
    
23. Click on the button Add Element Loop in the toolbar of diagram loop.
    
24. Double click to select Sub-Process to loop.
    
25. Click on the button Add Diagram Loop in the toolbar of sub-process's element loop to query the process diagrams of sub-process.
    
26. Similar to the previous step, select Business Process Diagram to loop.
    
27. Click Add Diagram Image in the toolbar of diagram loop to show the image of business process diagram.
    
28. Under the diagram image, we need to show a list of tasks and sub-process, similar to what we have done above. Click on the Add Element Summary button in diagram loop.
    
29. Select Task and Sub-Process to loop.
    
30. Click on the Add Property Column button to choose the properties to show in table.
    
31. Add properties name and documentation.
    
32. Preview the report. The result looks fine, but we want to add a line break after the root diagram section.
    
33. Select the first diagram loop for business process diagram. Click on the button Add Page Break in the toolbar of diagram loop.
    
34. Select the page break just added, click on Move Up to move it to appropriate position.
    
    The following image shows where the page break should be placed.
    
35. We have completed the template. Let's save it and make use of it to generate a report. Click Save at the top left of template editor.
    
36. Click on the Close button at the bottom right of template editor.
37. In the Generate PDF dialog box, fill in the output path, make sure the template Process report is remain selected, click Generate.
38. We have obtained the PDF report, generated base on the template. Walk through the pages and try to recall what you have done when editing template.
    

Resources

1. Electrical Appliance Hotline.vpp

Related Tutorials

1. Producing business process report with report writer