Decision tables in Enterprise Architect?

I'm trying to model a business rule set in EA.

The rules are easily described in a decision table: a column is a matching condition, a row is a rule, if all the conditions are matched in a row then the rule matched. More info is available in the Drools docs, for example.

These rules are an integral part of 开发者_StackOverflow社区the application, even if on a different level than the technology details (classes, database tables, etc.). So naturally I would like to add the decision table to my documentation in EA.

I found no way to do this. EA doesn't even know about a "table" or a "spreadsheet", let alone decision tables. I would be happy to simply insert my XLS as an "attachment" to the model, but I didn't find a way to do that either.

Any ideas are appreciated.

There currently seems to be no way to do this short of taking a screen shot of the decision table and pasting it into the generated report after the fact. I believe it is in Sparx System's road-map to implement but no immediate time-frame has been given.

You could try submitting a feature request via their official forms, it can do nothing but add more ammunition to the request. At the very least they should notify you when its available.

Update1: You could always paste that screen shot into the linked document (Ctrl+Alt+D) of the parent element that contains the business rules matrix. This could then be automatically included in the auto generated report. At least then it is still contained in the model and can be used in many places.

Update2: Just Rereading your OP, are you actually using EA's business Rules engine? or are you just after a matrix that can be included in the reporting? if it is the latter then you have two options.

The first is the Relationship Matrix (View -> Relationship matrix). This can be included automatically in RTF and HTML generated reports as well has the option to Export to CSV, save as a png or metafile.

The second option is to shoehorn the State Machine Table, (From a State Machine Diagram, right click and select State Chart Editor - Table) Both of these options will allow you to layout a grid style table where you can compare your business rules.

I hope this helps