How to export a relationship matrix in a document?

I'm looking for a good way of exporting a relationship matrix in a generated document.

The solution that EA gives is to export it as an image but that will look very bad as soon as the matrix contains many rows.

The workaround that I have used so far was to 1) Export the matrix to CVS, 2) Convert the CVS, with a Office Macro file, to a table in Word, 3) To reformat that table a bit and manually paste it into the exported Design document. This is quite cumbersome.

What I would expect, and maybe we need to run scripts for it, is something integrated in the overall EA export of the document, writing automatically the right column names, rows, and marking the cells with a connection.

You can't really, or not without using a document script template, and creating the RTF code yourself.

The main problem with matrices is that they have a variable number of columns. Standard EA templates only work with a fixed number of columns.

Matrix layout

The next best thing is to present the same information in a fixed column table.

Fixed column layout

Major advantage of this layout is that the width is predictable. With a matrix layout the number of columns quite often is simply too much to fit on the page.(and remain readable)

You can use an SQL fragment to get the information in the table.

Here's an example of such a query that show the activities in a BPMN diagram and the RASCI relation to the BPMN PartnerRoles

select bpa.name as Activity, 
r.RoleName, r.RASCI
, CASE WHEN r.RASCI = 'R' THEN r.RASCI ELSE NULL END as R
, CASE WHEN r.RASCI = 'A' THEN r.RASCI ELSE NULL END as A
, CASE WHEN r.RASCI = 'S' THEN r.RASCI ELSE NULL END as S
, CASE WHEN r.RASCI = 'C' THEN r.RASCI ELSE NULL END as C
, CASE WHEN r.RASCI = 'I' THEN r.RASCI ELSE NULL END as I
from t_object bp 
left join t_object pl on pl.ParentID = bp.Object_ID
and pl.Stereotype = 'Pool'
left join t_object ln on ln.ParentID in (pl.Object_ID, bp.Object_ID)
and ln.Stereotype = 'Lane'
inner join t_object bpa on bpa.ParentID in (ln.Object_ID, pl.Object_ID, bp.Object_ID)
and bpa.Stereotype = 'Activity'
left join t_objectproperties tv on tv.Object_ID = bpa.Object_ID
and tv.Property = 'calledActivityRef'
left join t_object ca on ca.ea_guid = tv.Value
left join 
(select c.Start_Object_ID, ro.Name as RoleName, tv.VALUE as RASCI from t_connector c
inner join t_object ro on ro.Object_ID = c.End_Object_ID
and ro.Stereotype = 'PartnerRole'
left join t_connectortag tv on tv.ElementID = c.Connector_ID
and tv.Property = 'RA(S)CI'
where c.Stereotype = 'trace') r on r.Start_Object_ID = bpa.Object_ID
left join t_diagramobjects do on do.Object_ID = bpa.Object_ID
left join t_diagram d on d.Diagram_ID = do.Diagram_ID
and d.ParentID = bp.Object_ID
where bp.Object_ID = #OBJECTID#
order by do.RectLeft, do.RectTop desc, bpa.Name
, CASE WHEN r.RASCI = 'R' THEN 1
WHEN r.RASCI = 'A' THEN 2
WHEN r.RASCI = 'S' THEN 3
WHEN r.RASCI = 'C' THEN 4
WHEN r.RASCI = 'I' THEN 5 END

In this case it's a left join situation. We show all Activities, even the ones that don't have a linked role, but we only show the roles linked to an Activity.

In EA we manage this information with a Relationship matrix (with RASCI overlay), but in the document we show it like this.