Skip to content

Introduction

This wiki contains the documentation of the PowerDesigner extensions created by CrossBreeze.

Why did we create these extension?

At CrossBreeze we work on automating the development of data solutions as much as possible. For this we use SAP PowerDesigner for creating physical data models which contain the structure and lineage of a data solution. In order the generate as much as possible we need to be able to model all aspects of a data solution so we can extract all metadata needed to generate the code. For this we needed to extend the standard physical data modelling functionalities of PowerDesigner.

What are the CrossBreeze PowerDesigner extensions?

PowerDesigner can be extended using the standard extension functionality. Using this methodology we created several extension files for different PowerDesigner model types. For each model type the extensions are listed below.

Project

We created one extension for a project:

  • XBreeze Project Extension
    • Export the project as an XML file
    • Export all (open) models option.

Physical data model

We created three extensions for physical data models:

  • XBreeze Model Extension
    • Model how tables are exactly joined together (join type and join columns)
    • Be able to use the same source table twice in different roles within one mapping
    • Model business rules with structure and behaviour and apply them in mappings
    • Export the whole model as an XML file
  • XBreeze Naming Convention
    • Standard model checks for a PDM model.
  • XBreeze Model Export Extension
    • A user specific export extension which can be modified by the user to add extra metadata in the XML export.

Documentation Shortkeys

Shortkey Description
F or S Press the F or S key to start searching.
Shift + mouse scroll1 Press the Shift key while scrolling to scroll horizontally.

  1. This can be handy when a code example is wide and doesn't fit within the boundaries of the page. ↩