Specifying what to document
Once you have selected the servers, databases and packages you would like to include in your documentation, you can click on the Next button or on the following node in the Graphical Treeview to proceed.
If you have selected a database to document the next step will be the server details step.
If you haven’t selected to document a database, and only want to include SSIS packages in your documentation, the next step will be the Integration Services details step. The Graphical Treeview will only present the steps relevant to the options you have already selected.
I have selected to document two databases from two different servers, and added a SSIS Package from SQL Server and from the file system. Multiple servers will be represented by a node for each server in the Table of contents in the documentation created as depicted in the image below:
Server Details
This step allows you to select whether or not to include the server properties, which contains information such as the following:
- Network Name
- Service Name
- SQL Version
- Databases
- Server Configuration
Server Object Filter
In previous versions of ApexSQL Doc you couldn’t filter server objects, all objects of the selected object type were included by default. In this version however you are now able to apply a filter to only document specific server object types.
The first column lists all of the available server object types, and to the right of it is a column of check boxes which allows you to indicate whether or not a filter should be applied for each selected object.
Checking a “Use Filter” checkbox, adds a corresponding step to the Graphical Treeview.
This additional step will now allow you to include only certain Server Roles in the documentation. The filtering functionality is pretty standard through ApexSQL Doc it allows you to filter the objects by either checking each object you want to include, or by applying a regular expression to the object name. This functionality is pretty self explanatory so I’ll just leave you to figure it out for yourself 😉
Object Types
A quick look at the Graphical Treeview will show you exactly which database object types will be included in your documentation, as a step has been added for each type. By clicking on the “Object Type” node itself, the Main window will display all object types which might be included, including and excluding an object type is as easy as just checking or un-checking a checkbox.
As you can see from the above image I have chosen to include only a couple of object types, this is also reflected in my Graphical Treeview and only selected object types will be included in the documentation as indicated below:
Each individual object type step presents you with attributes pertaining to the specific object type which might be included in your documentation i.e.
For procedures you can choose any of the following options;
Which if you have a look at the generated documentation presents itself like this:
Take note of the description included here, as I would like to elaborate on this point a little further down the line.