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CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering)A CASE tool is a product that assists in all phases of the System Development Life Cycle(SDLC).

Connect Partnership use of CASE Tools

The Connect Partnership utilises the Oracle Designer suite to design, develop and

maintain a range of bespoke applications.

Advantages of CASEUtilising CASE tools in the System Development Life Cycle (SLDC) provides a number 

of advantages.

Methodology

CASE tools provide modelling and development tools which allow the users to follow

certain design methodologies. For example, the Oracle Designer suite allows users tofollow the System Development Life Cycle (SLDC) Methodology along with the

Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology (SSADM) more iterativemethodologies such as prototyping. It does this by providing modelling tools for the

creation of Process Models, Functional Hierarchy Diagrams, Data-Flow Diagrams and

Entity-Relationship Diagrams. Following this, Oracle Designer can transform a logical

entity model into a physical model which can be generated into a database application.

Oracle Designer contains tools for coding stored procedures, and also has thefunctionality to generate a Graphical User Interface (GUI) utilising Oracle Forms and

Reports.

Centralised RepositoryOracle Designer provides a centralised repository in which all work is stored that may be

accessed by a number of people. This allows designers/developers to work 

simultaneously on the same application with all of the work being immediately available

to others. Another advantage of this is that all of the design details and developmentcode is in one place which reduces the possibility of source code being missed when

collating for a software release and also makes tasks such as backups easier.

Documentation

The repository that holds all of the information for the CASE tool provides a vast amount

of system documentation. This ranges from the system design which may be represented

 by a number of models (Entity-Relationship, Process Model, Data Flow, etc) through tocomments that are stored in the application on varying objects such as tables, views, andPL/SQL modules.

As this documentation is stored and linked to the application in the repository, it is also

easier to ensure that it is kept up to date. For example, if an application is being amended

that requires new tables to be added, this can be done in a modelling tool and then

transformed through to the application development tools, and finally generated into the

application.

Oracle Designer also allows a number of useful reports to be generated from therepository.

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Development StandardsAs development work is being conducted in the same repository utilising a standard tool

set, it is easier to enforce development standards. The Design Editor in the OracleDesigner suite provides the functionality to develop all database stored procedural code.

In doing so, it provides a structure for breaking this code into modules containing

 packages, procedures, functions, cursors and triggers. It also provides morestandardisation of table and view creation as well as activities such as allocating

tablespaces to tables and indexes, creating synonyms and granting access to users/roles.

Code Re-usability

PL/SQL is stored in a modularised form and grouped whether it is a function, procedure,

cursor or trigger. These individual modules are then included in other PL/SQL modules

(e.g. packages) as sub-program units. When these modules are generated out of the

repository, all underlying sub-programs are included to make up that module’s sourcecode. The modularised PL/SQL unit may be included as a sub-program unit in multiple

PL/SQL modules.

Time Saving/Efficiency

A significant amount of time and effort can be saved by using Case tools during the

SLDC. Case tools allow you to take a system’s design, which is integrated through

modelling and other design tools, and to transform it into a physical application (tables,foreign keys, etc) in a development tool. This saves time and effort required and also

reduces the risk of error.

As PL/SQL source code is stored in a modularised form in the repository, if a piece of 

code (e.g. function or cursor) is being used in more than one package, the code only hasto be modified in one place. All packages that include the modified unit may then simply

 be re-generated and applied to the database.

MaintenanceHaving all of the design/development information stored in a centralised repository

utilised by a CASE tool allows for more efficient maintenance of systems. All of thedesign models are readily available for update, all changes made to the design can be

transformed through to the application in the development tool which reduces the chances

of error, table changes can be generated against the database so that only the changes are

included in the generated script, and all source code is easily located and modularised so

it is easy to change a module and re-generate the changes back into the application.