Modify Default Process Model to Fit Your Process

With the CI/CD Automation for Simulink Check support package, you can define a consistent process for your team by using a process model file. When your team has a standard process for local prequalification and CI builds, you can efficiently enforce guidelines and make collaboration easier. This example shows how to reconfigure the default process model to create a consistent, repeatable process that you can deploy to your team. In this example, you take the default process model and modify the tasks and queries to fit your requirements.

For more information about the process model, see Overview of Process Model.

Open Project

Open a project that contains your files. If you do not already have a project, you can create a project as shown in Create Projects.

Create Process Model

You can create a process model for your project by using either the:

• Process Advisor app — When you open Process Advisor on a project that does not have a process model, the app automatically copies the default process model into the project.

• createprocess function — You can use this function to access the different process model templates, including a template for the default process model.

Inspect Default Process Model

Inspect the default process model by opening the Process Advisor app and clicking the Edit button .

The default process model has four main sections that you can edit to fit your development and verification workflow:

• Section A — Add or Remove Built-In Tasks

• Section B — Modify Behavior of Built-In Tasks

• Section C — Specify Dependencies Between Tasks

• Section D — Specify Preferred Task Execution Order

In the following diagram, the letters A, B, C, and D indicate the location of those sections in the default process model.

Section A — Add or Remove Built-In Tasks

The default process model adds several built-in tasks to the process, including tasks for collecting metrics and running checks with Model Advisor. You can add or remove these built-in tasks from your process by setting the variable associated with a built-in task to true or false in your process model. For example, to have your process include the built-in task for generating Simulink^® model comparisons, edit the process model to set includeModelComparisonTask to true.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Include/Exclude Tasks in processmodel
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

includeModelMaintainabilityMetricTask = true;
includeModelTestingMetricTask = true;
includeModelStandardsTask = true;
includeDesignErrorDetectionTask = false;
includeFindClones = true;
includeModelComparisonTask = true;
includeSDDTask = true;
includeSimulinkWebViewTask = true;
includeTestsPerTestCaseTask = true;
includeMergeTestResultsTask = true;
includeGenerateCodeTask = true;
includeAnalyzeModelCode = true && exist('polyspaceroot','file');
includeProveCodeQuality = true && (~isempty(ver('pscodeprover')) || ~isempty(ver('pscodeproverserver')));
includeCodeInspection = false;

Each variable is associated with a task in the default process model.

Variable in Default Process Model	Task Title	Built-In Task
includeModelMaintainabilityMetricTask	Collect Model Maintainability Metrics	padv.builtin.task.CollectMetrics
includeModelTestingMetricTask	Collect Model Testing Metrics	padv.builtin.task.CollectMetrics
includeModelStandardsTask	Check Modeling Standards	padv.builtin.task.RunModelStandards
includeDesignErrorDetectionTask	Detect Design Errors	padv.builtin.task.DetectDesignErrors
includeFindClones	Find Clones	padv.builtin.task.FindClones
includeModelComparisonTask	Generate Model Comparison	padv.builtin.task.GenerateModelComparison
includeSDDTask	Generate SDD Report	padv.builtin.task.GenerateSDDReport
includeSimulinkWebViewTask	Generate Simulink Web View	padv.builtin.task.GenerateSimulinkWebView
includeTestsPerTestCaseTask	Run Tests	padv.builtin.task.RunTestsPerTestCase
includeMergeTestResultsTask	Merge Test Results	padv.builtin.task.MergeTestResults
includeGenerateCodeTask	Generate Code	padv.builtin.task.GenerateCode
includeAnalyzeModelCode	Check Coding Standards	padv.builtin.task.AnalyzeModelCode
includeProveCodeQuality	Prove Code Quality	padv.builtin.task.AnalyzeModelCode
includeCodeInspection	Inspect Code	padv.builtin.task.RunCodeInspection

The tasks that you add in the process model appear in the Tasks column in Process Advisor. In addition to the built-in tasks, you can also add custom tasks to your process model. For more information, see Add Tasks to Process.

Section B — Modify Behavior of Built-In Tasks

The built-in tasks have default behaviors, but you can modify how a task performs its action by reconfiguring the task object in the process model. For example, the built-in task padv.builtin.task.RunModelStandards has a property ReportPath that specifies where the task saves the output Model Advisor report. By default, the RunModelStandards task saves the report in a subfolder named model_standards. The default process model reconfigures the task object, maTask, to have the task save the Model Advisor report in a subfolder named model_standards_results instead. You can modify other task behaviors by setting other task object property values. For example, to have the task generate the Model Advisor report as a Microsoft^® Word document instead of HTML, set ReportFormat to "docx".

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Register Tasks
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

%% Checking model standards on a model
if includeModelStandardsTask
    maTask = pm.addTask(padv.builtin.task.RunModelStandards());
    maTask.ReportPath = fullfile( ...
        defaultResultPath,'model_standards_results');
    maTask.ReportFormat = "docx";
end
    
...

When you run the task in Process Advisor, the task performs its action using the behaviors that you specified in the process model. You can view the results in the I/O column of Process Advisor. To see other examples of how you can reconfigure tasks, inspect the default process model and see Reconfigure Task Behavior.

Section C — Specify Dependencies Between Tasks

Typically in your development and verification workflow, you have tasks that need inputs or results from other tasks in order to run successfully. In the process model, you specify these dependencies by using the dependsOn method on the task object.

For example, the default process model adds the built-in tasks Generate Code and Check Coding Standards to the process. Since you need to generate the code before you can analyze it, the default process model specifies that if your process model contains both the code generation and code analysis tasks, then the code analysis task object, psbfTask, needs to depend on the code generation task object codegenTask.

%% Set Task Dependencies
    if includeGenerateCodeTask && includeAnalyzeModelCode
        psbfTask.dependsOn(codegenTask);
    end

If you open Process Advisor and point to the run button for the Check Coding Standards task, Process Advisor highlights dependency on the Generate Code task. If you try to run the Check Coding Standards task, the build system automatically runs the Generate Code task first. For more information, see Define Task Relationships.

Section D — Specify Preferred Task Execution Order

Often there are tasks in your development and verification workflow that you want to run in a specific order, even though the tasks do not depend on each other. To specify a preferred task execution order for tasks that do not depend on each other, you can use the runsAfter method on the task object.

For example, the default process model specifies that the modeling standards task (maTask) should run after the Simulink web view task (slwebTask). The modeling standards task does not depend on information from the Simulink web view task in order to run, but that is the preferred execution order for the tasks in this particular process.

%% Set Task Run-Order
if includeModelStandardsTask && includeSimulinkWebViewTask
    maTask.runsAfter(slwebTask);
end

In Process Advisor, the Check Modeling Standards task appears after the Generate Simulink Web View task in the Tasks column. For more information on task ordering, see Define Task Relationships.