Giving engineers their time back
Truffle engineers built two documentation tools that automate hours of manual tracing, freeing specialists to focus on analysis, fixes, and better reporting.
Automated documentation. More time to deliver.
90%+Estimated reduction in documentation effort
Team estimate for 20-30 Power BI reports. Generation produces a documentation baseline for engineering review.
01 Problem
Expertise tied up in repeat work.
The customer needed engineers focused on solving data problems. Instead, hours went into tracing data flows and writing documentation from scratch across a complex Power BI and Azure Data Factory environment.
This groundwork was necessary, but it pulled specialists away from analysis, fixes, and improvements. With little shared documentation, each new issue meant retracing sources, transformations, and column usage before a fix could begin.
- Manual tracing for 20-30 Power BI reports
- 20-60 hours
- To generate a documentation baseline
- Minutes
02 Solution
They built tools to automate the groundwork.
Truffle data engineers Ntokozo and Desmond developed two documentation tools: pbi-doc-gen for Power BI and adf-doc-gen for Azure Data Factory.
One command generates linked, interactive documentation from report files and pipeline exports, automating the manual groundwork and giving engineers a consistent baseline to review.
Two tools. One repeatable documentation process.
- Power BI + ADF exports
Report files and factory definitions provide the source.
- Built by Truffle
pbi-doc-gen and adf-doc-gen automate documentation generation.
- A shared, interactive map
Linked documentation replaces repeated manual tracing.
How the tools evolved
Shared prompt
A common starting point
AI-assisted interpretation of pipeline definitions.
Python scripts
A repeatable method
Condensed exports and generated documentation.
Reusable tools
A team-wide capability
Connected Power BI and Azure Data Factory knowledge.
- Map the data journeyConnect sources, tables, report pages, and the pipelines that feed them.
- See the impact of changeSurface dependencies, broken references, and evidence for column cleanup before engineers make decisions.
- Make knowledge reusableOpen the linked documentation offline, or share it by email or through SharePoint.
03 Reward
More time for the work that matters.
With documentation generation largely automated, engineers can put more of their expertise into solving problems and improving reporting. The team estimates a 90%+ reduction in documentation effort for a batch of 20-30 Power BI reports, freeing capacity for work that moves the customer forward.
- More time to deliverPut engineering time into analysis, fixes, and reporting improvements instead of repeated manual tracing.
- Faster answersStart troubleshooting with connected documentation, and give new engineers a shared starting point.
- A lasting capabilityThe customer gains reusable documentation tools the team can run and improve as the environment evolves.
- Business need
- Free engineering capacity from manual documentation
- Specialists
- Ntokozo and Desmond, data engineers
- Engineering work
- August-September 2026