Getting Help

Enterprise Architect has an extensive Help system that provides answers to help you throughout your modeling journey. The content you are reading is, in fact, the Getting Started topic of the Help system and is a very lightweight coverage of the information you need to get started. The other topics in the Help system will do a deep dive into all the details on how to get value from the tool, and how to use the many features in the product.

The Help System is in fact an online resource but can also be downloaded as a series of pages that you can access without an Internet connection. To launch the help from the tool simply use the Help icon on the Start ribbon or choose the Help button from tool windows:

There are three ways that you can find information in the Help system:

1. Browse through the topics using the index, expanding and collapsing topics as you go.
2. Use the Search facility to locate a term or phrase of interest.
3. Select the Help button on a window or tool feature.

Browsing through the Index

When you launch Help, it will open a browser window, and the default welcome page will be displayed. You can select a topic from the list of navigable topics displayed down the left-hand side of the page. Items will expand and collapse as you click through, and a breadcrumb on the top of the page will conveniently keep track of your location in the Help system.

Help web pages showing the index of items down to 'Baselines'

Using the Search

While it is possible to browse the index topics, a faster and more direct way of finding content is by using the Search facility. When you enter a keyword or phrase, the search will return a results list. For example, you could be looking for information about how you baseline your content, so entering the word 'baselines' in the search box will return a list of entries related to baselines.

SImple model search feature looking for a user word or phrase 'Baselines'.

The result page conveniently shows a number of tabs with information about your keyword (e.g. Baselines) available in other resources:

1. Website
2. User Guide
3. Document
4. FAQs
5. Related Videos
6. Advanced Search

Selecting a Help Button

Enterprise Architect has rich and ubiquitous context-sensitive Help, so no matter where you are in the tool or which window or facility you are using, help is at hand. Simply launch the Help system from the 'Help' icon, typically at the far right of a toolbar or in another prominent position, and the search will display the relevant Help topic in your default web browser.

The Help icon available on the Scenario window.