Tailoring the Application for Decision Modeling

Enterprise Architect is a tool with a vast amount of functionality, which is one of the reasons why it is so popular as a tool for modeling systems of any kind. To ensure that the tool provides the most benefit to an organization, team, project or individual, some tailoring of the interface to suit the modeling intent will ensure that all parties achieve the best outcomes.  Most of the settings can be changed by a single button click, transforming the tool to be fit for purpose, which in our case is collaborating on projects where decisions need to be modeled, articulated and simulated.

In these sections we will look at a number of places where we can change the application from a generic modeling tool to a requirements modeling tool with a focus specifically on the creation, management and simulation of Decision Models.

Selecting a Visual Style

Every modeler will have their own preferences about the color scheme and style of the user interface and Enterprise Architect allows these to be set and saved for each user making the application more appealing and compliant with the way an individual user works. For example some modelers will want a dark color scheme and others will prefer a light or colorful scheme.

There is a range of options here including setting the position of the main window tabs and the size of the text in the notes window and much more. Setting the visual style will assist in personalizing the modeling environment and making individual modelers feel comfortable while maintaining consistent and rigorous models. For more information see the Visual Styles Help topic.

Selecting a Perspective

Enterprise Architect is a tool packed with features for a wide range of disciplines, methods, languages and frameworks. Perspectives provide a way for a user to select a facet of the tool that allows them to focus on a particular subset of the tool's features and facilities.  The Decision Modeling Perspective provides a natural starting point for users focused on modeling decisions, but at any point if you decide to use other facilities in the tool you can simply change Perspectives and the tool will reshape itself to provide a focus on the selected area.

Selecting the DMN Perspective will change the tools to focus to the Decision Modeling facilities for example, the application will display a series of model patterns giving a user a jump start by being able to load a pattern for a standard model fragment or diagram. The 'New Diagram' dialog will also just display the Decision Requirements Diagram type.

There is also the convenient facility for a user to create any number of their own Perspectives, adding sets of technologies to each Perspective. This allows a modeler whose primary concern is Decision Modeling diagrams to add other facilities such as strategic modeling, Requirements Modeling, Kanban diagrams and dozens of other useful diagramming and modeling mechanisms. For more information see the Model Perspectives topic.

Selecting a Workspace

Enterprise Architect has a handy way of quickly changing the layout of the User Interface to facilitate particular tasks or ways of working. This is achieved by simply selecting a workspace that will change the visible windows and tools, to provide the most efficient way of working to suit the task. For example, there is a workspace defined for Requirements Modeling, one for Use Case Modeling, and another one for Testing. We will select the DMN Simulation workspace as we will be using the simulation features in Enterprise Architect to run test executions of the models we create in this guide. You can also define any number of your own workspace layouts that you find useful, by opening windows and tools and positioning them in an arrangement that facilitate working on a particular task or set of tasks, and saving them. The Workspace Layout window is available by selecting the Workspace Item from the Application panel of the Start ribbon. For more information see the Workspace Layouts Help topic.

The dialog also provides the option to apply this workspace when the application is launched, which allows a modeler who is working primarily on Decision Modeling to have all the tools at their fingertips without needing to set the workspace manually.

Setting Preferences

Enterprise Architect has a formidable set of preferences, some of which can be set for the entire repository and others for each user. These allow the application to be tailored to suit an individual modeler or an entire team. The preferences include options for:

• Windows - styles, tabs, captions and status bar text.
• Diagrams - including themes, grids, gradients, backgrounds, styles and colors.
• Elements - colors, behaviors, display options.
• Connectors - styles, line width, directions.
• Source Code Engineering - general and language specific options.

For more information see the User Preferences topic.

This illustration shows how diagram themes can be set and elements of the style can be specified, including fonts, colors, line thickness and gradients.