Introduction to ArchiMate

Enterprise Architect supports a wide range of languages and frameworks, which are all available within the tool depending on the edition that you are running. This provides great flexibility as it allows languages to be used in combination; for example, even though most of your architecture might be developed using ArchiMate there could be occasions when you need to create a Mind Map to document a stakeholder workshop or run a simulation of a Business Process to fully understand it. The tool provides a series of Perspectives that let you select a single aspect, language or discipline within the tool, allowing you to focus, but when you need to you can simply switch to an alternative perspective.

ArchiMate Perspective

The ArchiMate Perspective allows you to focus on architecture analysis and modeling using the ArchiMate language. To switch to the ArchiMate Perspective you need to:

1. Click on the <perspective name> option in the top right corner of the application title bar.

2. Select Enterprise Architecture > ArchiMate from the drop down

Enterprise Architect now will allow you to focus on modeling with ArchiMate and will limit the available diagrams and toolbox and language features to the ArchiMate technology. It will also open the Start Page 'Create from Pattern' tab (Model Wizard), allowing you to kick-start your modeling with a series of pre-built patterns that fully support the ArchiMate Viewpoint mechanism.

Please note:  If you select the 'ArchiMate' perspective, you will be using ArchiMate 3. If you want to use ArchiMate 1 or 2, select the perspective 'All Enterprise Architecture' or create your own custom perspective.

Model Wizard Patterns

The Model Wizard is a productivity tool that allows you to create compliant model content based on the chosen example viewpoint, selected from these viewpoint groups:

• Basic Viewpoints
• Motivation Viewpoints
• Strategy Viewpoints
• Implementation and Migration Viewpoints

The patterns contained in the Model Wizard are fully documented and provide valuable information that describes the viewpoint and how it can be used.

Basic Viewpoints

Figure: Showing the basic viewpoints with elements from a number of layers.

Motivation Viewpoints

Figure: Showing the viewpoints in the Motivation group that relate elements such as Stakeholders and Drivers.

Strategy Viewpoints

Figure: Showing the viewpoints in the Strategy group containing elements such as Capabilities and Resources.

Implementation and Migration Viewpoints

Figure: Showing the viewpoints in the Implementation and Migration group using elements such as Gap and Plateau.

The pattern documentation provides a detailed description of the pattern (in this case a viewpoint) and an example diagram that shows the user what will be generated, including the model content and details of how to use the pattern. This illustration shows the documentation for one of the most important Strategy Viewpoints - the Capability Map viewpoint, which allows Business Architects to create a structured overview of the capabilities of the enterprise.

The documentation clearly describes the viewpoint and provides images that not only show the diagrams that will be created, but also show a screenshot of the Browser window, the elements that would be created and the resulting repository structure. The discussion provides tips that will help the business architect work with the pattern, including next steps and how to manipulate the pattern elements. There is also a list of Help topics and a set of tools that can be used when working with the pattern.