Overview of Views and Viewpoints

The tool has built-in support in a number of different places for the Viewpoint mechanism. Two of the most important places are the:

• Model Wizard Views and Viewpoints for ArchiMate
• Diagram Views available from the Diagram window

Creating Views Using the Toolbox

Enterprise Architect also supports creating Views from a blank canvas using the Diagram Viewpoint mechanism, which allows you to select an example Viewpoint as the basis for a new diagram. Choosing any of the available Viewpoints results in a new diagram being created, and a Toolbox being displayed in which the Viewpoint page only displays the available elements for that Viewpoint.

Figure: Shows the views available from the New Diagram dialog.

In the next diagram we see two Toolbox pages that are applicable for the Application Usage Viewpoint. The first page contains a subset of the Application Layer elements used for the Viewpoint and the second page contains a subset of the Business Layer elements.

Figure: Showing the toolbox pages that list the available elements and relationships for the selected viewpoint.

Elements can be dragged and dropped from the Toolbox pages to the open diagram, which will create a new element and add it to the open diagram. Applicable elements can also be dragged onto the diagram from the Browser window, which allows existing elements that have been created or used in other diagrams to be added to the current diagram. For example, an Application Service and a Business Process might have been created at an earlier time and these could be added to a diagram that contains a new Application Component added to an Application Usage Viewpoint.

In this diagram we see that a modeler outside the Enterprise Architect group has created a UML Realization relationship from a UML Component in the Implementation model to an ArchiMate Component, thus linking the two different disciplines without breaking any ArchiMate language syntax rules.

Figure: Showing how ArchiMate elements can be linked to model elements

Creating Views Using the Wizard

Enterprise Architect has full support for views and viewpoints, providing rich Model Wizard patterns where each viewpoint has been conveniently created and can be injected into the repository at any location. This image shows the icon to select in the Browser window toolbar to open the Model Wizard.

Tracking Elements Between Views

Enterprise has a number of windows that allow elements to be tracked between views and more broadly between any diagrams that contain the elements. This can be achieved by using the element's context menu and selecting 'Find in all Diagrams'. When selected, and when an elements does appear in multiple views,  a window will provide a list of all the views that contain the element.