Initial tips please

[Ian Stuart]

Hi.  I am working with the demo version of EA 7.5 whilst we put together a case (excuse pun) for adopting the tool strategically.  It is many years since I used a CASE tool and I am excited by the prospect.

I would appreciate a few tips to get me started....

I am working on a corporate BI solution that will involve development of a data warehouse, ETL processes and various reports.  There will be associated transactional systems development (where existing source systems are not fit for purpose).

I have already created Requirement Specifcations (Word documents) for the basic MI system and a timesheet application.  I want to model these in EA now and the requirements model would appear to be the place to do that.

In my first Word document I have a glossary of business terms that I want to replicate (the second and subsequent docs refer to the same glossary).  I see that EA has a glossary but this is not as dynamic as I would like... I want to be able to show relationships between terms and between terms and functional and non-functional requirements.  I see this glossary being used by the business as a central point of reference so that we effectively have a "corporate dictionary".  I do not want to get into data modelling at this stage as I would see that as the next step (logical design) when each term in this glossary would become an entity or attribute.

What is the best way to achieve the above?  has anybody done this type of thing before?

I should add that I have never (remarkably) used UML before but I am familiar (if rusty) with OO design and some UML elements.

Many thanks

Ian

[Geert Bellekens]

Ian,

To represent the abstract business concepts used by the business (non technical) people we use "InformationItem".
We also see the list of these InformationItems to be a sort of glossary, nothing formal, just a list of terms.
The good thing about these informationItems is that you can define relations between them, and more importantly, you can assign them to an information flow between two activities. (in our case those activities represent the business processes).
This glossary can then become the starting point for your logical entity model (or data model).

Geert

[Dorian Workman]

We create a Business Domain Model using an EA Class Diagram, as recommended by the Iconix Process.  Not only can you define the terms, but relate them to one another visually on the diagram.  You can then trace these Domain Objects to the Use Cases that use them.

Check out the Iconix Process book for more info:  http://www.amazon.com/Driven-Object-Modeling-UMLTheory-Practice/dp/1590597745/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252895049&sr=8-1

[Ian Stuart]

Thanks Both.  I am not sure if you were saying the same thing (it would appear not) but I have created a Business data Model and imported all my terms as InformationItems... Let's see what I can do from here.

[Nick Webb]

I'm just starting to dip into the idea of using elements to capture glossary terms (for reporting flexibility mostly) - will use InformationItem as suggested.  I'd anticipated that it wouldnt be convenient to capture all my glossary terms in an entity model - any ideas?

[Paolo F Cantoni]

[size=18]...[/size]I'd anticipated that it wouldn't be convenient to capture all my glossary terms in an entity model - any ideas?

Hi Nick,

If you look for postings on the subject of Ontological Model, you'll see I advocate exactly that:

A separate model that defines the terms and their interrelationships in the domain of interest!

In terms of the OMG three layer model, the OM sits above the CIM.

Within the OM, you create ontological relationships between the terms (and acronyms etc).   You can then create relationships between the terms in the OM and the elements in the other models that derive their meaning from the terms.  I haven't yet finalised exactly what those latter relationships should be.  I currently favour Generalization.

You can export the ontology - since it's a formal model.  We've had some success in creating an MS Access application that allows users on a portal to look up terms etc.

You can easily create an OM from an existing model in EA by exporting the COM and then re-importing it (with stripped GUIDs) as the OM.  You then remove the extraneous stuff and re-classify the relationships between the terms.   We use Classes stereotyped as «term» to hold the terms  (there being no untyped generic Classifier in EA).  InformationItem seems to me to be too close to the physical model for my purposes, but basically any classifier can be used.

In fact, the link between the CIM and the OM is so strong that I accidentally continued CIM level modelling in the OM until I came to my senses.  So, our OM is a bit of a mongrel at the moment.

HTH,
Paolo

[Graham_Moir]

You might want to look at this recent thread on the glossary as well

http://www.sparxsystems.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1255510176

[Nick Webb]

Paulo, Graham, many thanks. Nick