Drawing relationships between documents.

[ChB]

Hello All

I want to capture in my model, and draw a diagram of, a hierarchy of Engineering Documents and references between documents and to other elements in the model.

There's a wide range of documents I want to depict: Company and Worldwide Standards, Test Results, Supplier Data Sheets, etc., etc.  They're pretty well always Microsoft Office format or PDF.

I want to have elements on a diagram that represent each document and I want to double-click on that element to have the document open.  And I also want the element (for each document) to appear in the Project Browser so that I can reuse that element in various other diagrams.

In my mind this sounds easy... but I can't do it!

A "hyperlink" from the "Common" toolbox gives me something in a diagram I can double-click on to open the document, good,  but hyperlinks don't appear in the Project Browser (bad).

Adding a hyperlink to the notes of a block, for example, gives me something in the Project Browser (good) but doesn't provide a quick way of getting to the linked document (I have to click through to the properties dialog, then ctrl-click the link - and that doesn't always appear to work).

I've also tried the <<artefact>> element from the Common Toolbox and that doesn't provide the double-click through to the external document either.

Is there (an obvious?) way to do this that I've overlooked?

ChB

[PeterHeintz]

Hello Chb,
Here is what I am doing:

I have defined in an uml profile a stereotype “Source Element” (from metaclass Artifact with _metatype = Source Element) and some additional tagged values for meta data (doc classification, version, doc number,type …).

The tagged value type is an enum indication the following.

• Hyperlink (a hyperlink to something that is not in my model)
• Internal (a document (word, excel,...) what I store in the repository)
• Reference (just text describing how to find the real document)

My Source Element is somehow a proxy to the documents and can be used at any place in my model.

For the hyperlinks I just use the “Related” “Files” feature that is available on almost any element in EA. By having the Type of the tagged value set to hyperlink the users know that they have to open the properties dialog to get to the hyperlink (not perfect but for me ok).

"Internal" is much simpler. I just drag e.g. a word document from MS-Explorer on a diagram to get an Artifact element created by EA and to get the file stored in the EA-repository. By double clicking on the Artefact element the file is opened. I just assign my stereotype (Source Element) afterwards to get my tagged values, to fill out my meta data of that source element.

[ChB]

Helpful answer, thanks Peter.   I might duplicate your idea.  Thanks for the reply.

Alternatively, using zero customisation of EA, but taking your idea of there being some-sort-of-prompt to the user that there is a document "behind" this element,  I could simple place the hyperlink to the external document in the "linked document" (possibly the only thing in the linked document).   For free I get the little red A icon in the element prompting the user to click through to the hyperlink.

I might end up using both ideas for different purposes in my model.

[philchudley]

Instead of the Artefact in the Common section of the diagram toolbox, try the Document (a variation of Artefact).

This Document element, exhibits a double-click behaviour to open, directly, its Linked Document

[ChB]

Phil

Oh yes, thanks for that.  And in the "linked document" I put a hyperlink to a document on the WAN or LAN.

The Artifact elements are in the Project Browser so I can drop them (as links) into various diagrams as necessary.

I'll run with this solution for a while and see how it goes. It has the advantage of working out-of-the-box but if I want more bells and whistles I like Peter's ideas too.

Thank you.

[Dermot]

An extra option to Phil's comment is to simply drag the document from the windows file explorer onto a diagram. Then you have the option to save it as a reference or store it internally.

[ChB]

That's a handy tip.  Thanks Dermot.

[PeterHeintz]

That’s what I do.
A cool feature I found a while ago just by a lucky mistake.