Collaboration with business on EA

[aaron.a]

We have a need to model a registry, where we can maintain relationships between documented and co-dependent application services, technical services, business services, and domains. This feels like something we can do in EA.
However, once we have it modelled out, we also need to:
1. Publish sections out to technical & business peers (latter of whom typically glaze over, and quietly pass out, when presented with 'technical' diagrams)
2. Allow peers to comment, or contribute
3. Moderate/ govern entries into the model
4. Analyse (or RAG-status) services based on defined qualities of service
Do you know how we can achieve this with EA, or are there other tools that will work with EA to make this happen, please?
Any guidance appreciated.
EA version: 11.1.1112

[PeterHeintz]

Hi Aaron.a,
it is hard to give you guidance on this level of information.

What I have in mind when I read your points, I would say you can do all that with EA.
If it fits to your specific and concrete details? I do not know.

Maybe you give it a try with EA and when you come to concrete points just post an issue.

1) Look to EA Reporting features. Virtual/Master/Model Documents might be interested for you
2) Either you need some kind of import/export (several features are supported) or your peers need access to the model.
3)  Of cause can be done
4) There are several analyses features available. As a most powerful analyses features, you can do SQL-queries once you understand the DB schema used by EA.

[aaron.a]

Thanks for your response, Peter.
1. Yes, we did think that a report would help - the problem there is that it may need to align with the need expressed in (2)
2. And yes, we have been looking at some sort of import/ export. Here, our challenge is that our stakeholders need to work with the formats that we can import on (typically XML), and our experience in importing these files is that it is not friendly to multiple concurrent updates. Ideally, a view into the EA model, without the 'technical look and feel' would be great. But then, we run into the dependency in (3)
3. Yes, though it depends on the mechanism used in (1)/ (2)
4. Makes sense. We had not thought of going into the SQL, but that does sound reasonable. Sorry, newbie question perhaps, but do you know of any resources that can help us get an understanding of the EA db design

Hope that makes things clearer. Appreciate your looking into this.

[Uffe]

Hi Aaron,


1) In addition to document generation, EA can export models to HTML. It will still be UML models, however, so the readers need to be able to read those.
I often find that the problem you describe arises from insufficient analysis of the information and its distribution: who needs what information in what format? It is often the case that you need to create different models to describe different aspects of the same thing to different audiences -- just like an executive summary of a technical report.

2) EA has a Team Review feature which might be used to achieve this. This means the peers need access to your project, however.

3) In essence, no. There's nothing built into EA to achieve this. You could perhaps implement a process like that using the Reusable Asset Service, but there's no concept of a draft-submit-approve cycle in EA.

4) Sounds like something you'd set up with a custom profile with shape scripts for the different statuses.
A simpler method is to use status colours. They give you less control than a custom-built profile, but might be sufficient for your needs.
Another alternative would be to use the Kanban Facilities, which can be used for a quick visual overview of statuses.

HTH,


/Uffe

[PeterHeintz]

To SQL:
You can look directly to the DB schema within you DB, or for eap just open that file with MS-Assess.

Further on you might look to this:
https://leanpub.com/InsideEA (book from querty)

or e.g. to this:
https://bellekens.com/#SQL (to find some examples)

[qwerty]

Regarding 3) Uffe mentioned the internal mailing/review of EA. I always had difficulties getting people to use that. The best I could achieve (since the first hurdle is to get people acquainted  with EA at all) was to add linked notes and a "Message Diagram" which worked quite well. Most people however like the workflow they are used to. And that's call Word, unfortunately.

q.

[aaron.a]

Thanks, folks - that is a lot of information, and I'll have a play with what you've suggested.
And yes, Word, unfortunately, does rule ;-)
Thanks again.

[OpenIT Solutions]

Hi,

I'm surprised Ian hasn't responded to this thread. So I'll do it for him :-)....There is also a third party add (http://www.eadocx.com/). It allows you to publish to Word, users can then edit/annotate the word doc, which can then be imported back into EA. This way you business users can comment/interact without having to use EA.

Finally, its possible (I've done it) to edit the html templates used to generate an html view of your model to include a link on each generated html page (with an imbedded guid) to a tool like confluence which users can then use to comment on the content on the page. Again avoid the need for business users to install/use Sparx.

Regards,

Jon.

[aaron.a]

eaDocX looks pretty much along the lines of what I was hoping for. :-)
And that's a good idea about hyperlinking into collaboration tools. Clearly, it will need the operational overlay, but it's a great start.
Thank you

[Dermot]

You might look at using EA Lite, although it is read-only it does support Discussion and Team review entries from peers - see:
http://sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/13.0/introduction/ea_lite.html