Artifact for external document on SharePoint

[Mercurius]

Hi All

If I want to generate a File Artifact for an external document on my local disk, I simply drag the document from windows explorer onto my EA diagram as described in the EA documentation. But if I want to to the same with a document on SharePoint, it does not work.

Alternatively, I tried to generate an empty Artifact and then I set the path in the Properties Window under Responsibilities->File. But a double click on the Artifact still does not open my external document. Also, in the context menu the entry "Open Doument Reference" is not available (as it is for the Artifact for a local doument).

Does anybody have an idea how to solve that?

Thank you

[shimon]

Hi,
I tried the following for solving other problems. I create a shortcut to the file on Sharepoint on my local file system, test that it opens properly in word and then add the shortcut in the local file system as a file to EA.
I also played around with the option of adding the Sharepoint file as a link instead of a file, but for some reason did not stay with that solution. Maybe it became messed up in the EA documentation.
 
Shimon

[Mercurius]

Hi Shimon

Thank you for your ideas.

The problem with your idea of a shortcut is that the shortcut would still be local and team members would not have access to this shortcut.

I wanted to follow your second idea with a hyperlink. I would add a new stereotype in my profile for this type of link (to define default appearance as well as additional tags for status information regarding the referenced SharePoint document). Unfortunately, it seems that I cannot use "Hyperlink" as the metaclass in my profile definition. So this does not seem to work either. 

The best method I found so far is to use a simple type of model element and add the link to the SharePoint document in the Notes-Field. Not very nice, but doable.

Thanks again and regards
Mercurius

[shimon]

Hi,
We keep all the shortcuts on a network drive, accessible to all EA users.
The idea is that if we have to port it out, we can copy this folder to a different location and replace the path via script (or SQL).
Sincerely,
Shimon

P.S. Can the users edit the files from within EA?
I have found that if I create a link Word file on SharePoint, double clicking on it in EA deletes it from Sharepoint, as it opens the file in the Internal Editor. This is a major risk, but everybody says that their software works exactly as described.