Messages

1

General Board / Default connector style

« on: January 07, 2014, 03:12:06 pm »

Hi, sorry if this has been covered before - I'm a relatively new user.   I want to set a default connector style to Orthogonal - Rounded for any type of diagram. I can't see how to do this. Is it possible?

Thanks,
Tim

2

General Board / Re: Show Notes appear to not be working

« on: May 22, 2015, 03:39:31 pm »

Notes do not appear for Archimate symbols either. This is a bit annoying. I want to show the definitions of some of my elements, but not working.

3

General Board / Re: Mapping attributes/columns to each other ...?

« on: January 16, 2015, 02:19:11 pm »

We use tagged values with the RefGUID type. You can actually make a direct link from one attribute to another. The advantage for us is in the HTML publishing, because the link is published as a hyperlink.

I'm not sure how you might deal with mapping from one to many attributes as in your example.


Tim

4

General Board / OWL and semantic modelling using ODM

« on: January 16, 2015, 03:18:03 pm »

We are doing some OWL/RDF modelling using the ODM in Sparx. Then we want to export that to Protege. However, the OWL/RDF file that is produced by Sparx includes both rdf:ID and rdf:about attributes, which Protege says is wrong. If I manually delete all the rdf:ID attributes then Protege imports it just fine.

Is this a bug in EA? That is, is it really wrong for EA to produce both the rdf:ID and rdf:about? Anyone with any experience in this? EA provides no control over what is exported.

Background - we want to export the ontology to Protege so that we can use the SparQL query engine and reasoners over our data.

Thanks.

5

General Board / Re: Design interfaces- relations to Data attribute

« on: January 16, 2015, 02:48:05 pm »

I would like to be able to do the same, but it doesn't seem to be available or is not a UML thing. Other tools allow this. The only way I can see is to add a RefGUID type of tagged value to each attribute and link that way.

Did you get any other answer or response from Sparx?


Tim

6

General Board / Re: Data modelling

« on: August 21, 2014, 12:57:34 pm »

I'm with you Jayson. Sparx is not a great tool for data modelling. they always come up with the defence that it's a UML tool. Unfortunately, that's just not good enough. I suspect that no Sparx EA developer has ever done data modelling at an enterprise level. Wait until you get into trying to make a primary key automatically flow from one entity to its related entities! You have to manually add it to all entities "downstream" and then add the foreign keys. If the keys have multiple columns and the names of the columns in the foreign keys are different from those in the primary key, then EA will guess and often get it wrong. Then it gives an error saying your datatypes don't match. It's a very poor implementation.    

7

General Board / Re: BPMN Business Process Diagram Linking

« on: August 21, 2014, 02:28:40 pm »

Darn, I'm using 9.3 still. We are supposed to be going to 11 soon. I'll have to wait. There's no other way to fool EA?

I guess I can get it to create the empty diagram and then re-populate it with everything from the existing diagram.

8

General Board / BPMN Business Process Diagram Linking

« on: August 21, 2014, 01:07:18 pm »

Hi,

I have a problem with making a diagram the "default" under a business process. I created a couple of diagrams and then realised I wanted to create a higher level process above those diagrams. So I created the higher level diagram and want the business processes on that higher level diagram to link to the existing diagrams, rather than the empty diagram EA creates for me. I hope that makes sense. I dragged my existing diagram to be under the business process represented on the higher level diagram. But when I double-click on that process symbol the lower level diagram does not open. Is there a way to tell EA that the diagram is linked to this process?

I suspect this is not an issue just for business process diagrams. I must be missing something about what makes EA link a diagram to an element.

Can anyone help please?  

9

General Board / Re: RTF Document across packages

« on: March 11, 2014, 03:43:03 pm »

Hi Nizam, thanks for that. I gave it a go and it works, but I can't get the attributes (features) that then belong to the elements on the diagram included in the report.

I have been reading about the model document feature. Is this what I should be using?

Tim

10

General Board / Re: RTF Document across packages

« on: March 11, 2014, 03:13:12 pm »

Thanks Simon, but I have checked that box and I still only get the diagram. I have used the standard templates as well, so I don't think there is a problem with my template. I only get the title page, table of contents, the diagram and nothing else. Same for html generation.

Does it matter that the entities are in a completely separate package, i.e. not in the same branch of the hierarchy of packages?

11

General Board / RTF Document across packages

« on: March 11, 2014, 01:48:33 pm »

Hi,

I am trying to generate an RTF doc as a report of a class diagram. the entities (elements) in the diagram are just links to entities in another package. When I run a report from the diagram, I get the picture of the diagram, but no details about the entities (elements) or attributes (features) from the other package. It's a simple data dictionary kind of report.

I would have thought that EA would not care about where the entities live and should allow me to drive the report from the diagram. It should know how to find the elements in other packages.  

What am I doing wrong?  

12

General Board / Re: BPMN Data Object traceability to Data Model

« on: January 10, 2014, 11:27:50 am »

Hey guys,

Thanks so much for these very helpful posts. I had indeed wondered both about using InstanceClassifier and just putting the class on the diagram, and what the pros and cons of each were.

I think I may well go with linking the class directly to the diagram, rather than using the Data Object (taking the point in BPMN it is only available for the life of the process). My model is strictly a descriptive one, intended to communicate to business how the process and data work together, but also for developers to see what data should be used, and therefore what data access/updates are required. I agree Ian - it's not a religion.  

The only downside is that I may need to refer to more than one class for an activity. For example, if I have a typical Order and Order Detail structure in my class diagram and the process is to "Create Order", then I would have to associate both classes to the process, which might be messy in complex processes. Or, I could just link the "parent" class of "Order" to the process and thereby imply that "Order Detail" is involved. Or, I could create some kind of container class that links to both "Order" and "Order Detail", which is what I was thinking the Data Object could be.  

I suppose the other choice is what Helmutt suggested - use Data Object and then create <<trace>> relationships between it and the one or more classes it represents.

Thoughts?
(Thanks so much for taking the time to think about this.)

Tim

13

General Board / Re: BPMN Data Object traceability to Data Model

« on: January 09, 2014, 05:37:59 pm »

OK - thanks for that. I guess the matrix is the best to use?

Thank again.

14

General Board / BPMN Data Object traceability to Data Model

« on: January 09, 2014, 12:26:33 pm »

Hi,

I am looking for some advice. I am doing a business process model and I'm including data objects. I want to then link the data object to one or more entities (classes) in my data model. This provides good traceability and completeness checking, both for the data model and the process model. In other words, when doing a process model, if I find there is no entity in my data model to satisfy the process, then I have discovered a gap in my data model, and vice versa.

So, any advice on the best way to link the data object to one or more data entities?  

Thanks,
Tim

15

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Re: Model Views

« on: November 04, 2015, 01:18:15 pm »

So q, that's a no? Model views are not exposed via the EA object model and therefore not available to a script?