Archimate 3 : Application services and relationship ?

[ppeeters]

Hi all,

Not sure whether this a bug or a wrong manipulation from my side but I cannot create a "Serving" relationship between an application service A and another application service B.
I create an empty archimate 3 Application view diagram, I drag an application service A and an application service B onto it. Now, if I try to create a relationship from A to B, the menu offers the "Serving" relationship but, when selected, it displays a error popup:
"Invalid combination of source and target types for this connector type" while it is allowed by Archimate 3

Strangely, if I then add an additional application component C and create a "serving" relationship between A and C, it works as expected. Then I try to move the previously create relationship endpoint from C to B and it works !
By the way, I have no problem with a archimate 2 diagram.

Update : Apparently this has already been notified as a bug : https://www.sparxsystems.com/forums/smf/index.php/topic,43048.msg255251.html#msg255251

[Eve]

What version/build of EA are you using? You can create that relationship in version 15.

[ppeeters]

I'm using EA version 14.1.1427

BTW, it is working correctly in 13.0

[Eve]

Version 14 of EA went from a hand coded quicklinkers, to using the metamodel described formally in the specification. However, that doesn't include all of the derived relationship rules, which is where these issues come up.

Version 15 explicitly encodes language rules described by the relationship tables in the appendixes of the specification. (Which means it should match your expectations)

[Sunshine]

It should be worth noting that ArchiMate V3.0  was released in Jun 2016 and followed by V3.0.1 on Aug 2017, mainly to fix the relationship tables as they kind of messed it up in V3.0. So if the Archimate 3 MDG is following V3.0.1 its all good. However I suspect as there is only version 1 of Archimate 3 MDG it may follow V3.0 relationship tables which isn't so good. I see Sparx EA V13.5 was released on 12 July 2017 which had Archimate 3 enhancements in it and if memory serves I think ArchiMate 3 was introduced in V13 so it seems unlikely its following V3.01 relationship tables.

It would be good to get some clarification on whether Archimate 3 MDG follows V3.0 or V3.0.1.

[KP]

It would be to get some clarification on whether Archimate 3 MDG follows V3.0 or V3.0.1.

EA 13 used the relationship table from V3.0

EA 14 used the metamodel from V3.0

EA 15 uses the relationship table from V3.0.1

[Sunshine]

Thanks for clarifying that KP.