Author Topic: Managing element synonyms  (Read 3733 times)

Darcy at labecom

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Managing element synonyms
« on: September 09, 2015, 05:30:15 pm »
Hi all,

We are trying to architect a model for an application implementation across multiple clients at the same time. As you can imagine, although the elements and the relationship between them are the same (morphologically, they are identical), actual name of those elements and the name of the relationships between them is in fact very different.

Does anybody think there could be a way of presenting the EA diagrams (UML and BPMN primarily) by overlapping diagrams with the "jargon/synonym translation" rules and customise the diagrams in a way to better fit individual clients.  

We would not like to make if more complicated then it already is. We understand the UML patterns could help, but that would be lots of work.
Hope somebody already came across this problem.

Thanks,
Darcy

qwerty

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Re: Managing element synonyms
« Reply #1 on: September 09, 2015, 05:51:06 pm »
I guess the only honest answer is that it's a lot of work. You need to come to a common sense and language. The best approach I found is to use a good glossary where collect the different terms and point them to the "real" one. In the model itself you only use the common term.

In order to have a good glossary it's a good idea to not use the build-in glossary EA offers but to create a package with meta-classes that contain term/definition tuples. That way you can even integrate multiple language definitions.

If you have some kind of minor/major term definitions you could simply live with the alias.

q.

Darcy at labecom

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Re: Managing element synonyms
« Reply #2 on: September 09, 2015, 06:17:13 pm »
I could use aliases, but EA holds only one alias. Ideally, we need 3, and then just switch diagram parameter.  

I will try that meta-classes approach. Thanks!