Author Topic: A simple question about Models & Views  (Read 5411 times)

sylvain.priser

  • EA Novice
  • *
  • Posts: 7
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
A simple question about Models & Views
« on: April 14, 2017, 01:17:16 am »
Hi EA Community,

I'm new to EA and also to architecture concepts.

Could you tell me how you are using models and views ? If my understanding is good, model purpose is to store elements and views are meant to represent interactions between them (elements), is it right ?

I have some doubts about that because when adding a model in the repository, I find some default diagrams inside. And we can also add views from "Add model" Wizard, so I'm a bit confused about these fundamentals concepts.

thanks for your guidance  :o


PeterHeintz

  • EA User
  • **
  • Posts: 957
  • Karma: +57/-18
    • View Profile
Re: A simple question about Models & Views
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2017, 01:50:12 am »
Hi,
I would not take those EA "model" and "view" terms to serious. For me both are more or less just packages but I am just forces to add on the root a model und underneath a view by EA.
If you want to store elements on one place and diagrams on another you can do that with simple packages as well.
Best regards,

Peter Heintz

jfzouain

  • EA User
  • **
  • Posts: 151
  • Karma: +6/-1
    • View Profile
Re: A simple question about Models & Views
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2017, 06:41:34 am »
hi Sylvain

I see that you are new to EA, but if you follow a process to setup EA and create your views and packages is very easy to do.
I highly recommend my eBook "UML-ERP Workshop" at Leanpub
https://leanpub.com/uml-erpworkshop

Will teach how to setup EA, what Views and Packages to create and so on.
Also you can contact me directly via email with any question.

 Best regards

Jose
Best regards

Jose Zouain

qwerty

  • EA Guru
  • *****
  • Posts: 13547
  • Karma: +395/-300
  • I'm no guru at all
    • View Profile
Re: A simple question about Models & Views
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2017, 07:40:02 am »
Have a look into EA's example model (available via the help menu, at least until V12). This is no tutorial and might eventually confuse you, but can give you some pointers. If you want to get a serious guide I'd recommend ICONIX. They once had a nice tutorial showing their modeling process which is really nice and concise.

q.

Guillaume

  • EA Practitioner
  • ***
  • Posts: 1327
  • Karma: +42/-2
    • View Profile
    • www.umlchannel.com
Re: A simple question about Models & Views
« Reply #4 on: April 14, 2017, 05:31:19 pm »
Hi Sylvain,

I agree with Peter, models or "project roots", views, and packages are just ways to organize your EA modelling project.
Sparx built-in wizards can be useful to see or use such examples of models.
Once EA projects are deployed to a team in a collaborative/shared mode, they're often amended to have a model structure that fits the current context.
There is a number of factors that can change the structure such as the team size, the number of projects/teams, a framework or pivot model, remote access, backup, versioning, etc.

Please feel free to contact me directly on [email protected] to discuss further.

Guillaume
Guillaume

Blog: www.umlchannel.com | Free utilities addin: www.eautils.com


sylvain.priser

  • EA Novice
  • *
  • Posts: 7
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Re: A simple question about Models & Views
« Reply #5 on: April 18, 2017, 07:07:07 pm »
Thank you to all of you for your answers !

My goal is to modelize the whole enterprise IT landscape (small company about 150 pers. active in wholesale and distribution business). We are 15 at IT with the need to improve our capacity to control our processes as well as our logical and physical architecture.

I understand that there is no standard organization, I will keep on looking for best practices and explore your suggestions.






Paolo F Cantoni

  • EA Guru
  • *****
  • Posts: 8561
  • Karma: +254/-129
  • Inconsistently correct systems DON'T EXIST!
    • View Profile
Re: A simple question about Models & Views
« Reply #6 on: April 19, 2017, 12:48:54 pm »
Once you mention the word "Enterprise" you should consider separating your elements (model) from the diagrams (views) they appear in.  In a whole of enterprise situation, it is NOT possible to create any structure where the elements can exist only in the diagrams in that structure.  So, don't try.  It is a seduction.

If you need more information, just ask.

Paolo

Inconsistently correct systems DON'T EXIST!
... Therefore, aim for consistency; in the expectation of achieving correctness....
-Semantica-
Helsinki Principle Rules!

Richard Freggi

  • EA User
  • **
  • Posts: 482
  • Karma: +18/-7
    • View Profile
Re: A simple question about Models & Views
« Reply #7 on: April 20, 2017, 02:40:34 pm »
Hello Sylvain,

if you need to define a package structure to organize your enterprise model, can I recommend that you google "Zachman Framework" and read anything you can find written by John Zachman.  You can buy books or get certified if you want, but it's not necessary to benefit from this.

You can also buy the Zachman Framework MDG from Sparx.  It's overkill for me and I don't use this MDG but I think it will create the package structure and model organization that you want.

Personally I just make my own Zachman-like package structure as follows (as others already pointed out, just use "View" packages for everything, they are just packages).  Each line below is a package; ">" shows the level of nesting.

Root element - XYZ enterprise model
> Context
> Concept
> Logical
> Physical
> Out of context

Inside each of above package, I have these sub-packages:
>>Data
>>Function
>>Motivation
>>Network
>>People
>>Time

Each new project has its own totally separate package containing diagrams that I created for that specific project.  Whenever I create a new element (Actors, Use case, Class etc.) I either reuse or create it in one of the Zachman-like packages.  This way I quickly build up a useful repository of enterprise elements that not only describe the enterprise, they also accelerate modeling for each successive project.

Hope this helps!

Richard