Nested elements and document templates

[Modesto Vega]

Nesting elements is not good, I know. But I agreed to break that rule sometime ago to model a complex organisational structure because there is a requirement to present it in a hierarchical format very similar to a work breakdown structure (WBS).

The immediate problem appears to be that, on the version of Sparx we are using on our live environment (v13), documentation templates do not include any nested elements below the 2nd level, they don't appear to be recursive. Currently we appear to have between 7 and 8 levels of nesting.

Is there a quick fix? Am I missing something?

In the long term, we will flatten the nested structure. However, we need to give some consideration to how to represent the relationship implied by the hierarchical structure. The hierarchical structure is representing 3 types of relationships:

• control, which we could represent using a Dependency
• type of, which we could represent using a Generalisation/Specialisation
• "consists of", which could represented using a Composition

Any thoughts on this are also welcomed?

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Nesting elements is not good, I know. But I agreed to break that rule sometime ago to model a complex organisational structure because there is a requirement to present it in a hierarchical format very similar to a work breakdown structure (WBS).

The immediate problem appears to be that, on the version of Sparx we are using on our live environment (v13), documentation templates do not include any nested elements below the 2nd level, they don't appear to be recursive. Currently we appear to have between 7 and 8 levels of nesting.

Is there a quick fix? Am I missing something?

In the long term, we will flatten the nested structure. However, we need to give some consideration to how to represent the relationship implied by the hierarchical structure. The hierarchical structure is representing 3 types of relationships:

• control, which we could represent using a Dependency
• type of, which we could represent using a Generalisation/Specialisation
• "consists of", which could represented using a Composition

Any thoughts on this are also welcomed?

Hi Modesto,

The quickest fix is to start with the correct conceptual model.   
An organisational structure is NOT a nested structure,

See my many posts on what Nesting actually is. 

Notwithstanding that Sparx stops after two levels, which is arguable; true Nesting of objects in a model of this type, normally ends at 2 levels.

I know it's not what you are looking for, but I believe "I'm telling it like it is".

Paolo

[Eve]

documentation templates do not include any nested elements below the 2nd level, they don't appear to be recursive

Just leave the child elements section empty. This results in EA re-using the same element section, (which still has a child elements section.)

[Geert Bellekens]

As Eve mentioned, using the child elements section has worked for me in the past, but it is not always what you want. Having the same templates for 7 or 8 levels might not result in a very usable document.

In this case I would probably try to rethink what my document should look like, and look for possibilities to flatten it.
You can do a lot with SQL queries to get the info you need into a document without having a nested structure of 7 or 8 levels deep.

Geert

PS. A practical problem: header styles only go down to Header9

[Modesto Vega]

Thanks Eve and Geert, that solves the problem in the short term. The template is currently organised in such a way that it does not use more than 2 headers, the actual elements are depicted in a tabular format.

Hi Modesto,

The quickest fix is to start with the correct conceptual model.   
An organisational structure is NOT a nested structure,

See my many posts on what Nesting actually is. 

Notwithstanding that Sparx stops after two levels, which is arguable; true Nesting of objects in a model of this type, normally ends at 2 levels.

I know it's not what you are looking for, but I believe "I'm telling it like it is".

Paolo

I know (and understand what nesting is) and, in hindsight, curse the day I listened to somebody against my best judgement Sparxian concerning.