Traceability of Data Objects

[andrej.o]

Hello Sparx community,

I’m experiencing modelling issues while using association of Data Object to Control flow between two Application Components. When using Traceability feature there is only general association with “ProxyConnector” object and that’s is. Is there anybody who is familiar with this kind of issue and have a solution?



Another issue apperas while re-using the DataObject on different diagram. There is no way how to hide association (if not wanted).
I know there are alternative approaches how to model DataObject (for example, image below). However this approach is not practical because of re-usage of DataObject on different flows across the diagram. There is a lot of abstraction going on and one DataObject can be associated with 10 various flows.



Running on EA version 16.0.1605 and using Archimate 3.1.

Thank you for any ideas.

[Geert Bellekens]

ArchiMate is not particularly practical for this type data flow modelling.

At one client we use the concept of informationflows (and items conveyed) to express this concept.
It's not strictly ArchiMate, but it works for us.

Geert

[ea0522]

We model the Flow connection using an Application_Interface and associate the data object to that Interface object.
The Application_Interface is realised by 1 Application and can be used by 0, 1 or more other Applications.
Using an Application_Interface allows us also to register more information on the interface like the URL, frequency of use, etc.

For completeness we also associate the data object with the applications, allowing us to do analysis on which data is used where.

[andrej.o]

Thank you for your feedback and ideas. We will have to re-think the approach in the future. From the sustainability perspective, our concept has got serious limitations.