Using Diagrams
Go Up to Diagrams and Elements
In ER/Studio Business Architect, you can model two different types of diagrams: Business Process and Conceptual.
Business Process Diagrams
A Business Process Diagram (BPD) uses a flowcharting technique which is tailored for creating graphical models of business process operations. A Business Process Model is a network of graphical elements, which track the flow of activities and their order of performance.
A BPD is made up of a set of graphical elements that enable the easy development of simple diagrams. The elements utilize shapes that are familiar to most modelers. For example, activities are rectangles and decisions are diamonds. The end result is a mechanism used for creating business process models which are able to handle complex business processes.
The graphical aspects of the notation are separated into specific categories. This provides a small set of notation categories so that the reader of a BPD can easily recognize the basic types of elements and understand the diagram. Within the basic categories of elements, additional variation and information can be added to support the requirements for complexity without dramatically changing the basic look-and-feel of the diagram.
Conceptual Diagrams
Conceptual modeling is used by enterprise architects, business users, and data architects to model information about the business as it relates to mostly to data. However it could include other things like data flow, process, or information assets. The conceptual model is used to drill down into more detail which would be Process models and Logical/Physical data models. It simplifies the organization of hundreds if not thousands of physical objects. It is powerful enough to link to further technical (or physical) detail, but simple enough to communicate to non-technical users.
Diagram Basics
- The Diagram View contains visual displays of elements.
- The Model View tree contains element nodes which are separate definitional metadata for those elements. Therefore, you can create an element without needing a graphical representation of it on the diagram.
- Elements can be reused/referenced in multiple models, regardless of model type, i.e. a database element from a data model can be reused/referenced in a business process model.
- The file extension of a diagram .exd.
The following sections discuss creating and working with diagrams, editing diagrams, and using the zoom features.