Session 2: Understanding the EA/Studio Infrastructure
Go Up to Main Page
Before we begin, let’s cover some of the basic constructs that help organize and display the information in EA/Studio:
|
Workspace |
The workspace is the top level container or owner of your projects and reference objects. You can only have one workspace open at a time. |
|
Project |
The Project is a collection of items relevant to a customer including models, model objects, documents, business rules, etc. For example, a “Human Resources” project might contain a business process model describing the main functions of the Human Resources department, Business rules describing the behavior of the organization can be created as a reference objects and referred to in the project. You can nest a project within an existing project (i.e. one project is a parent of another project). A project need not contain a model, but is most commonly used to organize groups of models. You can have multiple projects in a workspace. However, a project is not required. You can nest models directly under a workspace without using a project to organize them. |
|
Model |
A model is a specific collection of elements/objects related to a modeling notation (Business Process Modeling Notation [BPMN], Conceptual, etc.). For example, the Human Resources BPMN model would contain those objects associated with the business processes of HR: tasks, swimlanes, gateways, etc. A model is where the object “lives”, i.e. objects are stored within a model, but can be visualized in other formats such as a visual diagram, grid editor, etc. |
|
Diagram |
A diagram is used for creating graphical models of business operations. The main types of diagrams in EA/Studio are Business Process and Conceptual Model. The third diagram type displays the relationships you created between objects. Business Process Model Diagram: A Business Process Model is a visual representation of the flow of activities and their order of performance using a set of graphical elements that use shapes familiar to most modelers and business users. For example, activities are rectangles and decisions are diamonds. The result is having an easy-to-understand mechanism for creating business process models which produce complex business processes. Conceptual Model Diagram: Conceptual modeling is used by enterprise architects, business users, and data architects to model high-level business concepts and subject areas. A common usage of a Conceptual Model is to relate this model to a Logical Data Model. However, it could include other elements like data flow, process, or information assets in addition to more abstract interactions between business ‘things’, for example, areas of a business and their associations, for example the association between Sales and Finance organizations. Impact Analysis Diagram: The Impact Analysis Diagram is a graphical representation of the relationship between various objects based on links you create to form relationships. This diagram is discussed in Session 11. |
|
Object |
An object is a generic term for items or elements that make up business processes and conceptual models: tasks, swimlanes, gateways, flow objects, business entities, business attributes, etc. |
In the following sessions, we’ll use EA/Studio to create a sample business process diagram and conceptual modeling diagram. We will also learn how to use reference objects, the grid editor, and the import/export framework. We will also create links, create an Impact Analysis Diagram, and generate Impact Analysis and Usage (CRUD) reports.
The next portion of Session 2 walks you through the creation of the workspace, project, model and diagram.