Product Design

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ER/Studio Business Architect consists of views and windows used to edit, navigate, and display information about each workspace and its corresponding diagrams. The application is broken down into five main categories: Workspaces, Projects, Models, Diagrams, and the Grid Editor.

Workspaces

A workspace is a unit of storage used for any collection of data modeling projects in ER/Studio Business Architect. You can only open and work with one workspace at a time, but you can add any number of projects and models in a single workspace.

For more information, see Using Workspaces.

Projects

A project is a unit of storage used for any collection of models and their associated elements in ER/Studio Business Architect. You can have multiple Projects open simultaneously so you can easily switch back and forth between Projects.

For more information, see Using Projects.

Models

You can create Business Process and Conceptual models. A model is a specific collection of elements/objects related to a specific modeling type, for example the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). A BPMN model would contain those objects associated with a specific business processes: tasks, swimlanes, gateways, etc. Objects within a model are displayed in the Model View tree by type (for example, a grouping node contains all of the tasks within the project).

Note: If you are modeling with the Business Process Modeling Notation, you can create a model in ‘Validation” mode, which enforces the rules of the Business Process Modeling Notation. With Validation set to Off you can use the visual drawing objects without being constrained by the rules of the notation.

For more information, see Working with Models.

Diagrams

You can create two different types of diagrams:

• Business Process Diagram (BPD): This type of diagram uses a flowcharting technique which is tailored for creating graphical models of business process operations. A Business Process Model is a network of graphical objects, which track the flow of activities and their order of execution.
• Conceptual Diagrams: This is a high level diagram used to explain entities related to the business/organization.

For more information, see Using Diagrams.

Grid Editor

The Grid Editor enables you to view the objects in the Model View tree in a spread-sheet format. It can be launched from most nodes in the Model View tree. When launched, the Grid Editor appears in the diagram area. If a diagram is already open, it appears as an additional tab.

Note: If a filter has been set in the tree, this filter carries over to the Grid Editor.

For more information, see Grid Editor.