Obeo SmartEA 1.5

With Obeo SmartEA and its federation approach, your Enterprise Architecture projects can rely on reliable and up-to-date data … just waiting to be analyzed, interpreted and communicated to the other stakeholders.

This is where we have focused on for Obeo SmartEA 1.5.

This new release comes with many new features and improvements that will help you leveraging your EA repository:

Obeo SmartEA 1.5 contains many other improvements, especially regarding user experience.

The complete list of changes can be found in the change log

EXCEL Exports

Obeo SmartEA 1.5 offers the possibility to dynamically query the repository and to export EXCEL documents.

EXCEL Exports

It greatly enhances the analysis and communication possibilities as you can use EXCEL, a widely distributed tool, to build custom documents for other stakeholders.

Generating custom reports

New APIs have been added to integrate custom generators developed with Acceleo, the Open Source generation technology provided by the Eclipse platform (www.eclipse.org/acceleo). With Acceleo, you can leverage your EA model to automatically produce files according to your own generation templates.

Thanks to Acceleo open-endedness and flexibility you can generate any kind of textual file format: reports (TXT, XML, etc), documentation (HTML, Office Open XML, OpenDocument, etc) or source code.

Artifacts Management Unification

With the arrival of EXCEL Export and Acceleo generators, we have unified the artifact concept: now, Smart Diagrams, Predefined Diagrams, Catalogs, Matrices, Acceleo generators and EXCEL Exports are grouped within the same list on the home page and on the details page.

 

It gives a much easier access to the resources associated to a repository element.

In addition, with Obeo SmartEA 1.5, it is possible to create any kind of artifact for any model element, including Landscapes.

Furthermore, there is no more limitation to the number of artifacts of the same type. For example, with TOGAF, it is possible to create as many Application Communication Diagrams as you need on the same element.

Search Engine Improvements

The search options have been completed with the possibility to show the context of each found object. It is very useful to distinguish objects that have the same name.

 

In addition, the search engine scope has been extended to Landscape Tags and Requirements.

Details Page Improvements

The page displaying the details of a model element has been very significantly improved to give more information and facilitate the navigation to other model elements.

 

Now, the header contains a breadcrumb that indicates the context of the current object.

 

It also contains a list of all the representations (diagrams, tables and matrices) where this object is present.

 

The content of a reference containing more than 14 objects is displayed on a separate page.

 

The dynamic diagram which displays related objects has been improved to graphically indicate uni-directional, bi-directional and composition relations.

 

Inverse uni-directional relations have been added to the 'References' list.

 

Validation rules in Java

In complement to OCL, you can now write validation rules in Java. It is recommended to implement complex rules that you can more easily develop, test, debug and maintain.

 

Java validation rules are packaged in libraries that the user can easily install from Obeo SmartEA user interface.

Logging Branches Comparisons

Branches allow you to work on architecture alternatives (TO-BE and intermediate architectures).

Obeo SmartEA 1.5, facilitates the management of your transformation scenarios as you can now track branches changes by logging the comparison reports.

Improving the user experience

Many small details have also been fixed to bring you the best user experience when using your EA repository :

  • Auto-selecting new elements created in a catalog
  • Automatic unfolding first level of catalogs containing only one root
  • Facility to set tags to multiple objects at once
  • New buttons to manage cart elements
  • Published representations improvements: default width, zooming, unpublishing
  • Bookmark management improvement
  • Ability to customize objects labels from the server side
  • Displaying branches name when merging
  • Auto-selecting last used branch after connection

Obeo SmartEA 1.4

This new version brings many improvements:

 

You can find the complete list of changes in the change log.

 

Impact Analysis

Obeo SmartEA allows you to evaluate the impacts of an architecture evolution.

The 1.4 version comes with three new functionalities to perform an impact analysis.

 

Cart

Now, a cart is available to temporary take any object from the repository.

This cart can be used to add important objects that you encounter while you navigate through the repository to analyze the potential impacts of a modification.

 

The objects in the cart can then be used to populate a free diagram and to elaborate a graphical representation of the impact analysis.

 

Record option

When you navigate through the Obeo SmartEA repository, now you can activate an option to automatically put in the cart all the inspected objects.

 

Derived references on a free diagram

With Obeo SmartEA 1.4, the free diagram can display indirect links between two objects of the repository.

You just have to define derived references (references which are not natively defined in the metamodel, but computed from an expression evaluated off-the-fly). When elaborating a free diagram, now Obeo SmartEA provides this kind of links.

For example, the objectives supported by the business services of a function can be displayed directly from a function, whithout having to display the intermediate business services.

These derived links allows you to lighten representations and to ease the communication about the potential impacts of an architecture modification.

 

 

Repositories Federation

Obeo SmartEA allows you to connect to existing repositories in order to federate their data into a consolidated EA repository.

 

With the version 1.4, the management of these data sources has been improved.

 

New UI

The UI that allows you to federate repositories has been completely redesigned to faciliate the integration of new data sources.

Now, it is possible to define a synchronization stategy which is specific to each branch of the repository.

 

Defining the synchronization strategy consists in defining the correspondence between the source's data types and those of the repository.

 

Federation reports

After each execution of a connector, a report is automatically generated to list the information which has been added, modified or deleted.

 

Standalone mode an new APIs

The APIs provided to develop connectors have been refactored to simplify the integration of new data sources with Obeo SmartEA.

With these new APIs, it is also possible to programatically launch connectors. Now they can easily be scheduled and automatically executed in a regular basis.

 

BPMN and Excel connectors

Two sample connectors are provided by default :

  • BPMN : to integrate process models in the BPMN2 format
  • Excel : to integrate data from an Excel file

These connectors are provided as examples to illustrate the way connectors can be developped. They rely on import rules which have to be adapted to the context of each project.

 

Obeo SmartEA 1.3

Version 1.3 includes the following new features:

 

Please refer to the change log for the complete list of changes.

Transformation trajectories

 

To facilitate the definition of transformation trajectories, Obeo SmartEA provides a branch comparison and merging feature allowing you to work simultaneously on different versions of the same architecture.

Version 1.3 includes significant improvements to this feature, such as the possibility to compare and merge multiple branches via a graphical interface.

These improvements greatly facilitate the definition of alternative scenarios or transition architectures when developing transformation trajectories.

 

Customizable dashboard

 

The Obeo SmartEA home page dashboard can now be customized to immediately display the information most relevant to you. Users can create custom charts, and the information to be displayed can be configured based on repository queries.

 

Search features

 

Obeo SmartEA 1.3 introduces new search features making it easier to find repository objects.

Searches can now be restricted to specific object types, and search criteria can be extended to include object attributes (such as the comments field).

This new version also supports complex OCL queries.

 

Contextual view

 

When editing a representation (diagram, matrix, catalog), a contextual view appears listing all representations containing objects in common, including links thereto.

This information is also displayed on the object details page used to query the repository.

 

OpenLDAP support

 

Users connecting to the Obeo SmartEA repository can now be authenticated using OpenLDAP.

Obeo SmartEA 1.2

 

Please refer to the change log for the complete list of changes.

Freeform diagram

 

The Freeform diagram feature makes communicating with other Enterprise Architecture project members easier than ever by offering fully customizable diagrams.

This new feature allows you to choose the repository objects to be displayed and the relationships between them. This is very useful for creating custom views tailored for each project member.


Obeo SmartEA - Freeform diagram



In editing mode, a freeform diagram is also a very useful tool for rapidly developing new models based on existing documents or information exchanged between project members.

To facilitate effective communication with other project members, all viewpoints specified in Obeo SmartEA can be selected and included when creating a freeform diagram. For example, when a viewpoint is selected, non-relevant objects are shown in grey to make it easier to read the diagram.



Obeo SmartEA - Free diagram



A freeform diagram can be used to supplement default views provided in Obeo SmartEA (inter-application communication, functional breakdown, data distribution, etc.) or project-specific views. The same repository object can be viewed simultaneously in multiple views.

 

Incremental import management

 

Version 1.2 also includes an incremental import feature making it easier to import architectures from existing repositories.

Indeed, one of the main strengths of Obeo SmartEA is its ability to integrate existing repositories to make use of existing architecture models.

With version 1.2, models to be imported can be compared with current repository contents to accurately select which items to import.

 

Obeo SmartEA - Merge

Support for metamodels other than TOGAF

 

In addition, version 1.2 further enhances the open-ended capabilities of Obeo SmartEA by allowing you to integrate your own metamodel.

Obeo SmartEA natively supports the industry-standard TOGAF framework.

With version 1.2, you can use a non-TOGAF or project-specific framework while benefiting from all the features of Obeo SmartEA.

Obeo SmartEA 1.1

New features introduced in version 1.1:

 

Please refer to the change log for the complete list of changes.

 

Branch comparison and merging

Version 1.1 includes a branch comparison and merging feature allowing you to create new architecture models by duplicating the current model. This is very useful for developing target (To-Be) architectures from your current (As-Is) architecture.

At any moment, you can switch to another branch or compare two branches and analyze their differences.

 

Impact analysis diagram

Version 1.1 includes an impact analysis feature allowing you to select any item in your architecture model and display all related items, regardless of model layer. This makes it easier to analyze how changes to your architecture will impact other layers (e.g. impact of a technical change on a business).

 

Requirements management

Version 1.1 includes a requirements management feature allowing you to define new requirements and link them to any item in your architecture model.

 

Validation

With version 1.1, you can define viewpoint-specific validation rules to check certain items in your architecture model and identify issues according to their severity.

All validation reports are saved and can be viewed at any time to assess the evolution of repository quality.

 

Bookmarks management

Version 1.1 includes a bookmark management feature for quick and easy access to your favorite sites.

This provides easy access to the pages that will be most useful for you.