Manage Object and Relationship Definitions

In this article

• Object definitions and relationships
  • Objects and their definitions
• Create and manage object definitions
  • Enable or disable an object definition
  • Delete an object definition
  • View information about an object definition
  • Create an allowed combination between object definitions
  • Add an allowed relationship combination
  • Add a label to the relationship
  • Enable or disable an object combination

  • View enabled object combinations as part of the relationship definition

  • Sources and relationships between object definitions

• Disable/adjust/delete object definitions and combinations that are already in use

  • Change relationship combinations that already contain data

 

Object definitions and relationships

Objects and relationships are the foundation of BlueDolphin. There are different types of objects and relationships. A relationship connects two objects with each other. There are certain rules as to which objects you can connect with which type of relationship for a landscape or process description that fits within the ArchiMate specification.

Objects and their definitions

An object is an application, a process, a data object or similar. In your own environment you have many objects that you will want to add and use to map your landscape. In order to create your own environment, enter the objects and specify their type. We already make object definitions available, but you can also create your own object definitions and name them accordingly. 

 

Create and manage object definitions

Go to Admin > Configuration > Object definitions.

Here you will find all active object definitions within ArchiMate, BPMN, and Data dictionary categories.

 

Enable or disable an object definition

You can choose to have an object definition created, but leave it disabled for a while. End users won't be able to use a disabled object definition yet. However, if you want end users to be able to use this object definition, make sure you enable it. We will explain now how this works.

In the list of definitions, you will see the headings Enabled and Disabled. It is therefore possible to have a number of object definitions that are enabled (for everyone to use) or disabled (not usable in the environment). Before you add a new object definition, be sure to check within the disabled object definitions if there is already one that is suitable for your object. 

Is the definition that you need not yet included? Add an object definition by clicking .

Choose a name for your definition and what object definition it is based on (inherits from). A newly added definition must be based on one of the existing object definitions. Also, you can select the roles for which you want the definition to be added to their personal view. Click OK to save changes. 

 

When you add an object definition, it is enabled by default. 
If you want to disable it (for example, because you don't want everyone to use the definition for their objects yet), perform the following steps: 

1. Go to the object definition.
2. Click the three dots after the definition.
3. Select Disable object.

 

Delete an object definition

To delete an object definition, you need to disable it first. Then, from the list of disabled object definitions select Delete object and confirm your choice by clicking Yes, delete.

 

View information about an object definition 

Go to the object definition you would like to know more about. On the first tab, you will find general information, such as the name and object properties that you want to track for the objects of this object definition. 

 

General tab 
You will find the name of the object definition and its properties, such as the version and similar. 

 

Delete objects
You can also use Delete all related objects here. Do you have an object definition that you don't want to be used anymore and you want to delete it (and all its occurrences) completely? You can do that with this function. All associated objects will be deleted. Be careful with using this feature, as it is not reversible and it has many consequences for your environment (see here). 

 

Add object properties
With this button you can add properties that you want to apply to all objects that are occurrences of this object definition.  

 

Questionnaires 
With a questionnaire, you can display the information about the object in a more specific way.
You can add a questionnaire that you have created here. 

 

Create an allowed combination between object definitions

You can also allow combinations per object definition through relationships. The combinations that BlueDolphin offer in the default convention model are according to the ArchiMate guidelines. Defining the object combinations is done in Admin > Configuration > Object definitions.

 

Example 
User-created object definition 'AC1' (which is based on the object definition Application Component) does not yet have any object combinations. We are going to add them now.

In the tab Object combinations, we can define which combinations of this object definition can be made with other object definition(s) and which relationship types they have. 

 

Add an allowed relationship combination

Click the add icon within the blue bar. We will create a relationship combination according to the object definition Application component_1. The type of relationship is Uses relationship. The target object definition is AC1.

Note: The newly created relationship combination is disabled by default.

You have to enable it in order to be able to use it. Enable the combination by deselecting the checkbox Add the combination in disabled modus. After you have selected the combination, click Save.

 

Add a label to the relationship

In the examples above you can see that you have a 'type/type' relationship, in this case a 'uses' relationship.

BlueDolphin inherits a label for the relationship definition in both directions: 'uses' (from object to AC1) and 'is used by' (from AC1 to the other object). You can choose to change that label to some text that better describes this particular combination of object and relationship definitions.

Think in terms of 'sends to' or 'is driven by', 'indicates information' or 'gets information from'. Anything is possible and allowed here. Users will see this label immediately when you add an object combination. 

Changing the label in a specific object combination does not affect the label set in the relationship definition. To reflect the changes from the relationship definition, click the Reset Settings to Original State option.

 

Enable or disable an object combination

You can choose to enable a combination immediately and thus make it usable for everyone or to disable it. Disabled means that the combination cannot yet be used and can only be seen by the administrator. 
You can do this by checking or unchecking the box Add the combination in disabled modus. 

An object combination only becomes available to end users when an admin has enabled it. You can do that during creation, as explained above, or you can do it afterwards. 

Did you choose to disable the combination when created? You can then enable the object combination later as follows.

1. Go to the object definition (either side).
2. Open the tab Object combinations.
3. Click Disabled open.
4. Click the three dots after the combination.
5. Click Enable combination.

 

View enabled object combinations as part of the relationship definition

Now that you've enabled the object combination, you can also find it under allowed combinations within relationship definitions, where the enabled object combinations for this relationship definition are displayed as read-only. 
In this example we have allowed a 'used by' relationship combination between AC1 and AC1. 

 

Sources and relationships between object definitions

In the object definition you can view and manage the source connections that exist for the specific object definition.
A source connection describes an external file definition that can be used to create or update instances of the object definition in BlueDolphin. 
Just like the UI only allows you to create content that conforms to the convention model, the content that is created or updated based on reading a source also adheres to the convention model as you have configured with the instructions above. 
So you can use a source connection to configure how to create or update relationships between objects. 

 

Example

For the below object definition, no source has been linked yet. 

 

To add a source connection to this object definition, click Add source connection and fill in the below pop-up:

 

Disable/adjust/delete object definitions and combinations that are already in use

When you change object definitions and combinations, this may have effect on existing content. The UI can only show the content that conforms to the convention model. So if you remove a combination, instances of that combination are no longer visible in the UI.
However, the content is not deleted from the repository - you can still report on it and when you re-enable the combination, the content will be visible in the UI again. 
Below is a schematic description of the implications of model changes for the content that you should take into account. 

 

Change relationship combinations that already contain data

What happens to the content when you change relationship combinations?

 

Relationship combinations

Actions	Impact on nodes/links on views	Visibility of affected relationships in UI	Visibility of affected relationships in reporting	Impact on the existence of affected relationships in DB
Disable	None	Marked with red warning	Visible	None
Enable	None	None (red warning removed)	Visible	None
Delete	None	Marked with red warning Note: Relationships must continue to show the labels that existed before the combination was deleted.	Visible	None
Manually recreate/redownload	Links/Relationship's directional labels (uses/used-by) are changed to match a new combination	Red warning removed from all matching relationships (definitions and direction). Relationship's directional labels (uses/used-by) are changed to match a new combination.	Visible Relationship's directional labels (uses/used-by) are changed to match a new combination	None Relationship's directional labels (uses/used-by) are changed to match a new combination

 

Object definitions

Actions	Impact on nodes/links on views	Visibility of affected objects in UI	Visibility of affected objects in reporting	Impact on the existence of affected objects in DB	Impact on relationship combinations where the From or To- side is the same definition
Disable	None	No longer visible	No longer visible	Marked as disabled	Also disabled
Enable	None	Visible again	Visible again	Marked as active	None Combinations remain disabled
Delete	None	No longer visible	No longer visible	Marked as deleted	Combination deleted (including the impact described above)
Manually recreate/redownload	None	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

 

Relationship definitions

Relationship definitions do not support the disable/enable functionality.

Actions	Impact on nodes/links on views	Visibility of affected relationships in UI	Visibility of affected relationships in reporting	Impact on the existence of affected relationships in DB
Delete	Deleted	No longer visible	No longer visible	Deleted
Manually recreate/redownload	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

 

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