BPMN Generator

An add-in for Enterprise Architect from Dunstan Thomas Consulting

We have had our very own Phil Chudley busy beavering away at a new project which is now commercially available & already in use with DT's customer base.

Overview

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect has the functionality to create diagrams directly from Use Case textual scenarios, the most common of which is termed an Activity Graph. This Activity Graph is a simplified form of UML Activity Diagram. This works well, but many organisations have, or are in the process of, standardising the modelling of process flows using BPMN 2.0, and this form of diagram is not supported by Enterprise Architect. The BPMN Generator extension for Enterprise Architect has been developed by Dunstan Thomas Consulting Ltd to provide the functionality to generate a BPMN 2.0 process flow diagram from Use Case textual scenarios. A typical example is shown below:

Textual Scenario for the Basic Path

Textual Scenario for the Alternate Path

Generated BPMN 2.0 Diagram

The BPMN Generator also provides the modeller with options to set:

• The top margin of the generated diagram.
• The left margin of the generated diagram.
• The default height of each task.
• The adjustment height of each task (used to ensure that text fits in a task).
• Whether or not a new diagram and elements will be generated rather than overwrite any existing diagram and elements.

Watch the video below to see the BPMN Generator in action:

https://youtu.be/WhL9vEdvHF0 

The BPMN Generator is available from Dunstan Thomas Consulting at £85.00 +Vat per licence. If you would like additional information or to purchase licences for the BPMN Generator then please contact us.

How to combine Sparx Enterprise Architect and BABOK to manage Requirements in a modern way?

Days when Business Analyst was using only Word and Excel applications together with e-mail program are slowly fading into the past. This is a good thing. There are many tools that allow us to work faster and smarter. One of them is my favorite Sparx Enterprise Architect. The tool so powerful and versatile that it's hard to find single person who used all of its features :-)

Personally, I used Enterprise Architect in my work for past several years to design IT systems and prepare documentation of them. I used a lot of built-in features of Enterprise Architect to streamline my work and improve quality of my deliverables. Among them Relationship Matrix, powerful template functionality for document generation, extensive support for Use Case modeling. 

Requirement attributes

Among many other things, BABOK Guide defines list of commonly used requirement attributes:

• Absolute reference: provides a unique identifier. The reference is not altered or reused if the requirement is moved, changed, or deleted.
• Author: provides the name of the person who needs to be consulted should the requirement later be found to be ambiguous, unclear, or in conflict.
• Complexity: indicates how difficult the requirement will be to implement.
• Ownership: indicates the individual or group that needs the requirement or will be the business owner after the solution is implemented.
• Priority: indicates relative importance of requirements. Priority can refer to the relative value of a requirement or to the sequence in which it will be implemented.
• Risks: identifies uncertain events that may impact requirements.
• Source: identifies the origin of the requirement. The source is often consulted if the requirement changes or if more information regarding the requirement or the need that drove the requirement has to be obtained.
• Stability: indicates the maturity of the requirement.
• Status: indicates the state of the requirement, whether it is proposed, accepted, verified, postponed, cancelled, or implemented.
• Urgency: indicates how soon the requirement is needed. It is usually only necessary to specify this separately from the priority when a deadline exists for implementation.

Source: BABOK Guide V3, page 45.

As it is stated, those are most commonly used, which means that this list is not written in stone and each Analyst must decides which to use. Actually, for this exercise we have a special task  in BABOK Guide named Plan Business Analysis Information Management.

The purpose of Plan Business Analysis Information Management is to develop an approach for how business analysis information will be stored and accessed.

Source: BABOK Guide V3, page 42.

Since I read the Mastering the Requirements Process: Getting Requirements Right (which was quite sometime ago) I extended my requirement attributes list with those two:

• Justification
• Fit Criteria

Justification is a rationale for requirement. It explains why requirement is needed by stakeholder(s). It is very important attribute as it allows to distinguish between real requirements and solutions requested by stakeholders that pretend to be requirements.

Fit Criteria's aim is to make sure that requirement is verifiable.  It means that there is defined way of proofing that the requirement is met. This attribute directly addresses one of the characteristics of a good requirement which is Testable. (Have you ever seen requirements like: "System must be easy to learn" or "System must be user friendly" and wondered What the hell this means? I bet you did! :-) )

Enhanced Requirement Attributes Addin for Sparx Enterprise Architect

Sparx Enterprise Architect does not support all of the mentioned above attributes out of the box. Some are there, but not all of them. You may add missing ones as TaggedValues in requirement element, but working this way on a daily basis is hard and miserable.

To address this problem I created Enhanced Requirement Attributes Addin for Enterprise Architect. In short ERA addin (addin means plugin). It adds new properties window which is dedicated only for Requirement type. When you double click on any Requirement element this new window will be opened by default. Properties for other element types will be opened in EA's default properties window.

Sometimes you may still want to open Requirement element in default properties window, just click 'Default properties' button, or press Alt+Enter keys on the selected element.

Requirement properties window aggregates in one place all most important attributes that were described above. This makes reading and editing a requirement very easy. Requirement properties windows supports:

• Some of BABOK / Volere additional attributes
• Rich edit functionality for Description attribute
• Key shortcuts (Ctrl+S - save & close  and Ctrl+W - close without saving)

Compatibility

All of the additional attributes are stored as TaggedValues of Requirement element. This a built-in functionality of Enterprise Architect. There is no custom solution for storing information. As you can see in the picture below, you can access and edit those attributes in normal properties window.

This means you may use ERA Addin without worrying about compatibility. You can be the only person on the project or in your organization using ERA Addin and other Analysts & Architects will still be able to view and edit Requirement without problems. Of course it will not be as easy and convenient as in ERA Addin, but important thing is that you will not break anything!

ERA Addin does not use any custom UML Profile, it works with default, built-in Requirement type. So you can start using it on your already created requirement models without any conversions or problems with migration. There is also no risk, if you will not like ERA Addin you will simply uninstall it, there will be no impact on your model.

Generation of documentation

ERA Addin was created with easy reporting in mind. It comes with a Requirements Details template that is used to generate documentation about all additional requirement attributes. Here you can download sample document with generated documentation about requirements in Stakeholder package.

Practical

ERA Addin is free to use for everybody including commercial purposes. It is redistributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License.

Downloads

• Installer of ERA Addin together with Requirements Details template can be downloaded from here.
• Sample Enterprise Architect project can be downloaded from here.

EA-Matic

The EA Navigator is a free and open-source (BSD License) add-in for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect that makes the life of any Enterprise Architect user a lot easier.

It allows for quick navigation between different elements in a model, especially between those elements that are not easily found using the standard EA features.

Using the dockable add-in window it retains a history of the 50 last selected model elements, and shows the important related elements at a glance.

The EA Navigator is part of the Enterprise Architect Toolpack

It allows you to navigate between:

• Operations and Sequence/Communication diagrams
• Operations and their implementation (Behavior)
• Operations and CallOperationActions
• Types and Parameters
• Types and Attributes
• Tagged Values and the elements they reference
• Elements and their owner

And to any Fully Qualified Name (FQN) or GUID that has been copied to the clipboard.

Prerequisites

• Enterprise Architect 9.0 or higher
• .NET framework 4.0

Download

EA Navigator older versions

Docked window

Once installed there should be a new menu option Navigate in the Add-Ins/Extensions menu.

If this option is not visible then something must have gone something wrong during the installation.

The EA Navigator will now show its functions depending on the type the element that is selected. You can either access its function using the main menu, or using the right-click context menu.

In order to enable the “docked window” feature of the EA navigator check the optionExtensions|Add-In Windows

The Navigator window will now show up somewhere in your application

Toolbar Actions

The toolbar on top of he docked contains the following actions, from left to right:

Select in Project Browser

This option will select the selected element in the EA Navigator window in Enterprise Architect’s project browser. (similar to Alt-G from a diagram)

Open Properties

Opens the properties dialog for the selected element

Add to Diagram

The add to diagram button will add the selected element in the EA Navigator tree to the currently opened diagram.

The element will be added to the top left corner of the diagram.

Navigate to Fully Qualified Name

Selects the element that matches the node path (FQN) in the clipboard. If there is no valid FQN string in the clipboard the EA Navigator will show a dialog asking for the FQN.

Select Element from GUID

Each item, elements, attributes, operations, diagrams, etc… has a unique id in the form of a GUID (example: {C06EF618-D57C-4f63-BF64-F5A5265694AE}).

Pressing the Navigate to GUID button will allow you to go to that element using it’s GUID. If there’s already a GUID in your windows clipboard then the EA Navigator will use that one. If not the EA navigator will show a dialog where you can past (or type) the GUID.

For elements shown in the project browser you can easily copy the GUID to your clipboard using the context menu Copy Reference|Copy Node GUID to Clipboard

Options

Opens the options dialog allowing you to tune the EA Navigators behavior to your liking.

All options are stored in the users profile, so different users on the same machine can have different options

About

Opens the About dialog

Quicksearch

Start typing in the Quicksearch box and you will get a list of all things in the model who’s name start with whatever you have typed.

Hovering an item in the dropdown list will show you it’s fully qualified name in the tooltip.

Selecting an item will select it in the EA Navigator tree.

The Quicksearch also comes with a whole bunch of options, you can choose which types of items to search for, and with the Actions you can choose what to do when an item from the Quicksearch is selected.

Navigation options

Below you find all navigation options grouped by the element(s) they are available on

All

• Owner
  Selects the owner of the selected element

 All Except diagrams

• … Tags
  Shows the elements referenced by the owned “RefGUID” style tagged values.
  
  These tagged values translate to the following options in the EA Navigator window
  
  

• Referencing Tagged Values
  Navigates to the opposite direction of the … Tags. Shows all RefGUID style tagged values that reference the selected element
  .

• Link to Element Feature
  EA has the possibility to define links between features of an element such as Attributes or Operations using the Connect to Element Feature feature, which is very useful in a lot of situations.Visually EA shows which feature is linked using brackets next to the connected Attribute or Operation.

   

  

  The is all nice and dandy, but the downside of the story is that you can only see which features are linked by looking at the diagram.

  Now with the EA Navigator you can simply navigate from one feature to the other

  

Operation

• Diagrams
  Shows all sequence diagrams that contain a message calling this operation or contain an Action that calls this operation.
• Parameter Types
  Shows all types of the parameters of this operation.
• Calling Actions (not for messages)
  Shows the CallOperationActions calling this operation
• Implementation
  Shows the diagrams owned by the behavior of this operation.

Message (in sequence diagram)

• Operation
  Select the called operation in the project browser.
• Diagrams
  Shows the sequence diagrams for the called operation?
• Parameter Types
  Shows the parameter types for the called operation
• Implementation
  Selects the Behavior element for the called operation in the project browser and opens all diagrams owned by this Behavior.

Classifier

• Dependent Attributes
  Shows all attributes that use the selected classifier as type
• Dependent Parameters
  Shows all parameters that use the selected classifier as type

Attribute

• Type
  Shows the type of the attribute.

Sequence Diagram

• Operations
  Navigate to all operations called on the diagram.

Open Diagrams dialog

When the function Diagrams is selected the Open Diagram dialog will open

From this dialog you can select the diagrams you wish to view and click the Open button to open the selected diagram in EA.

You can also double-click on a single diagram, which will also open the diagram.

Select Elements dialog

The Select Elements dialog will be shown if a list any other type of elements need to be shown.

Clicking the Select button, or double-clicking an element in the list will select that element in the project browser.
Elements that are grayed-out are non-selectable elements such as primitives.

Other Resources

• Blog posts about EA Navigator
• Source Code on GitHub
• Enterprise Architect Add-in Framework
• UML Tooling Framework