As of today, Sparx Systems will be offering Prolaborate as a core component of The Pro Cloud Server. Prolaborate leverages the model data in Enterprise Architect to allow the wider user community to analyze, interact and make key decisions.

For more information, please read the official press release on the Joint Venture between Sparx Systems and Sixth Force.

 Using Enterprise Architect and the Pro Cloud Server in Education

System Thinking in IT Solutions and Digital Fabrication - Course

What is the Cost of Poor Quality IT Solutions

Who knows the true cost of poor qualitry IT systems? Who cares about it? How can you measure the quality of IT solutions?  We can estimate, but it must be a relatively large proportion of the final cost for the completed solution. And it is not just a matter of money.

I am convinced that a systematic approach throughout the whole lifecycle of IT solutions must be more advantageous than using a quick and dirty approach.  ‘One of the aspects of system approach is the rigorous documenting (modeling) of the solution, from idea itself, analysis, design, implementation, go live, up to the end of operation and deployment'.

Based on experiences from praxis I am trying to share my knowledge with young people, who haven't developed bad habits yet. For that reason, I am organizing the courses for students of universities and middle schools, to encourage young people to think about their solutions before they start to work. The way, how to manage it, is to use modern technology and methodology.

It is not wasting time. Our path to solutions is our everyday journey. Every day we are discovering new knowledge and reaching new experiences, at least.

I would like to share my experiences from university in Slovakia, where we are realizing the small IT solutions. The main goal is not only developing a solution, but also developing an appreciation of how we are managing the solution. It could be called ‘Model driven solution’.

The name of the course is ‘System Thinking in IT Solutions and Digital Fabrication’

This course was created on the basis of cooperation among FABLAB CVTI,  ‘CVTI Bratislava’, ‘Comenius University Science Park’ and ‘Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava’ ‘FIIT STU’, AGNICOLI-Through Knowledge to Freedom -nonprofit organization, FabLabNet, Interreg Central Europe Programme, CE 283. The main objective of the course was to bring students closer to digital manufacturing and to reach new professional habits – generating and sharing knowledge among participants.

This course was focused on integration of 2 approaches. Rapid prototyping in the field of 3D printing, IoT, Laser cutter, CNC cutter and system approach. Students received the basic information about technology presented in FABLAB CVTI and general overview about holistic approaches in IT (TOGAF, ITIL). During the whole course we have used the client UML modeling tool ‘Enterprise Architect’ by Sparx Systems and server background Sparx Cloud Services, Pro Cloud Server with WebEA access. Licenses for ‘Enterprise Architect’ clients were provided by FIIT, licenses for Pro Cloud Server (WebEA) were provided by Sparx Systems company with close cooperation from Sparx Systems Central Europe.

The topic is quite extensive, and its comprehensive description goes beyond the purpose of this article. If interested in more details, please, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Roman Kazička

A lot of customers at our seminars and workshops on BPMN, enterprise architecture, business analysis and requirements gathering, have 1 thing in common: their company uses the Enterprise Architect® version 12 , 13 or 14 tool from SparxSystems®. They use it mainly for implementing and testing software, and only occasionally for analysing and modelling business processes and requirements.

Enterprise Architect from SparxSystems offers you a complete environment that supports you in every phase of a project, from requirements gathering to the implementation and testing of software. Hence, Enterprise Architect offers something for every role in a project and the interaction between them, but also allows the streamlining, consistency and communication of deliverables, which can be improved in many companies.

During this workshop, we want to focus on the lesser known applications of Enterprise Architect, such as enterprise architecture modelling (with ArchiMate), requirements analysis and documentation, as well as business analysis, process modelling, simulation of business processes, software project management, data modelling, etc. The use of this tool for software implementation is very well known, so this will get less attention.

Your course leader and moderator is Christian Gijsels of GIJSELSDOTCOM. He has a lot of experience in business analysis, requirements management and modelling business processes with Enterprise Architect, and he uses this and other tools almost every day. Hence, you get a very practical and pragmatic view during this intensive, interactive and inspiring workshop, which is also available in-company.

Education in Belgium : 25 / 10 / 2018 - More info: https://www.itworks.be/

Education in The Netherlands: 28 / 11 / 2018 - More info: https://adeptevents.nl/event/cursus-enterprise-architect

SparxSystems CE: Belgian Railway relies on Enterprise Architect

In order to prepare itself for the liberalisation of national railway markets in 2023, the Belgian National Railway Company SNCB has developed an architecture continuum using Enterprise Architect over the last three years. With more than 1000 applications in use and a huge volume of data, this was not an easy task. Today, IT decisions can be made more easily based on reliable information, and the company is now able to move toward a modern IT landscape.

 Luc Alix (left), Head of Enterprise Architecture and Alain Garsoux (right) in charge of Architecture Governance at Ypto, a subsidiary of the Belgian National Railway Company

Vienna/Brussels – In 2005, the Belgian National Railway Company was divided into three public companies, in accordance with European and Belgian regulations. This naturally had considerable consequences for the common IT: Thousands of components (applications, servers, networks, etc.) had to be recorded, analysed and reassigned. To ease this IT transformation, SNCB decided to create a new IT company called “YPTO”, a 100% subsidiary. Ypto started to invest in its enterprise architecture with Enterprise Architect from Sparx Systems. Luc Alix, Head of Enterprise Architecture, hired Alain Garsoux to promote and improve Ypto’s architectural knowledge database (continuum). Alix: "We very soon decided to define our own architecture framework by adopting and integrating major architecture standards like Archimate™, TOGAF™, BPMN, SAFe, etc.. The adopted prescriptive language helps the decision-making process by forcing us to address the important concerns and not getting lost in details.”

Enterprise Architect: Cost-effective and adaptable

Since a suitable tool is naturally required for the construction of such a complex IT landscape, the decision was made to purchase based on specificity. Enterprise Architect proved to be the cheapest and most adaptable solution. A. Garsoux explains: "Being active in the public sector forces us to regularly reconfirm the purchase, the good price of the platform has so far always made it possible to extend the licenses and to avoid migration tasks. This allows us to continuously work with the tool, which has now been ideally adapted and makes our architecture work much easier and more productive.” Hans Bartmann, Managing Director of SparxSystems Central Europe: "We are pleased that Enterprise Architect has so far overcome the hurdle of tenders so well due to its excellent price-performance ratio, adaptability and openness to many languages and standards. At the same time we congratulate SNCB on their state-of-the-art IT architectural solution, which can also serve as a very good example for other companies!”

The EA Shared Model Repository provides an overview The EA Shared Model Repository provides an overview of the mapped areas and guidelines for modeling

Open tool to reduce complexity

During the embedding phase for the modeling platform, Ypto specified precise guidelines for solution architects. Standard architectural views were defined to support the work of 12 Enterprise Architects and 50 Solution Architects. "Thanks to pre-fab architecture diagrams, we are able to easily capture our current complex IT landscape into the architecture knowledge database (Continuum). The captured raw data is then transformed into actionable information to support decision making”, says A. Garsoux. With this capture, a continuous documentation is automatically updated, which is of decisive importance for traceability and further developments.

The analysis of the existing applications showed for example that currently up to 20 applications are necessary for the handling of a single business activity. Since each of these applications (currently over 1.000) has to be maintained, the declared goal is to significantly reduce this number. "For any new request for change, we always start by specifying the impacted business activities and the impacted applications. From this we can very quickly see - thanks to our architectural knowledge database - what things we want to keep and what needs to be renewed,” says the IT architect.

The Architecture Framework provides an overall view of the IT architecture

New applications are subject to precise specifications

"Precise architectural principles have been defined for all applications, which must be adhered to. Only in this way can we ensure that we achieve a uniform architecture. The framework also helps us to make very efficient decisions on certain developments," explains A. Garsoux. The IT architect now describes the structure as mature and ready for roll-out in the company, which is already ongoing. But he also knows that this will require a lot of internal persuasion: "The commitment to this forward-looking IT architecture must now spread throughout the company, because this of course entails changes. Our delivered information convinced our management and we prove every day that we are taking a decisive step towards a prosperous future for SNCB!"

The SNCB

SNCB is Belgium’s national railway company. It is a public company which provides the operation and marketing of railway services for national and international passenger and freight transport. It is also responsible for the maintenance of the rolling stock. SNCB employs around 21,000 people and has a turnover of 2.2 billion euros. It also owns shares in Eurostar and Thalys, as well as in the IFB and TRW branches. SNCB plays a crucial role in the development of sustainable mobility by providing a quality, reliable service that is in line with the market.

About Sparx Systems

Enterprise Architect is the world’s premiere UML/SysML modeling platform. Produced in Australia by Sparx Systems since 1996, it has been implemented by over 730,000 users worldwide, due not only to its high performance at an unbeatable price. Enterprise Architect is a powerful yet intuitive modeling tool that facilitates any desired level of explicitness and precision in the development, analysis and documentation of even the most complex systems and architectures. Individuals and teams can use EA to design and produce software systems, perform business process modeling, handle requirements or model any process or system using standardized or custom modeling languages and frameworks with maximum reuse and traceability throughout. Pro Cloud Server and WebEA allow geographically-distributed model-based development and engineering teams to actively collaborate on any number of ongoing projects in real time. SparxSystems Software Central Europe was founded in 2004 in Vienna, Austria to provide individuals and organizations in Europe's core German-speaking and other economically-aligned markets with Enterprise Architect software licenses, training and support in their own language and time zone.

Join us for a meet and greet informal meeting where we get together around a table with our laptop (or not) and discuss all-things-EA with other enthusiasts.

We're also planning to retire to a locally accessible bar/pub for drinks and/or dinner after the meeting, depending on interest, etc.

Date: Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018
Time: 5:30 - 7:00 PM
Location: Brisbane Square Library - Tiered Theaterette (Ground Level) - 266 George St, Brisbane

Please register

Enterprise Architect - Best Practices Day 2018 (German Event)

After the great feedback of our first Best Practice Days we will continue this series of events. We are creating during this yearly event a personal and interactive plattform for the Enterprise Architect Community hosted by Sparx Systems Central Europe.

Nach dem großen Erfolg und den vielen positiven Rückmeldungen zu den ersten beiden Auflagen der «Best Practice Days» gibt es im 2018 die Fortsetzung! Mit diesem jährlichen Event schaffen wir die persönliche und interaktive Plattform zur Enterprise Architect Community. Dienstag, 10. bis Mittwoch, 11. April 2018 in Nürnberg NH Collection Hotel Nürnberg City.

Der erste Tag ist den Praxis- und Fachbeiträgen gewidmet, der zweite Tag reserviert für Schulungen rund um den effizienten Einsatz der Modellierungsplattform.
Berichte aus der Praxis, Fachbeiträge rund um neue Funktionalitäten, interaktive Schulungen und die persönliche Vernetzung mit anderen Enterprise Architects machen aus diesen beiden Tagen ein Muss für jeden, der die Plattform in seinem Unternehmen einsetzt. 

The first Sparx University Week for 2018 will be run during March, with most training sessions being held during the week of March 2-9.

University Weeks are hosted by Sparx Systems Japan, Sparx Systems Central Europe, Sparx Services North America, Sparx Systems India and Sparx Services UK (Hippo Software).

The delivery format for each course varies depending on the subject, audience and location, with a mix of both online and face-to-face seminars and courses.

It is anticipated that Sparx University Week will be run on a global basis every few months, in conjunction with Sparx Systems Sister and Services Partner network.

Bookings are essential, please review the course schedule below and visit the course provider's website for more details and to register your place.

Sparx University Week Schedule:

Sparx Services North America launches new offerings to support the BIZBOK® Guide for Business Architecture

Sparx Services North America is pleased to announce a new set of training, consulting and technology offerings aligned to the BIZBOK Guide to support the Business Architecture discipline.  Business Architecture is an essential part of companies’ digital transformation and operational excellence strategies - weaving together people, processes, information and technology in support of strategic vision and operational objectives. A Guide to the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge® (BIZBOK Guide) from the Business Architecture Guild® represents the generally accepted standards of practice for the Business Architecture discipline.

BIZBOK Training Offerings

Whether you are a new or aspiring Business Architect seeking to learn the fundamentals of the role; a seasoned Enterprise, Business, Information or Systems Architect looking to add the BIZBOK methodology to your toolbox; or a company that uses Sparx Enterprise Architect today and are looking to bring best-practices into your architecture function – the BIZBOK training offerings from Sparx Services North America, a Guild Accredited Training Provider®, can help provide the skills you need to succeed.

BIZBOK Foundation: A 3-day course covering the core framework content of the BIZBOK to help students prepare for the Certified Business Architect® exam from the Business Architecture Guild.

Sparx Enterprise Architect BIZBOK: A 2-day course to help students understand how to use Sparx Enterprise Architect (the industry leading EA tool) to support Business Architecture activities as outlined in the BIZBOK.

BIZBOK Essentials: A 5-day course that combines the framework and essential concepts from the BIZBOK Foundation course with the practical application and tooling guidance from the implementation course into an intensive overview to give students the knowledge and skills to apply the BIZBOK in their daily work. 

Business Architecture Alignment and Integration: A 2-day course focused on leveraging the BIZBOK concepts to integrate Business Architecture with existing EA, Business Analysis and Solution Delivery functions.

BIZBOK Consulting Offerings

As active contributors to the Business Architecture Guild, the architects from Sparx Services North America understand how to apply the BIZBOK framework and methods within the context of a company’s EA/BA practice along with best-practices for configuring and using Sparx Enterprise Architect to support the BIZBOK methods.

Coming Soon! BIZBOK Extension for Sparx Enterprise Architect

Sparx Services North America will soon be releasing a new BIZBOK Extension (MDG Technology) for the Sparx Enterprise Architect platform - providing pre-configured objects, data models and templates to enable Business Architects to quickly perform techniques direct from the BIZBOK using the industry leading EA tool, Sparx Enterprise Architect.

To learn more about the BIZBOK offerings from Sparx Services North America, visit www.sparxsystems.us/bizbok or contact one of our BIZBOK experts at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Business Architecture Guild, BIZBOK, A Guide to the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge, Certified Business Architect, CBA, Guild Accredited Training Program, and GATP are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Business Architecture Guild. Sparx Systems, Enterprise Architect, MDG Integration, and MDG Technology are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sparx Systems Pty Ltd

HTML Report 2, Electric Boogaloo

As a sequel to my previous article on how to edit the CSS generated by Enterprise Architect to personalise your generated HTML report I was prompted by Guillaume to create this follow up as he gave me an idea on how to make these changes prior to generation. As we have already identified the changes that we need to make in the previous article we can actually create our own customised version of the CSS EA would use and specify that this is then used as we create our HTML report.

So how do we do this?

Keeping in mind the list of changes that we need to make:

1. Change the attributes for .IndexHeader so that the logo fits within the header of the report.
2. Change the attributes for .IndexBody to cater for the changes that we have made to the header.
3. Change the attributes for #contentIFrame so that the content section of the report fills the correct amount of the screen.
4. Change the attributes of #tocIFrame so the table of content is displayed correctly.

With these changes in mind we are ready to get to work on defining our template. To do this you will need to fire up EA. At the bottom of your project browser you will see a tab labelled Resources, click this…

Having clicked this your view will change to…

You will then need to click into the section for Document Generation…

Next, right click Web Style Templates and choose Create HTML Template. This will bring up the following dialog…

Enter a name for your new template and a new window will open…

You can select any of the options listed in the left hand pane for editing by simply clicking on them. As the changes we are looking to make are relatively simple the only option that we need to concern ourselves with is CSS – Main. Click this option and you will see the following…

You will then see the CSS display itself in the right hand pane, navigate to the areas of interest by pressing ctrl+f and entering the headings outlined earlier. Clicking on the find next button will take you to these areas in the CSS and you can make the necessary changes. Once you have made the changes click save and then click close. With these actions complete you are now ready to generate a new HTML report that will automatically use your custom CSS.

As before right click on your project in the project browser and choose HTML Report…

Clicking this will display the familiar dialog…

Under the Style option you will now be able to have a drop down menu that will list the names of any custom templates that you have created. For this example, I have changed the style to be the CUSTOM template created earlier in this article, this means that when we generate our report EA will now use our predefined custom CSS rather than the standard set. We also need to specify our logo as before, then click Generate.

The result is that our HTML report has been generated with no changes to be made and that we can re-use our template every time that we need to create this kind of report…

5 reasons why web based sharing and collaboration is imperative for modeling teams.

Enterprise Architect offers a wide spectrum of modeling solutions that lets users capture all
facets of an IT landscape. The models are rich, comprehensive and greatly helps in articulating key
answers to business queries. This article shows 5 key reasons why web based sharing and
collaboration maximizes the value of these models.

Acceptance from the business community - Models in Enterprise Architect convey pivotal information
to business users. Sharing a selected view of the model with focused information lets business users
conveniently view the live information. This maximizes acceptance of models as the key source
for due diligence. See how a business user can view models by clicking a link View Live Diagram

Minimize Learning Curve - Viewing simplified views of models over web browsers and iPads greatly
reduces the learning curve in getting accustomed to a new modeling tool. The business users gets to
see what is relevant for them. Simple, modern web interfaces allows quick understanding and
fosters engagement significantly. A targeted set of diagrams can be shown in a Thumbnail View a
customized User Dashboards to let the business users quickly navigate their way around.

Simple and Focused - Models are comprehensive, which also makes it overloaded with information.
Simplifying an end users view is highly imperative to convey the right details. Prolaborate, is a web
sharing software for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, allowing the creation of simplified portals for users.

This can be used to define highly curated views on any part of the model. See how a process diagram and its details are
simplified Process Diagram

Instant Feedback and Updates - Enterprise Architect diagrams are created to answer key user queries or demands.
Such finished diagrams are usually printed in Word documents and the review comments are
gathered in Excel. A live sharing platform like Prolaborate lets modelers and end-users to view live
Enterprise Architect diagrams, share Feedback on live diagrams, and also get the changes updated instantly. This
greatly reduces the turnaround time and improves agility. Participate in Review

Keep them Notified - Another significant challenge in keeping the users notified of new discussions,
model changes, review comments, approvals, rejections etc is also addressed by the web sharing
solutions. Social media like discussion portals, instant notifications, email notifications, daily
summary and much more lets users to be always informed of key events from the team. Learn more
on Notifications

Prolaborate, powered by Sparx Systems Pro Cloud Server, is a sharing and collaboration software for Enterprise Architect that allows these models to be conveniently shared to non-modeling community.

To know more on how you can enable collaborative modeling please visit www.prolaborate.com or
write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.