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Describes relationships

A shape that describes an object stands for it: the diagram visualizes the enterprise model rather than only drawing boxes. This page explains how describes relationships are made from the diagram side and when they reach the model.

Overview​

There are three ways a shape (or lane, or text element) comes to describe an object:

  • Label suggestions — when a label matches repository objects, a repository icon appears under the element; click it to see the matches, and picking one labels the element and describes the object in one move. Renaming the object later updates the diagram. (The suggestions can be toggled with View Describes Hints in the view options.)
  • The Describes panel — select the element, open Describes in the side rail, and Choose Object to Describe. The panel also offers to replace the element's text with the described object's name (Replace Now) — in every diagram language, and from then on the text follows the object's name if it's renamed.
  • Proposing a new object — when the object doesn't exist yet (or you can't create it), New Object in the panel proposes one, taking its name from the element's text; multi-selecting elements proposes for all of them at once. Accept turns the proposal into a real object once it has a type and a location, and lane-based RACI can assign the Responsible automatically.

Acceptance and when relationships reach the model​

Two repository policies govern the hand-off:

  • Describes relationships are created in the enterprise model either when the diagram is checked in or when it is made the current approved version — the editor states which applies.
  • The repository can require a Creator (or Architect, in the older license model) to Accept proposed describes relationships before they're created — Accept sits in the element's Describes panel, and Accept All in the Describes List panel.

Snapshots and live data​

Each checked-in version freezes a snapshot of its described-object data, so an approved diagram shows the model as it was approved. What a reader sees once the live model has moved on — the live data, or only what an approval cycle has released — follows a repository policy. See Described-object changes in diagrams for both behaviors, and What makes the Changes toggle appear for the changes that raise the toggle.

Seeing what a diagram describes — and the other way round​

  • The diagram's Describes List panel lists every object the diagram or its elements describe.
  • An object's Described By view lists the diagrams describing it — see Find where an item is used.

Related tasks & references​