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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.

The Describes indicator on the shape shows whether the relationship is still proposed. A proposed relationship — a New Object not yet accepted, or a relationship that awaits Accept — has a semi-opaque (partly transparent) indicator. Once accepted, the indicator is fully opaque. The indicator is also semi-opaque when the described object has no approved version yet.

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.

The Describes panel can also move you between related objects: click an object it lists — a related object, or the value of an object-valued custom property — and the panel shows that object instead. A trail across the top of the panel names the object you're on and how you reached it. Click the left-chevron icon to step back one stop — its tooltip names the stop it returns to. To jump to any earlier stop, click the button showing the number of stops, tooltip Show the path you followed.

A repository administrator controls this with the setting Allow navigating between related objects in the Describes panel of web-based diagrams — see Advanced repository settings. In the Diagram gadget the panel always allows it, whatever that setting says.

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.
  • A Diagram gadget on a dashboardDashboard A configurable view in Process360 Live that aggregates KPIs, charts, and filters across one or more processes for stakeholders to monitor performance. opens the same panel, read-only, for a shape that describes an object and for the diagram's own described object.

Related tasks & references​