Some weeks ago, we released a new service release of our ARIS Platform products. Service release sounds like just fixing some bugs. Well, in this case the new release contains many new and important features. In fact, there are so many enhancements that we could have also released a new major version.
Sometimes, it is a little bit tricky to find out what’s new. You might discover new functionality just by accident or you will never get aware of it. To overcome this problem, we start today with a little series of articles – “Features en detail”. All articles are written by our leading development experts of the respective ARIS components.
Here, in this post I will just collect the links to the published articles. We won’t post the articles to the blog, because people might not be interested in. Instead, the articles are posted to ARIS Support group within ARIS Community. You can subscribe to the feed of this group or visit this post from time-to-time to get updated on the latest features.
Here is a list of features, which my colleagues will discuss in the coming weeks here in ARIS Community:
- integrated spellchecker
- configurable fragments
- Microsoft Visio import
- copy&paste of content from clipboard (text, images)
- configurable SmartDesigns
- ARIS Express import
- easy search in models
- JPG and PNG image export
- BPMN 2 support
- extended mouse wheel support
- using symbols to make diagrams more expressive
- webMethods BPMS support
As you can see, there are many new cool features in the latest ARIS release. If you haven’t done so, you should upgrade now!
Another article describes the most important terms used in the articles above like explorer, designer, module, symbol bar, etc.
Hi Frank,
thank you for your answer. Unfortunately I cannot test the import functionality in ARIS yet. Since I already have started to model in ARIS Express, it would be great to know if the hyperlinks connecting my diagramms will be imported into or transformed to fit the full version of ARIS.
best regards
Martin
Indeed, hotspots or mini toolbar as we call it now, is also part of the latest release. They are already described very well in the past in the following article:
www.ariscommunity.com/users/frank-weyand/2009-08-25-context-sensitive-modeling-hotspots
For those monitoring this thread, the post about Microsoft Visio import in ARIS Business Architect is now available.
The article about importing ARIS Express models into ARIS Business Architect is online.
Hi
These new features look really good and I would love to take advantage of them. However, I have just gone through an upgrade from 7.04 to 7.1423484 which was a real mission (for our IT guys). We had someone come down from IDS Scheer to assist our IT Partner.
Any advise on how to make a smooth transition from our current version to Release 5? Is there any information that can walk them through it. I have visions of me asking our IT to upgrade again and them having nervous fits.
Yours hopefully
Kathryn
Hi Kathryn,
the upgrade from your 7.1 version to the latest service release will be much easier, because it is not a completely new version. Still, such an upgrade should always be tested carefully. On the installation DVD, you can find documents how to upgrade. I think those documents might be most helpful for your IT people.
The article about making use of your mouse wheel to work more efficiently in ARIS is now available.
Sascha shows in his recent article the new "easy search" feature allowing you to directly search in models and attributes.
Michal just published a new article about SmartDesigns in ARIS Business Architect/Designer.
Today seems to be a busy blogging day. Jens shares some details about the integration of ARIS and webMethods BPMS over at the ARIS BPM Blog. I linked this post here too, even though it is a little bit more highlevel compared to the other "features en detail" posts.
I just wrote an article describing the most important terms used in the ARIS feature articles. You might be interested to read it in case terms like exlorer, designer, WYSIWYG editor, mini toolbar, fragments, etc. are unfamiliar to you.
Fritz just published an article describing how to use symbols to make diagrams more visually expressive. This is not a completely new feature, but still very good to know!
Fragments were already introduced in the first release of ARIS Express, but they are now also available in the ARIS Platform products. Check out this new article by Frank to see what you can do with fragments in ARIS Business Architect.
In a recent post, Lars shows us how to use the clipboard to create ARIS content quickly. For example, paste a complete list of words to create an object for each word. You can also paste images into ARIS diagrams.
Sometimes, the small new features are most valuable to ARIS users. Ralf shows us how to export ARIS models as PNG or JPG images.
Ok, here comes the final article. Actually, it is not just a single article, but another sequel about BPMN 2 support in ARIS and ARIS Express.
@Omar: Our releases are available on http://aris.softwareag.com/ There, you will always find a "release newsletter" including all changes done compared to the prior release.
