AS
Hi, I'm new to ARIS and BPM. I have created our As-Is models in ARIS Connect and was thinking to duplicate the models and edit them for to-be. However, when we tried making edits to the tasks, we noted the original As-Is models will be affected. How can I work around this?
Hello Angeline,
this is an important feature to understand and use: You created "occurrence copies" by copying your as-is models for "to-be". All objects represented in your to-be now are IDENTICAL to the objects in your as-is. Most of the time this is what you want, when you want to represent your objects in different model types in other contexts. A change in one place shall be reflected everywhere else the object occurs. Think of the symbols occurring in a model as "pointers" or graphical representations of a unique physical objects, like multiple camera angles of the same thing in the real world.
So the next option you have is copying as definition copies. You make that choice by saying "Paste as... -> Definition copy". This way you get a new model with a set of new real world objects that initially have the same set of attributes as the source ones (Except for "creation time" and "Creator"). You can change those as you like without affecting the objects you copied from. They are new objects that will live their own lives.
The drawback of definition copies is that for your use-case you most likely want to change some things for to-be, but keep the identity of other ones. That's why there is another option: "Paste as... Variant copy". Variant copies are also definition copies. Upon creating a variant copy of a model you will get a wizard which allows you to specify, which objects you want to retain as occurrence copies and for which to create variant copies (i. e. definition copies). It even allows you to select other variant copies of those objects that you may have created earlier. The only difference between a definition copy and a variant copy is, that a variant copy has a logical link to its "master" object. There is no "magic" keeping the master and variant objects in sync in any way. They simply know each other and you can navigate from the master to the variant and back again. This master/variant relationship exists both between objects and between models. You can also declare this relationship after the objects or models have been created.
Here is a rule of thumb for working with variant copies of processes: Make variant copies of ALL objects on the process flow: Functions and events. Never reuse those in multiple variants of processes. For all other objects (roles, applications, capabilities, risks ...) it's up to you, if you need to make changes to them that may not be reflected in the as-is.
Mon, 01/18/2021 - 09:23
As M. Zschuckelt said, the Variant copy is your option, but please notice that it is only available in ARIS Enterprise. For ARIS Elements/Advanced, only donkey manual work is available. And as M. Zschuckelt absolutely correctly noticed, Functions and Events should be copied as definitions
