Modeling information/data state ?

Hello Michel,

as a general rule, IT applications are of type "Application system type" in ARIS.

The states you refer to are modelled usually with Lifecycle attributes for the dates, when the transition is planned/has happened. This way the current (or future) state of an application or multitude of applications can be evaluated and visualized. There is an attribute group "Life-cycle attributes", where you can find suitable attributes to use. There is also a license "Extension pack EAM" for ARIS Architect/Designer, which gives you a lot of support for creating business support maps and maintaining the life-cycles of application system types.

Please also consult the online help on the topic of Enterprise Architecture Management with ARIS. There is also a training available for customers of that Extension Pack.

If you want to model something like states for a Cluster (which usually is stateless) you could use the "Object state" symbol, which is of type "Product/Service". That makes perfect sense, since the outcome of a process (processing clusters accumulating value) is a product or service (in its final state). That is derived directly from the definition of a process. If you want you have an outcome after every process step (the cluster has gained some value and is in a new state).

Thanks!

My example was ill-chosen, my bad! Let's say we'd like to model the fact that a "Sales order" goes through the states : under review, accepted, rejected.

As I'm working at the design level (and not the Implementation level), I thought a "cluster/data model" was more appropriate  than an "entity type" for representing the information object ( I got the idea from this aris blog post https://www.ariscommunity.com/users/eva-klein/2013-01-22-eerm , the posts by Ms. Klein are really excellent by the way).

The "object state" idea sounds good but

• I cannot link a "cluster / data object" with an "object state" on an "Event diagram" (entire method filter is in used).
• I cannot add links between "object states" to show the transition of states

In the worst case, I could go for a "quick model", wich is a bit ugly and lacks semantics, but which can be assigned to a correponding "cluster / data model" element

Well, ARIS is configurable. I admit, here the method has got a gap. We made up a new model type from scratch we called "Object allocation diagram". I share a filter report of its definition for your reference.

Another side note: An "event" might also be called "process state". It is different from the state of the product. You might have different states of the product at the same place (event) in the process. E.g. "product.finished" and "product.repaired" at the event "assembly completed".

Thanks a lot! 

Reading the attached text file, my understanding is here is what you can do with the "object diagram" :

• Add objects: Cluster/data model, Entity type, Entity (ERM) attribute, and Interface description (with "Object state" symbol). I'm new to Aris and I still have to figure out the relationship between object type and symbols. Here my guess is you're using "Interface description" type to have the right connections types available, alongside the "object state" symbol for the visual meaning?
• Add relationships
  • cluster/data model consists of ERM attributes
  • cluster/data model consists of Entity types
  • cluster/data model has object states (-> link cluster data model with its states)
  • Object state is a predecessor of  an object state ( -> describe the cluster data model states transitions)

Ah, sorry. There was a renaming that slipped my attention. "Interface description" is supposed to be "Product/Service" (OT_PERF). Some customers re-interpret some object types for something specific.

Object type <-> Symbol type: Object type is a generic concept while the symbol type represents a specific concept based on a generic concept. The symbol type appears only on occurrences in the context of a model. If you want to define a new specific concept with your own custom symbol type you derive a new symbol type from an existing one that is based on a suitable object type.

Vielen dank  M. Zschuckelt , alles klar !

Mit freundlichen Grüssen,

MB