Template Type: Connectors

CauseEffect

In a cause and effect relationship, an action or event (which is the cause) produces an outcome or result (which is the effect).

Business Interaction

Business interaction refers to the relationships and interactions between different entities or stakeholders within a larger ecosystem. A business ecosystem is a complex network of organizations, individuals, and other entities that interact with each other in order to create, distribute, and consume products and services.

lines may be used to show the relationships and interactions between these components. For example, a line might connect a customer with a supplier to represent the flow of goods or services between the two entities. Similarly, a line might connect a partner with a competitor to represent a strategic alliance or collaboration between the two parties.

Authority Requirement DMN

Authority Requirement in DMN (Decision Model and Notation) refers to the concept of specifying the authority or permission required to perform an action or decision in a business process. This can include the authorization required to access certain information or perform certain tasks, as well as the authorization required to make certain decisions.

For example, a line might connect a decision to a role or position to represent how the decision requires authorization from that role or position. Similarly, a line might connect a task to a role or position to represent how the task requires authorization from that role or position.

Assignment ArchiMate

The assignment relationship expresses the allocation of responsibility, performance of behavior, or execution.
The assignment relationship links active structure elements with units of behavior that are performed by them, business actors with business roles that are fulfilled by them, and nodes with technology objects. It can, for example, relate an internal active structure element with an internal behavior element, an interface with a service, or a node with a technology object.


The usual interpretation of an assignment relationship is that the whole or part of the source element is assigned the whole of the target element. This means that if, for example, two active structure elements are assigned to the same behavior element, either of them can perform the complete behavior. If both active structure elements are needed to perform the behavior, the grouping element or a junction can be used, and if the combination of these elements has a more substantive and independent character, a collaboration would be the right way to express this.

 

Properties

The Assignment tab

Property Metamodel name Description
Display name DisplayName Initial value is off.
Short description ShortDescription  
Implements Implements Links to: All templates.
BreaksDownTo BreaksDownTo Links to: All templates.

Aggregation ArchiMate

Aggregation:ArchiMate is a connector. It indicates that an element groups a number of other concepts.

The aggregation relationship has been inspired by the aggregation relationship in UML class diagrams. In contrast to the composition relationship, an object can be part of more than one aggregation.

An aggregation relationship is always allowed between two instances of the same element type.

In addition to this, the metamodel explicitly defines other source and target elements that may be connected by an aggregation relationship.

 

Properties:

Property Metamodel name Description
Short description ShortDescription  
Implements Implements Links to: All templates.
BreaksDownTo BreaksDownTo Links to: All templates.

Access ArchiMate

Access ArchiMate is one out of three ‘Dependency Relationships’ from the ArchiMate metamodel. IT represents a data dependency and is denoted by a dashed line.

Dependency relationships describe how elements support or are used by other elements. Three types of dependency relationship are distinguished:

  • The servingrelationship represents a control dependency, denoted by a solid line.
  • The accessrelationship represents a data dependency, denoted by a dashed line.
  • The influencerelationship is the weakest type of dependency, used to model how motivation elements are influenced by other elements.

Note that, although the notation of these relationships resembles the notation of the dependency relationship in UML, these relationships have distinct meanings in ArchiMate notation and (usually) point in the opposite direction. One advantage of this is that it yields models with directionality, where most of the arrows that represent such supporting, influencing, serving, or realizing dependencies point ‘upwards’ towards the client/user/business. Another reason for this direction, in particular for the serving relationship, is that it abstracts from the ‘caller’ or ‘initiator’, since a service may be delivered proactively or reactively. The direction of delivery is always the same, but the starting point for the interaction can be on either end. UML’s dependency is often used to denote the latter, showing that the caller depends on some operation that is called. However, for modelling this type of initiative, the ArchiMate language provides the triggering relationship, which can be interpreted as a dynamic (i.e., temporal) dependency. Similarly, the flow relationship is used to model how something (usually information) is transferred from one element to another, which is also a dynamic kind of dependency.

If you want to learn more about the ArchiMate language, you can find the specification here

Abstraction

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) defines an Abstraction as a Relationship that relates two Elements or sets of Elements that represent the same concept at different levels of abstraction or from different viewpoints.

Semantically, an Abstraction is a Dependency that relates two NamedElements or sets of NamedElements that represent the same concept at different levels of abstraction or from different viewpoints. The relationship may be defined as a mapping between the suppliers and the clients. Depending on the specific stereotype of Abstraction, the mapping may be formal or informal, and it may be unidirectional or bidirectional. Abstraction has predefined stereotypes (such as Derive, Refine, and Trace) that are defined in UML’s Standard Profile. If an Abstraction has more than one client, the supplier maps into the set of clients as a group. For example, an analysis-level Class might be split into several design-level Classes. The situation is similar if there is more than one supplier.

 

Free Hand Connect

Connect symbol on a FreeHandDiagram

FreeHandConnect properties

The FreeHandConnect tab

Property  Metamodel name Description
Short description ShortDescription Short description of fragment
Breaks down to BreaksDownTo Reference to break down path
Links to: AnyThing.

The Action tab

Property  Metamodel name Description
Macro Macro This field is used to create a command language program that can be executed when the user double clicks on the symbol.
Execute on Double-click ExecuteOnDoubleClick Macro is always executed when double clicking on the symbol.
Initial value is off.

Network Connection

Network connection refers to the physical or logical connections between different components or devices within a larger infrastructure. An infrastructure can include various systems such as network devices, servers, databases, storage systems, and other components that work together to provide a particular service or functionality.

For example, in an infrastructure diagram that depicts a data center, a line might connect a server to a storage device to represent the connection between the two components. Similarly, a line might connect a switch to a router to represent the connection between the network devices.