Case StudiesThis document serves as comprehensive guide to the MDG technology for APM (Application Portfolio Management). Its primary purpose is to provide an understanding of the MDG’s functionality, its metadata elements, and the means to enhance and extend its capabilities in the future. Users, Administrators, and Stakeholders can reference this document to effectively leverage the MDG for APM and adapt it to accommodate changing organizational requirements.
What is MDG?
- MDG (Model Driven Generation) Technologies are a collection of EA configurations provided in an XML file that provides new modeling languages, templates for code and document generation, model search and more.
- It allows users to extend Enterprise Architect’s modelling capabilities to specific domains and notations. MDG Technologies seamlessly plug into Enterprise Architect to provide additional customized toolboxes, UML profiles, patterns, templates, and other modelling resources.
- Enterprise Architect also has some built-in technologies which may vary based on the edition of Enterprise Architect
Enhancing the MDG
A well-structured MDG can significantly enhance your modeling experience in EA. One of the key components of MDG customization is the management of Tagged Values and Stereotypes.
Potential Enhancements to the MDG
Add New Tagged Values
Every modeling project has unique requirements. By adding custom Tagged Values, you can tailor your MDG to capture domain-specific data, ensuring your models are comprehensive and relevant
Customizing Tagged Values can be used as data sources for generating Documentation that precisely matches your organization’s needs and help in better communication among stakeholders by providing context-specific information.
Steps to Assign Tagged Values to Stereotypes
You can define additional Meta-Information for a stereotype by adding various types of Tagged Value, which you identify as attributes of the Stereotype Element. Tagged Values define a wide range of properties and characteristics of a Model Element, and some of these properties have complex or structured values. For example, you might want your user to select a value between upper and lower limits (using ‘Spin’ arrows), set a date and time, select a colour from a palette, or work through a checklist.
Steps to Define Tags:
1. Open the APM MDG File
2. Navigate to Setting > UML Types > Tagged Values.
3. Click on the “New” button & add the Tag values into the Model
4. Let’s create a “Data Backup” Tag Value into the model. Click on “New” button and enter the Tag Name, Description and Type details as shown. Click on the “Save” button
5. To Know more in detail about predefined types like Enum, String and etc., Click Here
6. Once the tagged values created. In the APM MDG, right click on the required stereotype to configure the created tagged value.
7. Select Edit with Profile Helper > Tagged Values> Right Click> Add Specialized Tagged value > Predefined
8. Choose the created tagged value “Data Backup” in the list and click OK.
9. The required tag has been configured in the stereotype element.
10. Now, profiles & MDG has to be published and generated. Refer the following section Publish Profiles & Generate MDG
Edit the Existing Tagged Value
If the user tends to edit the existing tagged values, follow the below steps.
Steps to Change the Existing Tagged Values in MDG
1. Open the APM MDG file.
2. Navigate to Settings > UML Types > Tagged Value Types
3. In the “Tagged Value Types” select the defined Tag type (Let’s say “Lifecycle”)
4. Modify the name or values of the Tag and save the changes.
5. The existing values of Lifecycle is Plan, Go Live, Active, Sunset, End of Life. If the user intends to change Sunset as Phase-Out. Edit the respective values and click save.
6. Now, select the respective Stereotype > ‘Edit with profile helper’ > ‘Tagged Values’ tab
7. Remove the existing tag value from the Stereotype Element and add the updated one
8. The updated tag has been configured in the stereotype element.
9. Now to publish the profiles and re-generate MDG, Refer the following section Publish Profiles & Generate MDG
Add New Stereotypes
If the user intends to create or involve new element stereotype in the APM Profile / MDG, follow the below steps to implement.
Steps to add new Stereotype
1. Drag and drop the “Metaclass” from the toolbox onto your APM Diagram
2. Select the required Metaclass type from the “Core Elements” section on the left side of the extend Metaclass window.
3. Add a Stereotype object from the toolbox onto your APM Diagram.
4. Draw an “Extension” connector from the “Stereotype“ Element to the “Metaclass” via Toolbox/Quicklinker. Generalize the stereotype to the inbuilt EA technology elements if needed.
5. Add the stereotype Element to the respective Layer in the Toolbox Page
6. Now to publish the profiles and re-generate MDG, Refer the following section Publish Profiles & Generate MDG
Generate MDG
Once the user has updated & finalized all model changes, they should proceed to generate the MDG file to make customizations accessible.
Steps to Import MDG File
1. Open the APM MDG configuration file
2. Select the package that contains the mdg technology stereotype in the project browser. Navigate to “Specialize” -> “Publish-Technology” and select “Import Package as MDG Technology” from the menu.
Steps to Save MDG File
1. Open the APM MDG configuration file
2. Select the package that contains the mdg technology stereotype in the project browser. Navigate to “Specialize” -> “Publish-Technology” and select “Save Package as MDG Technology” from the menu.
MDG Synchronization With Model
When you modify a custom stereotype, such as changing its name, properties, or tagged values, you’ll want these changes to reflect consistently across your entire model. It is feasible to synchronize the Stereotype in EA.
The “Synchronize Stereotype” feature in the toolbox allows you to update stereotypes in a model with the latest definitions from an MDG Technology file. This feature is useful when you’ve made changes to the stereotypes in your MDG Technology and want to ensure that your model elements are up-to-date with these changes.
Steps to Synchronize the Stereotype
1.Import the updated APM MDG to the model
2. After importing the updated MDG, select the respective stereotype from the toolbox and right click > Synchronize Stereotype
3. EA find the changes made to the Stereotype in the toolbox profile (updated MDG) to all instances of that Stereotype Elements within the model.
4. Select the respective Tag and click OK
5. It updates these Elements to use the new Stereotype with the updated Tagged values.
6. The newly added tagged values are now synchronized with the model.
7. The modified tagged values are also synchronized with the model.
8. The new stereotype element is now available in the toolbox
