Understanding your model – the Meta-model view

Access

Project Browser > Package > Specialize / Model Expert / Create snapshot meta-model

or

Model Expert Package Dashboard > See meta-model diagram

Contents

The meta-model view is a collection of classes. These are:

Element Type

One of these is created for each unique element type/stereotype in the package. In this example:

• Count – number of examples of the type+stereotype in the package
• Type (and stereotype, if there is one)
• Standard Attributes. These are the ‘properties’ of elements, provided by EA. This shows which ones are used, and the percentage usage.
  For example, in this package there were 3 UseCases, and all had a name (100%) but only 33% of them (1 use case) had a non-default value of ‘phase’.
• Tagged Values This shows which tagged values are present in the elements, and how often they are used
• Sub-elements. This shows how the following are used: Scenarios, Constraints, Element requirements, Element Issues, Element metrics, Element files etc. The number indicates the ratio. So, for Element Requirements, there are an average 1.33 Element requirements for each Use Case.

Connectors

Each pair of element type+stereotype which are linked (within the package) creates a connector in the snapshot meta-model diagram.

For example, this says that:

• Use Cases are linked to other Use Cases using <<include>>UseCase type connectors
• Actors are linked to UseCases using an Association link.

(attributes not shown in this EA diagram)

*The meta-model diagram is a snapshot view, so needs to be re-generated to reflect changes made to the package being analyzed.