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Making a package Managed or Un-managed
What is a Managed Package?
Model Expert lets you choose which packages in your model to make ‘managed’. A ‘managed’ package is associated with a single Reference Model, which defines what can happen in that package, and it’s a great way to help users keep to the modeling standards which are defined in the Reference Model.
A Model Expert managed package is one where:
- Users can only create diagrams of the types defined in the Reference Model
- Elements in the package can only related using connections defined in the Reference Model
- Diagrams will be checked using any rules and scripts which you define in the Reference Model.
Setting up a package as Managed
| Task | Notes | See Also |
|---|---|---|
| Find a package which already has some content, or a new package which you want to get ready for a modeler to create some new content | The Guided Modelling experience | |
| Right-click on the package in the EA Project browser, and choose Specialize / Model Expert / Manage package | Model Expert will prompt you to choose which Reference Model you want to use to manage this package. Model Expert will then add a tagged value to the package, which points to the reference model you have chosen | |
| Choose the Reference Model from the list | Your repository may take some time to find all the Reference Models | Reference Model Context Properties |
| ‘Save’ to make this package ‘managed’ by this Reference Model, or see ‘Additional Rules’ below | The only change this makes to your EA model is to add a single GUID tagged value to the package, which points to the package where the chosen RM is saved. | |
| All sub-packages of this package, and any diagrams created in those packages will automatically become ‘managed’ as well. |
Changing a package from Managed to Un-managed
| Right-click on the package in the EA Project browser, and choose Specialize / Model Expert / Package properties | |
| Select ‘Un-manage package’. Save and close. | This just removes a single tagged value from the package. No other changes are made. |
Changing the Reference model of a Managed package
| Change the package from managed to un-managed (as above). Save and close. | |
| Then set up the package as managed (as above) using a different Reference Model |
Additional Rules
You can also customize how each package uses its Reference Model. Those customizations are:
| Customization | Explanation | Insight |
|---|---|---|
Relaxed / Strict |
If you set a Reference Model to ‘Strict’, then users will not be able to override suggestions made by Model expert.
If a Reference model is set to ‘Relaxed’ then modelers will be prompted with the permitted element types and connectors, but will be able to ignore them. |
If you are still developing your Reference Model, then you might apply it in ‘strict’ mode for most users, but in ‘Relaxed’ mode for expert users.
See Check mode and Guided mode, and Reference Model Context Properties |
Use Existing Element typesYou can stop modelers from creating new elements of a specific type, instead making them pick an existing element from and existing package or packages |
Select the element type, then ‘Add’ to choose a package which contains some elements of the chosen type. | This stops modelers from creating duplicate elements, for example, Actors or Stakeholders, or other types of element where you want to control how many examples are created. |