Next-Generation Diagram Editor

LeanIX EAM was built on the premise of being the single source of truth for Enterprise Architecture Management, bringing transparency to all contributors and thereby democratizing the knowledge in modern organizations.
The ability to graphically visualize landscapes or smaller parts of them with a dedicated focus on specific topics, such as network architecture, business domains, etc., is an integral part of the work of Enterprise Architects.

With the introduction of the Next-Generation Diagram Editor based on established technology, LeanIX brings state-of-the-art visual modeling to all LeanIX users to democratize the ability to draw relevant visualizations of the Enterprise Architecture.

Next-Generation Diagram Editor - Next-Generation Features

With the Next-Generation Diagram Editor, users will unlock many new features that weren't available in our legacy editor. Here are some highlights:

• Arrange, distribute, and align (left/right/top/bottom)
• Significant update of shapes to the shape library
• Better color picker and color management
• Drag'n'drop images into your diagram

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Important

To prevent potential data loss, please press Save directly after creating a new Diagram to create a working copy.

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Images

The Next-Generation Diagram Editor supports images that may not exceed the file size of 1MB.

How to get to the Next-Generation Diagram Editor

Log in to your workspace and follow the following steps:

1. Navigate to the Diagrams section by clicking on Diagrams tab (top navigation bar)
2. Click on + New Diagram

3. Select Free Draw (Beta) from the available Diagram options

4. Use the next-generation diagrams editor.

Using the Next-Generation Diagram Editor

Include Fact Sheets in your diagrams

In order to include Fact Sheets from the Inventory in your diagrams, perform the following steps:

1. Click on "+" icon in the toolbar. (alternatively, you can also right-click anywhere on the canvas and choose Insert from Inventory)

2. On the Filter Component, choose Fact Sheets either individually by using the check box to the left and then clicking Insert selected or choose a filter and then click Insert all

You will receive a rectangular composition of the selected Fact Sheets, and all of them are selected, so you can easily adjust their styling, position, alignment, etc.

Link Fact Sheets to shapes in diagrams

To link Fact Sheets from the Inventory into existing shapes in your diagrams, perform the following steps:

1. Right-click on the shape you want to link. A context menu will appear; click on Link a Fact Sheet

2. The Fact Sheet quick search will appear, which shows you a list of all existing Fact Sheets in your workspace. Scroll to choose one or start typing to filter the results you get.

After selecting a Fact Sheet from the quick search, if the selected shape had no background color, the linking process will apply the Fact Sheet's color and its name as a label in the shape. Linking a Fact Sheet to a shape will allow you to see its details in a new tab when you right-click it and select Open Fact Sheet.

Unlink Fact Sheets from shapes in diagrams

Shapes can be linked to Fact Sheets by either linking them (see step above) or by inserting them directly from the inventory.
You can unlink a shape from a Fact Sheet by right-clicking the shape you want to unlink (it has to be already linked to a Fact Sheet) and selecting Unlink Fact Sheet.

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Once the shape is unlinked to a Fact Sheet, the shape will keep the label and color it already had when it was linked, but it will no longer allow you to see the Fact Sheet details in the context menu.

Change linked Fact Sheet in shape

There are two ways to change a linked Fact Sheet in a shape. You can unlink a Fact Sheet and then link a new one again or change the linked Fact Sheet by doing the following steps:

1. Right-click the already linked shape and select Change linked Fact Sheet.

2. Once the Fact Sheet quick search appears, you can either scroll to look for another Fact Sheet available in your workspace or start typing to find the Fact Sheet you need.

After selecting another Fact Sheet from the quick search, the label and color will be updated with the newly linked Fact Sheet.

Show dependencies for Fact Sheets

It is also possible to show the dependencies of Fact Sheets in a diagram. Follow this short instructional example to see how to show dependent Fact Sheets.

Show drill-down for Fact Sheets

Another way of showing the relations of Fact Sheets is to insert them inside a drill-down container. Follow this short instructional example to learn how to show dependent Fact Sheets inside a drill-down container.

Fact Sheet sidebar

The Next-Generation Diagram Editor now includes a new sidebar that allows users to view detailed information about a Fact Sheet directly from the diagram editor.

When a user clicks on a Fact Sheet in the diagram, a sidebar appears with all relevant information about that particular Fact Sheet, including its name, type, tags, and lifecycle.

Further, you can navigate from the Fact Sheet sidebar to that particular Fact sheet by clicking on the name of the Fact Sheet in the sidebar. It opens the Fact Sheet in a new tab.

Fact Sheet Views

It is possible to select views, as you are used to doing in reports and legacy diagrams. With a selected view, the Fact Sheet shapes in the diagram will be colored according to that view.

In the editor, there is the view toolbar where it is possible to select a view from a sub dropdown.

After selecting a View, the view colors will be applied to the related Fact Sheets and the view legend will be displayed above.

When you save the Diagram, the View will also be stored.

In addition to the views, you can select Apply Fact Sheet type colors which will apply Fact Sheet type colors to the Fact Sheets shapes as defined in the Meta-Model.

Views aggregation

For views on Diagrams, it is possible to change the aggregation of the selected view. Aggregations can only be applied to views of fields that are either Fields on relations or Fields on related Fact Sheets.

By default, the aggregation configured in the Meta Model is used. Also, note that aggregations only apply to a set of data. If there is only 1 relationship to a Fact Sheet in the Diagram, the view won't change because the resulting value is the same.

In the example below, you see the User Group Headquarter with 2 relations to IT Components. The view is set to Used IT Components: Technical Fit. For the first IT Component, the Technical Fit is set to Unreasonable, and for the other, it is set to Adequate.
Since the default aggregation is configured as Minimum, the Fact Sheet Headquarter gets the color that represents Unreasonable. When aggregation is set to Maximum, the Fact Sheet Headquarter gets the color that represents Adequate.

Select a related Fact Sheet

While aggregating the View, it is possible to select one specific Fact Sheet. When a Fact Sheet is selected, only relations to this Fact Sheet are considered for the view.

In the example below, the View User Groups / Used Applications: Number of users is selected. This View uses a relation to the Fact Sheet type Application. Therefore, you can select one of the Application Fact Sheets. The color for "n/a" is applied to all Fact Sheets on the diagram because there are no relations to Applications on the diagram. Then, using the option Select a related Application, one specific Fact Sheet AutoCAD is selected. Now the view is calculated considering all relations to AutoCAD.

More generally, we support this functionality for any Single Select, Double, and Integer fields on relations or related Fact Sheets.

Expanding Interfaces in Next-Generation Diagram Editor.

With this new feature, you can understand the providing and consuming interfaces of an application directly in the Free Draw of the Next-Generation Diagram Editor. Interface Fact Sheets are then represented by arrows and not boxes.
Users can still use Show dependencies and Drill-Down to get Interfaces as boxes in the regular fashion. We have just added a way to go from Application to Application directly.

Updates from Inventory

In this section, we outline a few points about the kinds of behaviors to expect when trying to sync your Free Draw diagrams in edit mode with the Inventory data.

The following kinds of updates could be present in your diagram whenever the editor checks for updates:

• Fact Sheets have been archived and are marked as removals.
• Fact Sheets have a change in their label and are marked as updates.
• Fact Sheets have a different view color in the diagram when compared against data from the inventory and are marked as an update.
• Relations in the diagram are no longer valid (relation expired, one of the connecting Fact Sheets has changed, etc…) and is marked as removed.
• Collapsed interface relations are no longer valid (change in the connecting interface between applications or any other difference in the relation) and are marked as removals.
• Collapsed interface relations have a different lifecycle phase and are marked as an update.

Whenever any of the situations listed above are present in your diagram, you will be presented with icons over these shapes. Hovering over them will give you a tooltip with a small description of what the update actually is.

The new Updates button also shows a counter with the number of updates present in the diagram.

Clicking on the Updates button takes you to a mod that shows the details of all available updates in the diagram.

Toggling on the Auto update view colors and labels removes from the modal all updates related to updating fact sheet view colors and labels. This setting is enabled by default on new diagrams but can be turned off and on in this modal.

Follow this short instructional example to see how to apply updates in this section.

Creating Fact Sheets and Relations from Canvas

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Fact Sheet and Relation Creation are only available in Next-Generation Free Draw

Although we envision enabling the creation of Applications and Interfaces directly from the Next-Generation Data Flow diagram as well, this is currently not yet available.

In Next-Generation Free Draw you can create new Fact Sheets and relations between them directly from the diagram.

Creating New Fact Sheets Using Shapes

1. Right-click on any shape that is not yet associated with a Fact Sheet and select Create new Fact Sheet. Then select the Fact Sheet type you would like to convert your shape to.
2. Edit the shape text. The text that you provide within the shape will serve as the new Fact Sheet name.

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Note, that a default naming scheme will be applied to the shapes if no custom name is provided (i.e. "User Group 1", "User Group 2", "User Group 3", etc.)

3. To add your newly created Fact Sheet to the Inventory, click on the Updates button in the top right corner. Select Fact Sheets you want to create, then click Apply updates.

4. New Fact Sheet has now been added to the Inventory and a confirmation message will now display.

After the Fact Sheet has been added to the Inventory, you can navigate to it in LeanIX by right-clicking it and clicking Open Fact Sheet.

Creating Relations Between Fact Sheets

If you have more than one Fact Sheet in the diagram, you can establish relations between them by joining them with any connector shape (e.g. arrows, dotted lines, etc.)

1. Draw a connector shape between two Fact Sheets shapes.
2. Right-click on the connector shape and select Create new relation. Then select a relation type you would like to establish.
3. To add your newly created relation to the Inventory, click on the Updates button link in the top right corner. Select relations you want to create, then click Apply updates.
4. New relation has now been added to the Inventory and a confirmation message will now display.

Types of connections

The type of connections that you will be able to establish between Fact Sheets will depend on the types of Fact Sheets that you are trying to connect.

Listed below are some examples of the types of relations that can be established when joining different types of Fact Sheets:

Connecting Business Capabilities with Applications:

• Requires
• Requires by
• Business Capability to Application

Connecting Business Capabilities with User Groups:

• Requires
• Requires by

Connecting Business Capabilities with Processes:

• Requires
• Requires by
• Business Capability to Process

Release Plan for the Next-Generation Diagram Editor

Users have an additional way to create a diagram: Next-Generation Data Flow and Next-Generation Free Draw, which are available as an early access version along with the existing options of Data Flow, Free Draw, and Lucidchart.

By the end of the second quarter of 2023, we will be working on feature parity for the new editor and adding previously available features.

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Important

New diagrams created with Next-Generation Free Draw can only be edited in the new editor. While it is technically possible to import XML exports from the old editor or draw.io into our new editor, please note that we cannot guarantee compatibility.

Once the Next-Generation Diagram Editor supports nearly all the features of the current, previous editor, it will become the default editor for creating and editing diagrams. Hence the current editor will remain until feature parity has been achieved. Existing Free Draw and Data Flow diagrams will then be opened in the new editor without users needing any action or migration.