This series is about the problem of querying ARIS database and getting the output in very useful way for analysis.
For instance, you want to query the ARIS database as:
1. Customer Data or Order Data (cluster object type see image below) is used as an input or output to how many Application System Type?
2. Who (person or org unit) is responsible for the above Application system Type
Similarly you may want to query for Person --> Position --> Org Unit
i.e. Mr. blah blah is holding what position and he is working with what org unit etc. etc.
Currently you can do so with query and reports but the output result is not very useful for further analysis.
I was working with this problem and I found that there should be a mechanism to provide some kind of dialog to the user so he can create his query and in addition to that he should be able to save the query so that later on some managerial personnel can use the query and get the result.
I developed a complex macro, or you can say a group of macro, which does the following:
First you select the object which you want to put as a starting point for our examples it could either be a cluster data object or any person or whatever you feel you want to start the query.
The macro is asking whether you want to create new query or you want to use the existing ones?
You select No b/c we are trying to make a new query.
You need to enter level of query in our case it will be two levels (CLUSTER DATA to APPS and then APPS to ORG UNIT OR PERSON). You can go to any number of level but more level you increase you need to provide details for each level which is explained below.
Select the object that will appear in first level (Cluster and Application System) along with connection types as shown below.
You should be extremely careful when selecting the connection that is allowed in first level query you want to see Cluster Data is required as an output or input to application system type.
Now repeat the procedure for second level query (you want to the who person or org unit is responsible for the application system
and then the connections for 2nd level:
Now all the levels are complete, the dialog will ask you to save the query to your machine, you should provide a descriptive name and save the query file to be later reused by other users or by you.
The above steps are complicated so should be performed by ARIS Administrator and he should generate a series of queries and put them in some shared folder to be reused by ARIS End-User. This is explained later in the article.
Now the result will be as follows:
The macro will make a new model and populate with objects as follows:
It will ask you if you want to generate a matrix
Now you can run the same query but on different Cluster Data Object.
If you select material data (cluster object) as starting object, your result will be:
and your matrix model will be as follows:
The above result indicates that Material Data is involved with two applications PRO-Order and MAT-REQ and PRO Order is under the responsibility of Peter Brown and EMEA Sales.
Another result for Contract Data:
This macro can be used in the following scenarios:
1. ARIS Administrator will use the specific filters (DEMO DB) and create different scenarios which he thinks appropriate or mostly desire by top management
2. He will put query files generated from the macro and put them or some shared folder on server to be accessed by the different people (at the time of running the macro they should select the folder in my network places and then they should see a folder with already saved queries).
3. The people executing the queries should use Entire Method as filter b/c right now there is no information saved with query files regarding the filter that is used when creating the queries by ARIS administrator. And End-User should not be concerned about the filters or any other steps involved in creating the queries. They should just select the query and execute it on different starting objects. The name of query file is very important. It should be very descriptive and based upon some standards.
.....continued..........
Dear Mr. Adnan Shahab,
This is a very intersting macro development which provides an impact analysis which I'm missing badly in the current ARIS release. I would be interested to get in contact with you.
We have developed quite a number of macros and reports to get around limitations and to automate model maintaince as much as possible.
Looking forward to hear from you.
Kind regards,
Alexander
Hello,
I am interested in some of the information you have developed, if possible could you cantact me at karen.kirton@services.nsw.gov.au
Regards
Karen
This is a very interesting post, and good functionality from Aris. however, over time we have found that for people who are constantly requiring complex queries, crosstabs and data visualisations, it is better to have Aris Syncronise all data to a relational database which is designed for reporitng and analysis.
Our Company, over more than 5 years has developed such a syncronisation mechanism. Please contact me if you have any questions relating to this.
regards
Anthony