ARIS integration with Sharepoint

I posed this before. Even something as simple as leveraging SharePoint search against Business Publisher would be nice, except that Business Publisher is not search engine friendly. Interested to hear from others....

Various DMS connector are available through EntroSoft and which you will get  with ARIS depending upon the type of ARIS license you may have.

You will be able to link an object to a document in your DMS site for eg. any Technical Term item linked directly to the repository.

But I do not think, you will be able to upload generated reports from ARIS to any DMS, utlizing ARIS DMS connector. It may be possible but need some customization.

Anyone using DMS feature of ARIS can enlighten us more.

You may want to check this link.

Thomas,

we (I) would be helped with some further insights.

I have SP2007STD and index ARIS. I hope to open the document in ARIS based on authorisation but that will never happen if the user is just logged in to SharePoint.

I'm looking for a way to leverage Sharepoint search against ARIS and expose whatever possible. 

Looked for you on FB - sent you an invitation - dont worry I dont have time to stalk people ;-)

Hi Thomas,

It would be really helpful, if you can describe this in more detail and share some insights from your experience that could help people who plan to implement this (like me).

1. Once the process repository is created in ARIS, and published using ARIS business publisher, how do u upload it to Sharepoint.

2. What additional functionality does Sharepoint provides over access through ARIS Business publisher interface.

Thanks.

Hello.

Sorry I haven’t posted back until now.

First, I’d like to begin with how I did the data integration. And, share some insights from some of the issues I’ve had.

Getting the data from the Business Publisher database

You can create ARIS Scripts to export data e.g. as XML-files or CSV-files, and scheduled these scripts. But, getting the data directly from the SQL database is fast, and easy if you know SQL syntax. Note, when getting the data from the Business Publisher database I already know that all the content is committed and approved for publication.

In the database of ARIS Business Publisher you’ll find the following tables:

ObjDef

ObjDefAttr

Model

ModelAttr

CnxDef

CnxDefAttr

ObjOcc

ObjAssignment

With these tables you can basically get all the information about objects and models and how they are connected together.

But, I stumbled upon some issues.

Issue #1 For every export you update, Business Publisher creates a new table structure with a prefix incremented by a number. (E<ID>_TableName)

So, from the first export you will find a table named: E1_ObjDef. And the second time you update (the same export) you find E2_ObjDef.

So:

To get the current export ID you must therefore query the BPSYS_DbCatalog table.

Like: SELECT DbName, ID FROM BPSYS_DbCatalog

Or: SELECT ID FROM BPSYS_DbCatalog WHERE DbName = ‘My Export’

And use the export ID in a dynamic SQL query.

For Oracle: Google EXECUTE IMMEDIATE

For MSSQL: Google EXEC sp_executesql

Or, build your query in your managed code (C#, Java, etc.).

Issue #2 The name of object types, model types, connection types and attribute types are not stored in the Business Publisher database, only the numeric identifier.

When you query the database you need to know what the type number is.

You can find the type number and name in ARIS Business Architect under the Administration Module -> Configuration -> Method.

I manually create my own tables and filled these tables with the type number and the type name. For me, it ended up being a good thing to having to do this because the end users  don’t know what e.g. a EPC diagram is anyway , and I could give different types of e.g. model types the same name (like: “Process” or “Process Diagram”). But, it is still frustrating when you already have the ability to rename and handle multiple languages through Business Architect’s Administration Module.

Example of a SQL query that requests object name and model name of models where the object of type “Person Type” occurs:

SELECT

   o.Guid AS ObjectGuid

  ,m.Guid AS ModelGuid

  ,oname.shortplainstring AS ObjectName

  ,mname.shortplainstring AS ModelName

FROM E16_ObjDef o

INNER JOIN E16_ObjDefAttr oname ON o.id = oname.parentitemid AND oname.attrtypenum = 1

INNER JOIN E16_ObjOcc oc ON o.id = oc.objdefid

INNER JOIN E16_MODEL m ON m.id = oc.modelid

INNER JOIN E16_MODELATTR mname ON m.id = mname.parentitemid AND mname.attrtypenum = 1

WHERE o.typenum = 78

The attribute “Name” has the attribute type number = 1. And, “Person Type” has object type number = 78. Also, notice that the prefix “E16_” is hardcoded in this query and must be dynamically set to query the latest version of your export.

Creating the SharePoint data layer

In SharePoint you can create External Content Types and BDC Entity Models with SharePoint Designer or with Visual Studio.

SharePoint Designer has some issues regarding Oracle databases.  But, it works great against Microsoft SQL Server.

All you have to do is to create some views or stored  procedures and follow the following tutorial:

http://www.sharepointmonitor.com/2010/08/business-connectivity-services-sharepoint-2010/

With Visual Studio you have more possibilities, but it requires managed code. You can build your BDC entity model (almost as UML class diagram) like your metamodel in ARIS with relationships between entities. Note. If you want your BDC model to be searchable you need to remember to set the ShowInSearchUI property.

http://www.toddbaginski.com/blog/archive/2009/11/05/how-to-create-a-searchable-sharepoint-2010-bdc-.net-assembly-connector-which-reads-from-a-flat-file.aspx

Configuring SharePoint Search against your External Content Type

SharePoint Search (especially with FAST Search) is a large topic with lots of possibilities. This tutorial gives just an explanation on how to do the basic setup:

http://www.toddbaginski.com/blog/archive/2009/11/12/how-to-register-an-external-content-type-with-the-sharepoint-search-service.aspx

There are much more I should write about regarding the technical details, and how the end result could be.  But for now please ask.

Additional steps you should look deeper into: how to configure and use Search Scopes, Managed and Crawled Properties, how you can customize the SharePoint Search sites, create web parts that utilize the search API, how to link to Business Publisher from search result, get the model image and use it as a thumbnail, etc.

No, that's why we created integration to the database. Once you understand the table structure you can easily create Web Services/Data Services/BCS Entity Models in SharePoint/etc.

We use the database of ARIS Business Publisher, because then we know that all the content can be shown to the end users since it is published. For ARIS Business Server you have almost the same table structure as Business Publisher. But, it becomes a bit more complicated when the ARIS databases are versioned.

I've only used this approach (by connecting directly to the database) for reading the content of the ARIS databases. Also, it is fast. I’ve used it for showing the information in SharePoint Web Parts, and as data source for SharePoint Search crawling.

I use ARIS Scripting for importing content, all though it must be a better way of integration. But it can be automated.

Hi Thomas,

Are above mentioned guidelines for ARIS integration with Sharepoint applicable for  Sharepoint 2007  and 2010?

I assume only the BDC part will change as per Sharepoint Version.

Also I got one site http://www.arisan.de, where ARIS with .NET is explained.

What is difference between above 2 methods for integration with Sharepoint?

Please guide. I am going to use Sharepoint 7 for this integration.

Thanks

AT

Does anyone have experience with integration between ARIS SOA Designer and Visual Studio?

Specifically exporting xmi of a model in ARIS and importing it into Visual Studio Architect.

There is a product, ARIS for Biztalk, that does something similar.

Purposely keeping this question broad to elicit any/all responses.

Thanks,

Mike

Hi All,

please give me an opportunity to take the discussion back to Sharepoint integration.

As mentioned in the earlier comments

1. API & Scripts Method,

2. ImportExport Method and

3. ARIS Process Automation Architect method.

These are the three methods.

can any one just through a lite on its implementations or provide any links.

Thanks in Advance,
Suresh T