Creating implicit links / hidden connections for non-overlapping objects

Dear ARIS community,

For some time now I have been contemplating how to solve the below case. Unfortunately I have not yet found a suitable solution, so reaching out to you! Apologies in advance for the long read.

The situation is the following: our SAP system contains our Enterprise Hierarchy, that is to say, Company codes, Profit Centers, Sales Organisations/Offices, Plants etc.

This enterprise hierarchy was initially graphically depicted in PowerPoint. However, we felt that modeling the enterprise hierarchy in ARIS would be more beneficial in terms of accessibility, changes, reporting and linking to process models etc.

From a reporting perspective we want to be able to show interrelations between the objects (e.g. a company code consist of a Warehouse environment, which consists of plants (locations) and each plant has a profit center assigned.)

These relations can be 1:1 or n:1

From a graphical or presentation perspective though we do not want to show connections.

For the 1:1 relations this goes OK, since one can place an object on top of the other and create an implicit link.

The issue for us is iwith the n:1 relations:

From a graphical / presentation perspective (see attached picture for a simplified example)

• We do not want to show connection lines between the objects
• We do not want repeat showing the single object in every related object, since it will create a very nervous overview.
• The relationship is that a plant is part of Warehouse or Sell and has a profit center attached, so enlarging the profit center to contain the plants as implicit links is not an option.

In the example the question relates to the red marked clusters (e.g. Profit Center 1 has a connection with plants 1001-1010. We do not want to show the connection lines or repeat the same Profit Center in every plant. In this example that would be possible, in actual models there would not be room to do that.).

I do understand that the whole purpose for modeling in ARIS is to show connections between objects, but having said that, the request from our internal customers is different in this case.

I’ve tried a number of options that are either not working or not desired (too cumbersome):

• Connection appearance line weight: can’t be put to 0, must be between 1 and 20
• Color transparency: Doesn’t work. The color chooser shows you a transparency option (In HSL/HSV; in RGB it’s called Alpha), however, this is not enabled in ARIS. It’s standard JRE as mentioned in a post in 2014, but until now no effort has been deployed to remove (or activate) it.
• Send connection backward: only limited number of occasions where this helps. In most cases the connection will remain visible.
• Connection line color in the same color as background color of the object: this is a possibility, but a very cumbersome and laborious one. There are multiple possible background colors and space to place the connection is quite narrow.
• Create occurrence copy of model with visible connection: one post I found suggested to create the model with connections visible and subsequently copy it as occurrence without the connections to show in Connect. Besides being too cumbersome, I’m also somewhat anxious for the effects it will have on the hierarchy and representation in Connect. We have some customized XML in place.
• Model XML: Export model XML. Find the parameter which sets the connection to invisible (implicit) or visible and import the XML again: I’ve not been able to find the visible / invisible parameter yet.

PS: in the relationship properties there is an option to show an implicit relationship. But once shown it can’t be hidden / made implicit anymore (which is strange in case of 1:1 objects which are overlapping).

For information, we are on ARIS version 10.0.9, using the download client for this model.

A long post, but I hope that someone has a good suggestion/tip!