The Connection Manager - Creating a Connection Manually.

The new learning objective of this exercise is to familiarize the user with setting up a reference connection, either between a SysML element and a non-SysML object in an external repository, or between two non-SysML objects.

Preparation

This exercise assumes the student has

• IBM Rational Rhapsody 8.2 installed correctly on his or her machine with a valid license for use, and
• Syndeia 3.2 installed as a plugin for Rhapsody with a valid license for use

The specific instructions for the first part of this exercise call for creating a reference connection to an element on the local file system, so no additional interface beyond the Syndeia base module is required.  For this example, the reference connection is made to an image file, but any file (image, pdf, etc.) could be used. The second part of the exercise assumes that the appropriate interfaces has been properly installed for two or more external repositories (including Windchill, Teamcenter Jira, Jama, Doors NG, GitHub or MySQL) and that the user has created network connections with access credentials (url, username and password, typically) to those repositories.

Exercise

1. Launch the SysML starter project Starter_Model_Alpha.rpy.
2. Launch the Syndeia dashboard from the package Starter_Model_Alpha. Go to the Connection Manager tab. In the right column, click on the Repository header and select a repository connection. For this example, we have used a Local File System repository connection Local - DZ, although this would also work with any valid repository connection. If you need to create a new repository connection for this exercise, see Tutorial Exercise 1.2 or the video Demo_1.2 Repository Manager.mp4 in the training materials.
3. The local file repository contents should be displayed, as in Figure 1. I have expanded the contents to show an Excel table named Component in a workbook Excel_xlsx saved within my local file system, but the specific elements chosen are not critical to this exercise.
   
   
   
   
4. Create a reference connection by selecting Reference in the center column and dragging the block Alpha from the left panel onto Component on the right. Click Yes to confirm.
5. Go to the Connection Browser tab and expand the Alpha SysML element to see the connection created, as shown in Figure 2.
   
   
   
   
6. New in Syndeia 3.2, the user has the ability to create reference connections directly between non-SysML model elements. The following steps assume that the user has valid repository connections to a Jama and a GitHub repository, but any two different non-SysML repositories would work for the exercise.

7. Return to the Connection Manager tab. Click on the Repository header on the left column and select a Jama repository. Do the same on the right column and choose a GitHub repository. Expand the contents on both sides to expose the elements you wish to form a reference connection between, as shown in Figure 3.
   
   
   
   

8. Select Reference in the center column and drag an element from the left column onto an element on the right (or vice versa, only the Source and Target designations are different).
9. Go to the Connection Search tab and click Get All to see the new connection created (and the one created in the first part of the exercise, as shown in Figure 4.
   
   
   
   

10.  The user may choose to exercise some of the capabilities of these reference connections.

    1. Right-click the row with the connection in Figure 2 and select Open Target. If this is a local file and you have the correct software (MS Excel in this example), you should be able to open the file and the connected element. If the reference connection is to a remote repository, you may open the element in a web browser or local client.
    2. While the Target element is open in its native software or web browser, modify and save the element. Then return to Connection Browser or Connection Search, right-click the connection, and choose Compare Source & Target.