Exercise 22.1 - Aras Integration on Web Dashboard

Owned by Ambarish Ganesh (Unlicensed)
Last updated: May 05, 2022 by Debesh Roy Chowdhury
7 min read

Objectives

The new learning objectives of this exercise are to create a repository connection to an Aras repository on the Syndeia Web Dashboard (SWD), view the repository including properties, relations and search, and create a reference connection.

Preparation

This exercise assumes the student has

·         Syndeia Cloud 3.4 installed with a valid user account,

·         A valid user account to an Aras repository, and

·         A valid user account to a at least one other on-line repository, e.g. JIRA.

The user can use any Aras repository they have available.  Because the content of your Aras repository will be different, the specific examples in the following exercise instructions are only a guide and example for your actions. It is generally advisable to carry out these exercises in a non-production repository, a “sandbox”, set up for training and practice purposes.

See Video 1.9 for an introduction to the Syndeia Web Dashboard.

Background – Aras

As envisioned by Intercax, the Digital Thread is composed of inter-model connections between models in different repositories, which Syndeia creates and manages, and intra-model connections between elements in the same repository, which the individual tool creates and manages. As of Syndeia release 3.4, the Syndeia Web Dashboard can extract and display some model information from the Aras repository. Figure 1 shows a tree view of this information, with labels identifying the Aras element types. Note the different icons. The label color coding indicates how the Aras element type is mapped to the Syndeia Cloud element types: Repository (green), Container (red), and Artifact (blue).

In the case of the Syndeia Aras integration, the Relations table (Step 7) and the Digital Thread Explorer (Step 9 onwards) can display some intra-model connection types between Artifacts, shown in Table 1, as well as inter-model connections. The intra-model connections are not permanently part of the Syndeia Cloud graph; they are extracted and displayed as needed.

This information is important in formulating and interpreting Syndeia graph queries. A more complete diagram of the Aras data model as it is understood by Syndeia is available through the web dashboard help menu on the left.

Table 1

Aras Intra-Model Relation Types

Relation Type

Artifact Types Connected

Part BOM

Part → Part

Model

Product → Part

Figure 1 Tree view of Aras repository

Exercise

  1. Log on to the Syndeia Cloud Web Dashboard (see Video 1.9) and click on the Repositories icon on the left border (Figure 2).

    Figure 2 SWD Repositories page (initial) – Repositories icon outlined in red

  2. If no repository connection to Aras is available, select Aras in the left column, then click the + icon at the top of the column. Complete the form (consult your Aras administrator for the property values in your organization) and click Create (Figure 3).

    Figure 3 Adding an Aras repository connection

  3. If an Aras repository connection already appears under Aras, but you need to add your own access credentials, select the Aras repository and click the Gear icon at the top of the column. Complete username and password and click Update (Figure 4).

    Figure 4 Updating Aras repository info

  4. Your repository should load. Expand it to show Products and Parts, as in Figure 5. See Background section for discussion of Aras artifact types.

    Figure 5 Viewing Aras repository contents on Repositories page

  5. On the right border, there are three icons, labeled Details, Relations and Search. Select an Aras element in the Tree View column (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (A.8) in our example) and click on the Details icon. A Detail list appears to the right as in Figure 6. Scroll down and review the attributes of the Aras element that are available to Syndeia 3.4, including name and external, which is the unique Item Number in the Aras repository. Click the Details icon again to close the list.

    Figure 6  SWD Repositories page, Details list (Details icon highlighted in red)

  6. Click the Search icon on the right.

    1. In the Search window, use Select Item Type pull-down menu to choose the type of Aras Item to search for.  Your menu will probably contain a long list of Item types, depending on your Aras installation. All of these are searchable, but only Parts and Products appear in the Tree View. Scroll down to Part.

    2. Select the Item Number option, enter the Item Number of the Aras item to search for (this is the Part Number or Product Number in Aras and also appears as the external property in Step 5 above). In our example, we entered UAV-1000 and clicked Search. The result(s) of the search are shown on the right, as in Figure 7.

    3. If you select the Filter option before searching, you may enter a query in AQL (Aras Query Language) for the search.  See Aras documentation for a discussion of AQL.

    4. Click the Search icon again to close the Search window.

      Figure 7  SWD Repositories page, Search feature (Search icon and search result highlighted in red)

  7. Select an Aras element in the Tree View column (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (A.8) in our example) and click on the Relations icon on the right.

    1. In the Relations window (Figure 8), you will see a list of Inter-model relations, from the selected Aras item to other non-Aras models, and a list of Intra-model relations, from the selected Aras item to other Aras items in the same Aras repository. In this example, there are no Inter-model relations.

      Figure 8  SWD Repositories page, Relations lists (Relations and Add icons highlighted in red)

  8. To create a reference connection between the selected Aras item and an element in another repository, click on the + (Add) icon highlighted in Figure 8. A Create Reference Relationships window will appear as in Figure 9.

    1. At the top, either select an existing Syndeia project to save the connection within (DZSB11 in our example) or create a new project. See Video 1.5 on creating Syndeia projects for further discussion.

    2. Under Select target artifact, choose the other repository to which the new connection will be made. In our example this is JIRA @ Intercax.If you have valid access to this repository, its contents will appear at the bottom of the window. Scroll down to the element that will be the target of the new connection and click the checkbox beside it. This is JIRA issue SDB-2095 in our example.

    3. Each Syndeia connection has a directionality. The Select direction pull down menu higher up in the window allows the directionality to be set as desired before the connection is made.

    4. Click on the Create Reference Connection button at the bottom. The new connection should appear in the Inter-model list after the Reload icon is clicked.

    5. Click the Relations icon again to close the Relations window.

      Note: In Syndeia release 3.4, it is not possible to create Model Transform inter-model connections or intra-model connections through the SWD. Some of those use cases will be added in future releases

      Figure 9  SWD Create Reference Relationship window

  9. The Digital Thread Explorer or DTE (Figure 10 - Figure 12) provides interactive visualization of inter-model and intra-model connections in a graph format. To launch DTE, right-click an item in the Tree View and choose Graph View. In our example, this is an Aras Part, Part A (A.9). Initially, it appears as a single node in the Graph View, as in Figure 10.

    Figure 10  DTE, stage 1

  10. Click on the node (it will show a black border when selected), right-click on it and choose Expand. If this element has any connections, they should appear as in Figure 11. In our example, the initial element had five intra-model connections to other Aras items (tan circles, 2 products and 3 parts) and two inter-model connections, to a Jama requirement (dark green) and a Bitbucket file (red-orange).

    Figure 11  DTE, stage 2

  11. If I right-click on one of the new nodes (Aras item Syndeia Test Product 1) and expand it, additional edges and nodes are displayed (Figure 12), including inter-model connections to a Confluence space (light blue), DOORS requirement (red) and a text file on my local file system (forest green). This process can continue until all connections are displayed.

    Figure 12  DTE, stage 3

  12. Aras items in either the Graph View or the Tree View offer direct access to that element in the Aras repository. If I right-click on Syndeia Test Product 1 in the diagram in Figure 12 and choose More Details, my browser will open to the same element in Aras as in Figure 13 (I may be required to log-in to Aras first).

    Figure 13  Aras browser interface launched from Syndeia Web Dashboard