Exercise 22.1 - Aras Integration

Owned by Ambarish Ganesh (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Apr 18, 2022 by Debesh Roy Chowdhury
6 min read

Objectives

The new learning objectives of this exercise are to create a repository connection to an Aras repository with the Syndeia Plug-in for Rhapsody, view the repository including search, and create a reference connection.

Preparation

This exercise assumes the student has 

  • Rhapsody 8.2 or higher installed correctly on his or her machine with a valid license for use, and

  • Syndeia 3.4 installed as a plugin for Rhapsody with a valid license for use

  • Syndeia Aras interface, correctly installed with a valid license for user

  • Syndeia Cloud 3.4 installed with a valid user account, and

  • A valid user account to an Aras repository.

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.

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 view of this information in the Syndeia dashboard Repository Manager 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). 

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 Syndeia help menu.

Figure 1 Repository Manager view of Aras repository 

Exercise

  1. Launch the Syndeia Dashboard (see Video 1.1) and open the Repository Manager tab (Figure 2).

    Figure 2 Syndeia Dashboard, Repository Manager tab.

  2. If no repository connection to Aras is available, right-click on Aras in the left column and select Add... Complete the form (consult your Aras administrator for the property values in your organization; Grant Type and Scope show default values) and click OK (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 credential, right-click on the repository in the left column and select Update…. Complete username and password and click Update (Figure 4). 

    Figure 4 Updating Aras repository info

  4. In the left column, select a Aras repository connection (Aras Innovator @ Intercax in our example). Your repository should appear at the top of the right side. Expand it to show Products and Parts, as in Figure 5. See Background section for discussion of Aras artifact types. It may be necessary to right-click the repository and select Refresh before it can be expanded.

    Figure 5 Viewing Aras repository contents on Repository Manager tab

  5. On the right border, click the button labeled Search Repository. In the Search Repository window under New Search, select item type from the pull-down menu. Depending on your Aras repository, there may be a large number of searchable item types, not just the Products and Parts showing in the tree view in the center column.

    1. If Item Number is selected, fill in the blank field with the Aras item number and click Search. In our example, we entered Part for item type and SYN01-Part-B for the item number. The result(s) of the search are shown below, as in Figure 6.

    2. 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.

    3. If you right-click on an item under search results, several options are available, including opening the item in the Aras browser interface or Get Info, which shows the item properties in the notification window at the bottom of the dashboard.

    4. Click outside the Search window to close it.

      Figure 6  Syndeia dashboard, Repository Manager tab, Search feature (search result highlighted in red)

  6. To create a reference connection between an Aras item and an element in another repository, go to the Connection Manager tab, select and expand the Aras repository in one column and the second repository in the other. In our example in Figure 7, we have opened the Rhapsody model on the left and Aras on the right.

    1. Select Reference as the Connection Type in the center column.

    2. Create a reference connection by dragging an element in one column on top of an element in the other. Confirm that you want to create a reference connection. In our example, we dragged the Payload block in SysML onto the Payload part in Aras.
      Note: In Syndeia release 3.4, it is not possible to create Model Transform inter-model connections to Aras. Some use cases of this type may be added in future releases.

      Figure 7  Syndeia dashboard, Connection Manager tab, creating reference connection

  7. Having created the reference link, it can be used from the SysML modeling tool to access the Aras part by right-clicking on the linked SysML element in either the Containment browser or a diagram and selecting Syndeia/Open Connected Artifacts, as in Figure 8. The linked Aras part will appear in the user’s browser.

    Figure 8  Rhapsody interface, launching connection to Aras part from linked SysML element

  8. The reference link can be used to detect changes in the Aras part from the Syndeia dashboard. 

    1. Edit the Aras part opened in the previous step and save a new version.

    2. Back in the Syndeia dashboard, right-click and refresh the Aras repository to load the newest version of the repository contents.

    3. In the Connection Search tab of the Syndeia dashboard, click Get All to ensure that all connections are showing. Right-click the reference connection just created and select Compare Source and Target, as in Figure 9.

      Figure 9  Syndeia dashboard, Connection Search tab, comparing across reference connection

  9. The result of the compare operation is displayed as red (Figure 10) in a difference table. The Comment field states 
    “Source artifact of this connection is non-versioned. There is nothing to compare. Target artifact of this connection is Payload (version A.4) but a newer version Payload (version A.5) is available.”

    Figure 10  Syndeia dashboard, Comparison Result tab

  10. The reference connection can be updated to point to the latest version of the Aras part by right-clicking on the connection in the Connection Search tab (Figure 9), the Comparison Result tab (Figure 10) or the Connection Browser tab (Figure 11) and selecting either Sync Source -> Target or Sync Target  -> Source. The result is the same for reference connections.

    Figure 11  Syndeia dashboard, Connection Browser tab, syncing across reference connection