Sometime deployments hesitate to distribute functionality across multiple Creator projects since they fear to spend additional effort to maintain and update interface specifications across multiple Creator projects. This issue can be elegantly resolved by using the Conformiq Creator concept of Structure Diagram libraries (see in Conformiq Manual Chapter 5. Creating Models with Conformiq Creator > Structure Diagram Libraries). Note that any Conformiq user can produce and use structure diagram libraries.
Similar as library concepts in programming languages, structure diagrams should have one source Creator project and always include a documentation note with a contact point for changes. We recommend that CoE teams or possibly even automation teams should act as the owners of SD libraries. Whereas extension or additions to libraries are easy to manage, care should be taken about modification to libraries (in particular deletions) since they are likely to require updates to activity diagrams which use the previous version of the library. An important side effect of structure diagram libraries is that they ease the automation of generated test cases because they force users to reuse the exact same definition for same interaction with the system under test.
Recommendation: Collect structure diagrams with common interface definitions in one of your Creator projects and export them as a Structure Diagram (SD) library for use in any other Creator project. Document every structure diagram in the library source project with Note object that specifies library version, author, and contact information. Share and (re)use SD libraries across multiple teams. |
Note that Conformiq’s Excel based interface importers have already an option to create structure diagram libraries instead of editable structure diagrams.
An important issue to remember is that diagrams in SD libraries also have diagram version numbers. Since Creator 2.2, SD libraries are handled in a special way, i.e., they are automatically and silently updated to current diagram version if they are of a lower version. But note that if a SD library has been created with a later tool version it will generate errors in a lower tool version.
Recommendation: CoE teams should develop, maintain, and export structure diagram (SD) libraries using the lowest Creator version deployed by all users - so that all users can use this SD library (lowest should be Creator 2.2). Indicate the Creator version number in the file name to provide clarity. |