Baseline vs Target and how to populate for this

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bbain
Posts: 18
Joined: 11 Jul 2012, 13:05

Hi there,

We have all our current business processes, applications, data, etc entered into Protege. (We are an emergency service, so we are trying to map business processes for new hires, equipment issue, etc. in order to streamline it - especially how it applies to information stores and how many times we have to e.g. enter a person's name.)

We are now trying to establish a baseline so that we can determine where we are and we have to go from here. Then we have to map where we want to go. I was following the manual for the Business Change Analysis report to see if I could get this report to populate, but I cannot get anywhere. It takes us into the EA-Support fields, and I did create a Roadmap_Model.

I am not sure where to go from here.

Thanks,
Bev.
bbain
Posts: 18
Joined: 11 Jul 2012, 13:05

Hi there,

I did manage to get things populated, but I am getting the same item (e.g. Task) as both a baseline and a target. I don't want that, and I can't figure out what I am doing wrong! I want e.g. Decomission software A and start using software B and have 'Replace' in the grid box between these two items.

Can anyone assist?

Thanks,
Bev.
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jonathan.carter
Posts: 1087
Joined: 04 Feb 2009, 15:44

Hi Bev,

I think the View Manual for the Business Change Analysis will probably explain what's required better than I can here. It's got an overview of the relevant meta classes involved (although I think you've got that covered by the sounds of it).

There are some rules that drive what the View produces in terms of "Replace", "Enhance" etc. that are controlled by the Planning Action type of each Strategic Plan. Also, in order to have a Replace, we need to have a decommission plan in the baseline and a replace plan in the target. In addition, the target Strategic Plan must be define to "support" the baseline Plan via the "Supports Strategic Plan" field.

If you fire up Essential Viewer and go to this link:

Business Change Analysis View Manual all the rules that are used for the different change types are described towards the bottom of the page.

Jonathan
Essential Project Team
bbain
Posts: 18
Joined: 11 Jul 2012, 13:05

HI Jonathan,

I have been using the Roadmap Manuals to get this far, but I cannot get an element to show as 'Replaced' or to show as Red (decommissioned). I have followed all the instructions, and double/triple checked.

For 'Replaced' I would expect that element A would appear in the Baseline and element B would appear in the Target with the intersection of them showing 'Replace'. The manual just says 'elements that have a strategic plan set to Decommission in the Baseline and Replace in the Target'. From this I would think that element A goes in the baseline arch. state and is included in the Strategic Plan with Replace. Also element B goes in the target arch. state and is included in the Strategic Plan with Decommission. But how does it know that these two should intersect and that in fact, element A is to be replaced by element B when there are many elements in each of the Strategic Plans and states??

Also I have an element that is only in the Baseline State and is only on a Stretegic Plan set to Switch Off, and it does not show red! Infact, it is showing up in both Baseline and Target.

Is there some other slot that is pulling this information into the Business Process Change Analysis report??

Thanks,
Bev.
bbain
Posts: 18
Joined: 11 Jul 2012, 13:05

Hi again....

I have another question regarding architecture states. If I have multiple states, how do the Business Change Analysis reports decide on which state to use for baseline and which for target? If state A goes from 2012 Q1 to 2012 Q4, state B goes from 2012 Q3 to 2013 Q2, and state C goes from 2013 Q1 to 2013 Q4, what should I expect? Would all 3 states be included in the reports? Is it just based on the start date of the state to determine if it is baseline or target? Or do states have to be chronological? What if I have 10 states?

We would really like to use these Change reports in our analysis, but I am struggling to understand exactly what they look for, even with the information in the manuals.

Thanks,
Bev
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jonathan.carter
Posts: 1087
Joined: 04 Feb 2009, 15:44

To answer your question about how the report knows the relationship between the decommission and the replace, this is made by defining the supports relationship between the two Strategic Plans.

The idea is that we need to have some plan in place to replace the thing being decommissioned for it to be marked as "replace". So, the plan for decommissioning the element in the starting (baseline) state is set to "decommission" and we have a plan for the replacement element in the target state that is set to "replace". In addition the plan for the target state element defines a relationship to the starting state (in the "supports plans" slot) that makes the connection between them.

On the Switch Off thing, I think for this View, you need to have an element in the start state only with a plan defined with action of "Switch Off" as you describe. Check that this plan is added to the arc between the baseline and target state, and that the element hasn't found its way into the target state.

I agree that this is bit fiddly to set up and we're working on improving these change analysis views.

With respect to the architecture states question, I've double checked the View template and the baseline state is always that state that is defined for the Milestone on the roadmap that is related directly to the "Start" object. The target state is actually the set of all target states that are defined in the roadmap. This means that the change analysis is operating across the entire roadmap (the one it uses is defined by a Report Constant (in Essential Viewer section of the model) called 'Business Roadmap'.

We're working on improvements to these views to make them more configurable at runtime, e.g. in terms of selecting the baseline and target states.

It's great to hear that these analysis views are useful (if a bit on the complex side to model!). If there are specific things you need to see beyond the out-of-the-box analysis, we'd be happy to help you define the views you need.

Jonathan
Essential Project Team
bbain
Posts: 18
Joined: 11 Jul 2012, 13:05

Thank you...that helped alot, especially understanding how the baseline state is determined.

I have followed your instructions and got 'Replace' working, but I still cannot get the 'Switch off' Strategic Plan Action to work in the reports. I am not sure what to do from here. Do you have any suggestions?

Also, the matrix the report produces is too large and I have to end up scrolling to the right and down in order to see more of the information. I would like to be able to see it all on one page. Is there any way to export the results of the query to an Excel spreadsheet or some other software?

Thanks,
Bev.
bbain
Posts: 18
Joined: 11 Jul 2012, 13:05

Also, further to my Switch Off issue, I have a snapshot of what I have entered in Protege and what Essential Viewer displays. I tried to upload attachment as a .docx,.rtf. & .html but it would not accept them. I cannot copy and paste them here either. I am not that familiar with html. Can you advise?

Thanks,
Bev.
User avatar
jonathan.carter
Posts: 1087
Joined: 04 Feb 2009, 15:44

Hi Bev,

We've been looking into this one and are pretty sure that there's a typo in this view code around where it marks things as "Replace". We have fixed this bug for the next minor release, which we're working on now.

Jonathan
Essential Project Team
bbain
Posts: 18
Joined: 11 Jul 2012, 13:05

ok thank you.
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