An issue is that the diagrams are simply pictures of the business - there is no structure to what someone has drawn on the diagram - there is no underlying metamodel, little capture of underlying information to a symbol, information across diagrams is not connected, and you don't know how old it is or how dated the information is.
The System Architect - Microsoft Visio Mapper utility enables you to map Microsoft Visio diagrams into System Architect, enabling you to capture the Visio drawings into an EA metamodel of System Architect's repository solution - providing all of its benefits: underlying metamodel, information interconnected and data centric, and ability to run reports and analytics to ask the architecture questions.
The Utility is provided in the form of a VBA macro that you load into System Architect. When run, it:
- Sees a Microsoft Visio diagram that you have open on your machine,
- Reads the symbols on the Visio diagram,
- Allows you to select a System Architect diagram type (that can be a diagram that you have customized via usrprops), and
- Provides you with a wizard to select what Visio symbol is mapped to what System Architect definition.
When the macro runs, the Visio symbols are mapped to System Architect definitions, and the utility does its best to map the Visio diagram (with symbol positioning) to a System Architect diagram of the selected type.
Landscape diagram in Visio:
Diagram imported into SA:
