Custom plug-in add-in modules are easy to install and seamless to maintain. In EA, the extended capabilities are made visible through new, context sensitive menu items. Examples of add-in features include custom reports, complex searches, user defined model validation, batch updates to model elements, and non standard import/export of Excel files.

Building an MDG Technology allows you to go beyond simple UML Profiles when creating your unique modeling constructs by defining additional toolboxes, custom diagram types, model templates, and hyperlinks in the task view to external resources. An MDG Technology in conjunction with a related plug-in can extend EA to support non standard artifacts, validate compliance with development processes and guidelines, automate manual tasks, and augment default traceability features, among many other options.

Cephas offers you years of experience extending the base EA functionality, develop and support customizations to your development environment per your requirements. Take advantage of this opportunity to leverage the EA modeling tool while freeing your developers to remain focused on their development tasks.

Your EA models may have touch points with other artifacts throughout the development lifecycle, such as requirements, test cases, source code, and documentation, that are maintained in separate tools or environments. For example, in order for you to efficiently work on the same set of project requirements both in EA and within your requirements management tool, you must have a seamless way to ‘synchronize’ the requirements between the two tool environments. This data interchange requires that both tools are actively integrated with one another, or that the data can be exchanged in a format that is acceptable to both tools.

A common scenario is to generate Word documents in a specific format and layout, perhaps as mandated by corporate standards or as imposed by government regulations. While EA provides some good out-of-the-box RTF report generation features, the ability to mix elements from different models, to conditionally filter document content, or to traverse relationships is either limited or not existent.

Value of Customizing EA

• Do you have a development environment which consists of an arsenal of separate development tools and a mix of disparate methods and practices that leaves you with no choice but to duplicate project data in multiple tools and in different representations? The multitude of disparate and disconnected tools and methodologies in every business enterprise and systems engineering environment is a reality today. We invite you to explore the cost and time saving opportunities that you can exploit by integrating EA with other tools in your environment.
• Has your organization developed corporate modeling standards, maybe in another tool, and would you like to see these standards applied in EA?
• Do your complex document generation requirements surpass EA’s out-of-the-box document generation capabilities?
• Are the standard notations supported by EA such as UML, SysML, BPMN, etc. insufficient to capture the breadth and depth of your models?
• Extending the basic capabilities of EA has been proven to facilitate both the acceptance and the usage of the tool across roles (managers, analysts, developers, etc.) and organizations (business, development, QA, etc.). In particular the ability to have business domain concepts expressed directly in EA, using representations that non technical Users are already familiar with, greatly increases the successful use of models as key deliverables in the software development cycle.