ARIS Process Integration

Software AG Designer is integrated with ARIS Architect so that the users of these tools may easily share and collaborate, freely passing process models from ARIS Architect to Designer and back.

You can import ARIS models in the following ways:

As part of a solution file. For more information, see Importing an ARIS Solution.

ARIS Architect supports model exchange both with and without CentraSite. By default, models are shared directly, with no use of CentraSite. After a CentraSite configuration is set, it is used instead. This is configured in ARIS when the database is created. For CentraSite support, the select Model-to-execute-scenario property must be selected, and the CentraSite connection properties must be specified.

Important: ARIS requires a CentraSite configuration to exchange Web services in a process model.

Important: After you set the database to use CentraSite, you cannot change it back.

When the database in ARIS Architect is configured to use CentraSite, it is used as the repository where all its process models are saved.

The ARIS server manages roles and access to the models in the repository, enforcing the process life cycle, whether or not you use CentraSite. It also controls which users belong to which roles, and which roles have access to which models and for what purpose.

To import a model from ARIS, Designer connects to an ARIS server using the credentials on the ARIS Server preferences page. See Configuring ARIS Server Preferences.

When Designer is connected to the ARIS server, refreshing the ARIS Tasks view in the Process Development perspective retrieves the up-to-date list of ARIS tasks. See The ARIS Tasks View. Each ARIS task in the ARIS Tasks view represents a process model. In Designer, you can accept one of these ARIS tasks and then import the associated process model to work on it. See Importing an ARIS Process (XPDL File).

The resulting .process file contains the model as represented by a conversion from BPMN to XPDL to Designer. It includes:

Extensions to maintain ARIS ObjectIDs for all of the above when re-exported to ARIS later

Note: The imported model does not contain DataObjects (XSDs as Integration Server document types).

When work on the process model in Software AG Designer is finished, the Designer user can update the original ARIS version by publishing an update to ARIS. ARIS users can then view the process in ARIS Architect. Further development should be done in Designer. See Synchronizing ARIS Processes.

For more information about ARIS-Designer integration and configuration, see ARIS Architect documentation.