GENESYS Adapter to the SBE Vision Digital Thread Platform

Many companies recognize the need to move from siloed, stand-alone engineering and product lifecycle-related software tools to a connected, integrated network of applications, each capable of maintaining its own authoritative sources of data while sharing subsets of data with other tools and users with a need to know. Historically, this has been achieved with either one-time exports, manual manipulation of the data, import into another tool, or by custom-built point-to-point adapters developed between specific tools. While these approaches can function up to a certain scale and level of complexity, they have drawbacks, such as the possibility of introducing human error, slow transfer time, costly development and maintenance, and an ever-increasing number of point-to-point connectors.

 

In the connected Digital Engineering Ecosystem (DEE), model-based systems engineering (MBSE) is not the center of the universe, but instead, a critical cog in the integrated software tool chain supporting the full product development life cycle. The center of gravity within the DEE will shift depending on the phase of the product development lifecycle. Whereas MBSE is the “connective tissue” for requirements, behavior, physical design, and verification and validation, a Digital Thread tool, such as the SBE Vision Digital Thread platform, is the “connective tapestry” for a connected DEE consisting of a rich mix of engineering, program management, manufacturing, and enterprise management software tools. Rather than relying on point-to-point connections, a Digital Thread tool provides a many-to-many central hub that handles the inter-tool data exchanges. A data-driven approach is required that determines the key information that must be shared between tools. It’s important to remember that data-driven does not mean “gather all your data and proliferate it everywhere;” rather, it should be question-based: what information is needed where and at what time to answer a specific question. 

 

The diagram below shows an illustration of a connected DEE, comprised of tools, connections, and the people executing the work. In this view, the Digital Thread platform acts as the central inter-tool data translator and broker, providing a many-to-many connection approach.

 

 

The GENESYS built-in SBE Vision Digital Thread platform adapter enables a GENESYS project to connect to an instance of the SBE Vision Digital Thread platform1 and exchange digital engineering (DE) data with a broad ecosystem of other DE tools. SBE Vision uses a hub-and-spoke, ontology-first approach to data ingestion, mapping, translation, and transfer. This approach allows the ontological concepts in an Entity-Relationship-Attribute (ERA)-based tool to be mapped to SBE’s master ontology and published to a defined channel. The paired tool on the other side of the channel also maps to the SBE master ontology, and the data is then translated. A list of the software tools that SBE currently has integrations with is available at https://www.sbe-vision.com/adapters-sdk. 

 

Definitions

 

Authoritative Source of Truth (ASoT) - An entity such as a person, governing body, or system that applies expert judgment and rules to proclaim a digital artifact is valid and originates from a legitimate source. The ASoT for a digital artifact serves as the primary means of ensuring the credibility and coherence of the digital artifact that its creators share with a variety of stakeholders. ASoT gives stakeholders from diverse organizations and distributed locations the authorization to access, analyze, and use valid digital artifacts from an authoritative source. The owners of digital environments or the community for digital engineering ecosystems provide stakeholders with an ASoT that assures confidence in the quality of the digital artifact across disciplines, domains, and life cycle phases.2

 

[1] SBE Vision’s Digital Thread Platform requires separate licensing. For more information, contact them at: https://www.sbe-vision.com/contact [Visit this link in a browser outside of the Help window.]

[2] From: https://www.omgwiki.org/MBSE/doku.php?id=mbse:authoritative_source_of_truth#:~:text=An%20authoritative%20source%20is%20known,Primary%20sources%20articulate%20the%20law.%20%E2%80%A6

 

Branch - A kind of entity set that holds a collection of entities that can be revised because they are considered to be Work-in-Process (WIP).

 

Channel - A bi-directional data pipeline for the transmission of artifacts between an entity set and the smallest unit of versionable containment in a Data Source.

 

Commit ID - A tracking identifier for any entity sets published to the Digital Thread. See the Tracking user interface in SBE Vision for more context:

 

 

Digital Engineering Ecosystem - A digital engineering ecosystem (DEE) includes an enterprises' interconnected digital environments, stakeholder-networks, and semantic data that allow the exchange of digital artifacts from an authoritative source of truth to serve the stakeholder communities' interests.2

 

Digital Thread - A data-driven architecture that links together information generated from across the product lifecycle and is envisioned to be the primary or authoritative data and communication platform for a company’s products at any instance of time.3 It consists of a network of connections, both inside each domain model (intra-model), between models in different repositories (inter-model)4, and the transfer of data and information across the network.

 

[3] https://www.omgwiki.org/MBSE/doku.php?id=mbse:digital_engineering_ecosystem

[4] From: https://intercax.com/2020/08/21/syndeia-and-building-the-digital-thread/

 

Digital Thread package – A specialized kind of Package in GENESYS used to define the set of GENESYS entities that are paired to a specified SBE Vision Digital Thread subscription. The “subscriptionID” of the SBE Vision DT subscription is held in an attribute in the Digital Thread Package. A GENESYS project may have as many Digital Thread Packages as desired, allowing the modeler to ingest and/or egest multiple data sets from other DEE tools. 

 

Entity Set - A managed collection of Digital Thread Entities within a Partition. Each entity set can have zero or more dependent entity sets which together define a Configuration Context.

 

Item Locator - A global unique identifier (GUID) that GENESYS uses to correlate entities in GENESYS with their counterparts on the SBE Vision DT platform. Within the SBE Vision DT platform, an "Item Locator" is a key value-pair object associated with each entity. On the SBE DT Platform, GENESYS creates a new key called "genesysId" within the Item Locator that stores the GENESYS-created unique ID string. The mapping between GENESYS and the SBE DT Platform is:

 

 

Non-isomorphic Transformation – In mathematics, non-isomorphic means “not having the same form” and is used in many branches of mathematics to identify mathematical objects which are structurally distinct.5 Here, it means a data object in an Entity-Relationship-Attribute (ERA) ontological model of a specific classification in one software tool that is mapped and transformed to a different ERA classification in another tool. For example, an attribute of an entity in Tool A is mapped and transformed to a first-class entity in Tool B.

 

Ontology - Includes a representation, formal naming, and definition of the categories, properties, and relations between the concepts, data, and entities that substantiate one, many, or all domains of discourse. More simply, an ontology is a way of showing the properties of a subject area and how they are related by defining a set of concepts and categories that represent the subject.6

 

Partition - An SBE container that owns a cohesive collection of entity sets. A partition can contain any number of channels.

 

Single Source of Trust (SSoT) - A single source of truth is a single point of access and modification for a data element. It requires both a normalized data model and integration such that producers and consumers of a data element all access the same copy. It is an architectural practice and data strategy that helps to ensure that data are reliable, accurate,secured.7  This term is not used in this user’s guide but is included in the definitions section to differentiate it from the term “Subscribed Source of Truth” (SSoT), which is used. 

 

Subscribed Source of Truth (SSOT) – An external system that holds transformed objects within a Subscription that originally came from an ASoT.

 

Subscription - An operation to include a named subset of the entities that have been cloned and transformed beneath another Branch or Tag for inclusion into the External System in its own native format.

 

[5]https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Nonisomorphic.html#:~:text=The%20term%20%22nonisomorphic%22%20means%20%22,are%20said%20to%20be%20isomorphic. [Visit this link in a browser outside of the Help window.]

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science)

[7] https://www.omgwiki.org/MBSE/doku.php?id=mbse:authoritative_source_of_truth#:~:text=An%20authoritative%20source%20is%20known,Primary%20sources%20articulate%20the%20law.%20%E2%80%A6

 

Capability and Usage Overview

The transfer of an entity set from one software tool to another using the SBE Vision DT platform requires a coordinated interplay between the two tools and the DT platform. The diagram below will be used to illustrate the export (publishing), import (subscribing), one-way data transfer, and round-tripping processes.

 

In this example, we have a Requirements Tool that acts as the ASoT for all requirements on the program. This is the tool where the requirements engineers perform their work. The systems engineers working in a GENESYS project on the systems architecture need an authoritative set of the requirements in their model to ensure that the functional and physical architectures that they are deriving are compliant with the program’s requirements and to establish proper traceability. For this use case, the Requirements Tool acts as the ASoT for requirements and GENESYS acts as the SSoT for requirements.

 

Additionally, GENESYS acts as the overall ASoT for the systems architecture. A partner organization working on the program uses another MBSE tool to develop the architecture for one of the subsystems. They are using Architecture Tool B and need a subset of the overall systems architecture model captured in the GENESYS architecture ASoT project to provide them context from which to derive their subsystem’s functional and physical architectures and to establish traceability to the higher-level architectural model. For this use case, GENESYS acts as the ASoT for architecture, and Architecture Tool B acts as the SSoT for architecture.

 

 

In general, GENESYS always processes data exchanges to and from the DT via a Digital Thread package (DTPackage), which defines the exchanged entity set within GENESYS, and through a Viewpoint (see the Viewpoints help topic for more information), which allows the data to be transformed into the local language and expectations of the end user. Additionally, any applicable non-isomorphic transformation rules are also processed. GENESYS utilizes a unique ID (stored in an attribute within GENESYS called “sbeDTItemLocator” and stored within the SBE Vision DT as the value associated with the key called “genesysID” that is housed within ItemLocator attached to each entity), to determine if data in the GENESYS project has previously been on the SBE Vision DT or not. This check is performed to ensure that entities are not incorrectly duplicated or replicated upon multiple import and export operations. 

 

An overall nested physical architecture of the key interacting Components of GENESYS and the SBE Vision DT Platform client is shown in the diagram below.

 

 

 

The GENESYS schema extension for the SBE Vision DT adapter must be installed prior to using the SBE Vision DT adapter. For more information, see the section entitled “Installation of the SBE Vision Schema Extension.” 
 

For the steps involving actions that must be taken within the SBE Vision DT platform client, refer to SBE Vision’s help documentation. 
 

The following sections describe the general process for exporting (publishing), importing (subscribing), one-way data transfers, and round-tripping. After those sections, the mechanics of how to execute each process in GENESYS are described. 

Export (Publishing)

 

In our example, all three tools can export entity sets. Exports can be divided into two categories: ASoT exports, which typically go to the master branch in SBE Vision, and subscription exports, which typically go to a subscription branch in another tool's partition. 

 

 

One or more partitions are created on the SBE Vision DT platform for each associated tool. If different subsets of an overall project’s data need to be transferred to different end point tools via the SBE Vision platform, each unique data set should have its own partition. As a best practice, ASoT information should be published to a master branch. In this example, the Requirements Tool publishes its requirements to the “Branch: master” within the Requirements Tool A partition. The requirements entity set within the channel are now available to any other connected tool connected to the SBE Vision DT after ontologies are mapped between the two tools, which in this example, will be GENESYS. Similarly, the GENESYS project publishes its ASoT data related to functional and physical architecture to the “Branch: master” within the GENESYS Arch partition. The architecture entity set within the channel is now available to any other connected tool once ontologies are mapped. While it will not be used in our example, "Architecture Tool B" can also publish its authoritative entity set to “Branch: master” within the "Architecture Tool B" partition.

 

If changes to the entity set are made in the subscribing tool and the user wishes those changes to be published back for consideration of updating the ASoT, those changes are exported and published to a subscription branch in the appropriate repository. In the example shown, if the GENESYS user makes updates to the requirements entity set, they can be published back to the “Requirements Tool A” partition on a branch, which in the example is called “Branch: Subscription_ReqL1.” Similarly, if the user in “Architecture Tool B” makes changes to the physical architecture, the entity set may be published back to the Genesys Arch Partition into the “Branch: Subscription_Arch.” How to merge the proposed changes back into the master branch and then into the ASoT tool are described in the section on Round-Tripping.  

Import (Subscribing)

 

Imports are most often conducted from subscription branches, which are generated for the purpose of making an entity set available to a subscribing tool wishing to import an SSoT. However, imports can also be made from the master branch back into the ASoT tool; this is most often done when conducting an “authoritative refresh,” which is executed immediately after a publication. This “authoritative refresh” allows the ASoT tool to ingest and store the Item Locator GUID that the SBE Vision platform assigned to all first-time published entities. This operation ensures continuity between the entities in the ASoT and their counterparts on the SBE Vision platform in the master branch. Examples of each category of import are shown in the diagram below. 

 

 

In this example, there is a “Branch: Subscription_ReqL1” in the Requirements Tool A partition. This subscription branch has been populated with all of the “level 1” requirements from the Requirements Tool. These requirements can then be imported into GENESYS with the import procedure. Similarly, there is a “Branch: Subscription_Arch” in the GENESYS Arch partition that is populated with the functional and physical architecture previously published out from GENESYS. The architecture entity set can then be imported into Architecture Tool B with the import procedure. 

One-way Data Transfer and Round-Tripping

 

Combinations of exports, imports, branches, and diffs/merges across the SBE Vision DT platform can be joined to transfer data between associated software tools. The two most common scenarios are discussed in the subsequent sections.

 

Within the SBE Vision DT platform client, an additional step must be performed for all tool-to–SBE Vision DT–to-tool data transformations. The ontological concepts in each tool must be related to one another through the platform’s ontology mapping interface. See SBE Vision help resources for more information. 

One-Way Data Transfer

 

In our example, the Requirements Tool is the ASoT for all requirements on the program. The systems engineers working in a GENESYS project on the systems architecture must have an authoritative set of the requirements in their model to ensure that the functional and physical architectures that they are deriving are compliant with the program’s requirements and to establish proper traceability. The requirements can be placed into GENESYS using a combination of an export, merge, and import across the DT. The following diagram summarizes the operations to be performed. 

 

 

The requirements are first exported from the Requirements Tool to the “Branch: master” in the Requirements Tool A partition on the SBE Vision DT platform. Then, a diff/merge operation is performed between the “Branch: Subscription_ReqL1” and the “Branch: master” in the Requirements Tool A partition. This then updates the “Subscription_ReqL1” branch to be consistent with the entity set in the “Branch: master.” Finally, an import can be performed from the GENESYS–SBE Vision DT adapter interface to ingest the requirements entity set contained within “Subscription_ReqL1” branch into a specified Digital Thread package, named “requirements” in our example, within the GENESYS project. 

 

Subsequent Update to the ASoT

After the requirements from the Requirements Tool have been ingested into GENESYS, it is likely that the requirements will go through another round of updates or refinements at some point in the product lifecycle. If the requirements are updated after the initial data transfer, a refresh operation needs to be performed. This is shown in the following figure. 

The steps to ingest an update of the requirements into GENESYS are the same as those specified in the section above with the only difference being that the Subscription branch is initially populated with an out-of-date requirements data Package. However, following the same steps as specified in the “One-Way Data Transfer" section will result in an update of the requirement entities in the DTPackage called “Requirements” in GENESYS. On import, GENESYS will check to see whether each entity previously existed in GENESYS by comparing the set of GENESYS sbeDTItemLocator unique IDs against the SBE DT Item Locator genesysID set. If the entity previously existed in GENESYS, GENESYS will update the entity’s associated data; if the entity is new, GENESYS will create a new entity.  

Round-Tripping

 

Round-tripping is an exchange of data between paired tools in a full cycle, with the primary direction being data flowing from the ASoT to the subscriber but also between the subscriber and the ASoT. It may be the case that the individual or team working in the subscriber tool finds something that needs to be corrected in the ASoT’s data and may make a request to push an update from the subscriber back to the ASoT. When this occurs, the individual data elements make a full “round-trip” from the ASoT tool to the subscribing tool back to the ASoT tool. 

 

In our example, requirements that have been ingested to GENESYS from the Requirements Tool have been found to potentially require an update in the ASoT due to an inconsistency found by the systems engineer. 

 

 

 

The steps are the same as described above in the “One-Way Data Transfer” section up through the ingestion of the entity set into GENESYS. GENESYS systems engineers update some of the requirements (step 4) and then publish the requirements data set back out to the “Branch: Subscription_ReqL1” within the Requirements Tool A partition. The entity set between the master and subscription branch are now different. A diff/merge operation must be performed between the “Subscription_ReqL1” and the “Branch: master” within the Requirements Tool A partition. If the requirement updates are accepted by the designated authority during the merge process, the “Branch: master” is then brought into alignment with the “Branch: Subscription_ReqL1.” Finally, an import can be performed to ingest the updated requirements entity set contained within “Branch: master” into a specified location within the Requirements Tool.

 

Using the GENESYS–SBE Vision Digital Thread Adapter

For the GENESYS 2023 R2 release, the GENESYS–SBE Vision Digital Thread adapter has been robustly tested with DOORS classic and DOORS Next Generation. Testing with Dassault Systems Cameo Systems Modeler and other MBSE tools has been conducted for a limited set of classes and relationships. SBE Vision’s other supported tools will work with GENESYS to a degree, although the fidelity of the data transformations and exchanges has not yet been benchmarked.

Installation of the SBE Vision Schema Extension

 

You must import the provided SBE Vision schema extension into your project in GENESYS before transferring data to or from the SBE Vision Digital Thread. This extension records the SBE Vision DT metadata for each GENESYS entity as attributes. 

The schema extension contains the following attributes:

 

 

 

GENESYS users can find the SBE Vision Digital Thread Schema extension in the GENESYS installation folders on their computer at the following location: 

 

Program Files\Vitech\GENESYS 2023 R2\Extensions\SBE Vision Digital Thread Schema Extension.gnsx

 

 

NOTE:

When importing the schema extension, in Step 2 of the Import Wizard be sure to select the second option, Import into Project, and select the project that you want to import the extension into, rather than creating a new project. The import may take several minutes. If displayed, disregard the yellow warning message, which is not applicable to this import. Users and Groups, repository scripts (excluding project entity attribute scripts), and reports will not be imported.

 

 

How to Import the SBE Vision Digital Thread Schema into an Existing Project

 

1. In GENESYS, click the File tab > Import.
2. In the “Import GENESYS File” window, open the file “SBE Vision Digital Thread Schema Extension.gnsx" from your computer > click Next >>.
   Note: This extension can be found at Program Files\Vitech\GENESYS 2023 R2\Extensions. 
3. In the Import Wizard, select “Import Into Project” > click Next >> .

 

4.    In the Import Wizard window, click the Import button.
5.    When import is finished, click the Close button.

 

Migrate Schemas in GENESYS 2023 R2 with DT Package Changes

 

The SBE Vision schema migrator transitions schemas from older versions of GENESYS to the GENESYS 2023 R2 version. The schema migrator scans for the "SBE Digital Thread Subscription ID" attribute, previously part of the SBE Schema Import, within Package classes of the previous version of GENESYS. When this attribute is found to be populated, the schema migrator triggers the conversion of that Package into a DTPackage. This migration also includes any nested Packages that have a populated "SBE Digital Thread Subscription ID" attribute. 

 

If a Child Package does not have a populated “SBE Digital Thread Subscription ID” attribute, it remains a Basic Package and is not converted to a Child of the DTPackage.

 

Any discrepancies, such as a Child Package lacking the necessary ID attribute, are logged as a conflict to ensure that the user is aware of elements that did not transition to DTPackage.

 

The images below show before schema migration (above) and after schema migration (below):
  
 

 

 

 

 

Access the GENESYS–SBE Vision Digital Thread Adapter

1.    In GENESYS, click the Utilities tab on the ribbon.
2.    Click the SBE Digital Thread icon  to access the SBE Vision DT adapter.

 

 

Procedures for Performing Imports, Exports, One-Way Transfers, and Round-Tripping

The upcoming sections provide a detailed guide on executing common tasks using the SBE Vision DT. For each step's placement in the process, see the referenced UI screens. A comprehensive description of these UI screens is available in the section “The GENESYS–SBE Vision DT Platform Adapter UI.”

 

SBE Vision Setup

 

To publish (Export) or synchronize (Import) requirements to/from the Digital Thread, a Data Source type, Data Source, Partition, Branch, and Channel must be configured by the administrator for successful connection prior to the Import/Export action. For the initial setup of the SBE Vision Digital Thread adapter in GENESYS, these specific requirements must be met.

 

In SBE Vision:

1. Create a Data Source of the “GENESYS” Data Source type.
2. Create a Partition in the Data Source for your data.
3. Create a branch in the partition, if not using the master branch (the master branch is created when creating a partition).
4. Create a channel associated with the branch and set the Channel properties of “viewpoint” and “project” based on information in GENESYS. 
       Note: The Viewpoint ID can be found in the Viewpoint's property sheet, and the GENESYS Project ID can be found in Properties in Project Explorer. See images below.
5. Subscribe your channel to the master branches in the partitions for other tools from which you wish to import data. This will create subscription branches in those partitions for the data you will import.

 

 

Export

 

These are the steps to export from GENESYS to the SBE DT platform.

 

1. In GENESYS, click the Utilities tab in the upper left of the screen. 
2. In the ribbon, click the SBE Digital Thread icon  to access the SBE Vision DT adapter. 
3. In the SBE Digital Thread window, enter the username and password required to establish a connection to the SBE Digital Thread platform.
4. Click the down arrow  to open “SBE Connection settings.” 
5. Select a Data Source > enter a Host > enter a Port (if required).
6. Click Connect > click Next > >.
7. Select the “Export” option to indicate that an export operation is to be performed > click Next > >. (Input Screen 2) 
8. Click  Add to add a DT Package, Viewpoint, Channel, and Subscription. 
9. In the “Viewpoint Selection” window, select a Viewpoint from the drop-down menu > click OK.
   Note: In the “SBE Digital Thread” window, right-click on the selected row to add rows, remove rows, or add one or more Subscriptions to the export.

 

Note: Publishing of ASoT information, as a best practice, should be published to a master branch. (Input Screen 3)

10. Click Run to publish the DT Package to the specified SBE DT Channel.

 

GENESYS will perform the following actions as part of the publishing process:

 

1. Process the data Package through the selected viewpoint’s masks, mappings, and filters. 
2. Process the data through any non-isomorphic transformation rules assigned to the GENESYS project.
3. For each entity or relationship that has been previously published to the DT from GENESYS, GENESYS finds the           associated SBE Vision DT object by using its gensysId in the ItemLocator and updates all attributes of the object, or         end point connections of the relationship, with the values stored in GENESYS.
4. For new entities that have never been published to the DT from GENESYS, GENESYS creates new objects in the            SBE Vision DT Channel of the appropriate class or relationship and ShapeID based on the established mappings,          assigns the GENESYS GUID to the GENESYS attribute "sbeDTItemLocator" in the object's ItemLocation, and                writes all attributes from the GENESYS object to the SBEVision DT object.

11. GENESYS reports a summary of the data transfer operation’s results, including a list of all conflicts generated, if           any, during the export. (Results Screen 1)

Import

 

The steps to subscribe and ingest a data Package from the SBE Vision DT platform into GENESYS are:

 

1. In GENESYS, click the Utilities tab in the ribbon at the top left of the screen. 
2. Click the SBE Digital Thread icon  to access the SBE Vision DT adapter. 
3. In the SBE Vision DT window, enter the username and password required to establish a connection to the SBE Vision DT platform.
4. Click the down arrow  to open “SBE Connection settings.” 
5. Select a Data Source > enter a Host > enter a Port (if required).
6. Select the “Import” option to indicate that an import operation is to be performed, then click Next > >. (Input Screen 2)
7. Click   Add to add a Channel, Subscription, DT Package, and Viewpoint. 
8. In the “Viewpoint Selection” window, select the Viewpoint from the drop-down menu to use for the import.
9. At the bottom right on the SBE Digital Thread window, click Run to import the SBE DT subscription entity set to the specified GENESYS DT Package. 

 

Note: For an import, in addition to specifying the Channel, you must also select a Subscription, which is part of a Channel. A Subscription consists of data from the Channel that has been cloned and transformed into the format that the ingesting tool is expecting. (Input Screen 3)

GENESYS performs the following actions as part of the import process:

 

1. GENESYS queries the subscription and caches a list of all entities, attributes, and relationships in the set. 
2. For each entity in the SBE Vision DT subscription, GENESYS verifies if it has an existing "genesysId" in its ItemLocator. If the entity does not have an existing "genesysId," GENESYS assigns it a new unique ID.
3.  GENESYS performs a sync operation of the dataset back to the SBE Vision DT Channel, which ensures that all entities in the set have their ItemLocator “genesysId” established on the SBE Vision platform. 
4. Processes the data through any non-isomorphic transformation rules assigned to the GENESYS project.
5. Processes the data Package through the selected Viewpoint’s masks and mappings. 
   Note: For an import, the viewpoint’s associated filters are not processed in reverse order, as they lose context in the reverse direction. 
6. For entities and relationships with a pre-existing "ItemLocator" genesysID prior to the sync operation (entities and relationships that already exist in the GENESYS project), GENESYS overwrites the existing object's attributes and parameters with the new DT values.
7. For entities and relationships that are new to the GENESYS project, GENESYS creates new GENESYS objects for each and populates their attributes, parameters, and relationships with the information included in the SBE DT subscription. 

10. GENESYS reports a summary of the data transfer operation’s results, including a list of conflicts generated, if any, during the import. (Results Screen 1)

One-Way Data Transfer into GENESYS

 

1. Export a data Package from an external tool to a master Branch (see Export section).
2. On the SBE Vision DE platform, locate the subscription branch to be updated and perform a diff/merge operation to bring the subscription branch into alignment with the master branch (see SBE Vision’s help for more information on the diff/merge operation).
3. Import the SBE Vision branch entity set into the designated DT Package in GENESYS (see Import section).

Round-Tripping (GENESYS as the SSoT)

 

The following steps apply for round-tripping when GENESYS is the SSoT for the specified entity set. When GENESYS is the ASoT, change the position of the external tool and GENESYS in the steps.

 

1. Export a data Package from an external tool to the master branch in the external tool’s partition on the SBE Vision DE platform (see Export section).
2. On the SBE DE platform, locate the subscription branch and perform a diff/merge operation to bring the subscription branch into alignment with the master branch (see SBE Vision’s help for more information on the diff/merge operation).
3. Import the SBE Vision subscription entity set into the designated DT Package in GENESYS (see Import section).
4. A systems engineer finds information in GENESYS that must be updated in the DT Package’s scope. The applicable entities, relationships, and attributes are updated in GENESYS with rationale documented.
5. The updated data from the GENESYS DT Package is published, using a subscription, to publish it to the subscription branch in the external tool’s partition (see Export section).
6. On the SBE DE platform, locate the subscription branch and perform a diff/merge operation to determine which updates in the subscription branch should be aligned with the master branch. 
   Note: The diff/merge process allows discrete differences to be accepted or rejected (see SBE Vision’s help for more information on the diff/merge operation).
7. Perform an import/sync from the master branch back into the external tool. The external tool now has the accepted and approved updated data, which originated in GENESYS (see Import section).

 

 

THE GENESYS–SBE Vision DT Platform Adapter UI

Input Screen 1 – Viewpoint, Credentials, SBE Connection Settings

 

The user’s credentials to log into the SBE Vision DT platform instance are entered here. The username and password are not persisted and must be entered for any interaction with the Digital Thread.

 

The last section of this screen is dedicated to specifying the SBE Connection settings to the instance of the SBE Vision platform to which GENESYS is being connected. 

 

1. In the “Host” field, enter the host name assigned to your company. This data is persisted and must be updated only when importing or exporting data to a different SBE portal than the last Digital Thread interaction with GENESYS.
2. In the “Port” field, enter the port identifier.

Note: Populating the “Port” field is required only if you are working on a local machine. 

 

 

Input Screen 2 – Specifying Import or Export

 

The second screen allows the user to specify whether an Import or Export operation will be performed. 

 

SBE Vision uses different terms than GENESYS for these operations. The equivalent terms are shown in the table below.

 

 

 

Input Screen 3 – Specification of the Data Location on the SBE DT

 

On Input Screen 3, for an export operation, specify the location on the SBE Digital Thread platform where the GENESYS data Package will be stored. 

 

For an import operation, specify the DT Package of the data on the SBE Digital Thread platform that will be ingested into GENESYS. 

 

1. From the drop-down menus, select the DT Package name and Viewpoint name in GENESYS, as well as the Channel name and Subscription name in the SBE Vision DT client to connect to. 
2. “Subscription Name” must be specified for import operations only. 
3. Add additional rows to conduct a bulk operation, if desired. 

 

Input Screen 4 – Review of Selected Scope and Location

 

The last input screen allows the user to review the scope and location of the data transfer before executing the operation. For an export operation, the selected DT Package(s) and their content are displayed. For an import operation, the location where the imported DT Package will be placed within the GENESYS project file and the entities to be imported are displayed. 

 

Results Screen 1 – Operation Summary and Issues

 

The final operation summary and issues screen is presented after the import or export operation has been completed. 

Results Screen 1 summarizes the options selected for the performed operation, provides summary statistics on the number of entities and relationships, and summarizes any issues. Issues that are encountered have additional details displayed in the “Conflict Messages” pane. These messages can be copied to the clipboard by clicking the text displayed at the bottom left of the window, Copy Conflicts to Clipboard. 

 

 

List of Non-Isomorphic Transformation Rules

GENESYS 2023 R2 features these non-isomorphic transformation rules:

GENESYS Entity’s Parameters to SBE DT Parameter Class Entities

 

Parameters of any entity in GENESYS are transformed to first-class parameter entities on the SBE Vision platform. This transformation is performed to facilitate interaction with other MBSE tools that treat values and units as first-class entities.  

 

Egress / Publish

Parameters are published to the SBE Vision Digital Thread as Parameter entities. These entities are related to the host entity with a contained in relationship. Each Parameter entity on the SBE Vision Digital Thread has its Shape Name set to match its Parameter Name in GENESYS.

Within the MBE Master ontology on the SBE Vision DT, there are 3 sub-classes of the Parameter entity with the following GENESYS parameter fields mapped to it:

 

 

Units are mapped to each of the subclasses. Parameter entities may be synchronized to different DE tools and may not be shipped as a complete set. As such, each parameter entity must hold its units. 

 

SBE Vision users can modify both the sub-class names and the mappings of GENESYS parameter fields to these sub-classes.
 

 

Ingest

In the SBE Digital Thread subscription collection, GENESYS searches for entities of type "Parameter." These entities must have a “parameterrelation" relationship with another entity and a shape name of either “genesysrequirementparameter," "genesysdesignparameter," or "genesysconstraintparameter." Any entities fitting this description will have their specific parameter fields, such as minimum, maximum, objective, design, observed, and unit, matched and imported back to their corresponding fields in the related GENESYS element upon import.

An illustration of this non-isomorphic transformation is shown in the following figure. 

 

SBE Visions DOORS Classic & DOORS NextGen Integrations

 

DOORS Requirement elements that have Stakeholder attributes of attribute type “multi-select” are transformed to GENESYS Organization class entities of the same name. In GENESYS, a has stakeholder/is stakeholder of relationship is created between the Organization entity and the related Requirement entity. This rule is included by request of the launch customer for the GENESYS-SBE Vision adapter. 

 

General Notes on Data Processing Rules

This section describes general notes on data processing rules applied to imports and exports.

Attribute Type Mappings

 

GENESYS has unique attribute types, some of which do not have a direct corollary on the SBE Vision DT platform. To account for this, GENESYS has the following mappings:

 

 

Relationship Attributes

 

GENESYS supports the concept of relationship attributes. However, the SBE Vision DT currently does not. As such, relationship attributes are not currently exported to the SBE Vision DT platform.

Embedded Images and Tables

 

The SBE Vision DT platform currently does not support the transport of embedded images or tables in entity attributes. As such, all embedded images and tables are neither exported from GENESYS nor available from other tools to be imported into GENESYS.

Inherited Parameters and Attributes

 

GENESYS supports the capability of entities to inherit parameters and attributes from parent entities through the specialization relationship. However, data imported from the SBE Vision may have parent-child entities that are not consistent with this inheritance. If this inconsistency occurs, GENESYS imports the data as defined in the SBE Vision DT subscription and overrides the attribute and parameter values as needed. 

Parameter Substitutions

Parameter Substitutions are a useful way in GENESYS to avoid having to hard code numerical values and units in a textual attribute field. Rather, they allow the user to create a coded reference to the values, which are replaced any time the entity attribute is exported from GENESYS, ensuring that the textual description is always consistent with the parameters whenever they change. However, this coded reference creates a challenge when exporting and importing data from the Digital Thread where other tools do not have a corresponding concept. 

The way that GENESYS handles this is as follows:

• On export, parameter substitutions are published with the coded references replaced with their associated parameter’s values. 
• On import, any attributes of type “text” are imported as-is. GENESYS does not attempt to try to resolve the text strings with any associated parameters. The user must review and update these fields manually, if needed.

Parameter Bindings

Parameter bindings provide a mechanism to ensure that parameters remain consistent between associated entities. However, this concept creates a challenge when exporting and importing from the Digital Thread where other tools do not have a corresponding concept. 

The way that GENESYS handles this is as follows:

• On export, bound parameters are published as "unbound" copies of the parameters in each bounded entity (the Child entity). This is a dumb export where the concept of binding is removed, and each parameter is exported independently.
• On import, if there are conflicts that violate existing parameter bindings in GENESYS, the binding in GENESYS is removed and the values from the DT are published to the appropriate fields.