Toolbar

The toolbar of the Enterprise Edition changes depending on the connection to the Poseidon Collaboration Server. When not connected, the toolbar looks identical to the Professional Edition toolbar.

However, functions change while engaged in a collaboration. It no longer makes sense to save a project locally, and to make this difference clear the save button changes. Likewise, functions that are irrelevant while outside of a collaboration such as locking and access to the Collaboration Manager become visible.

Menu

• Connect to Server - Opens the connection dialog box

• Collaboration Management - Opens the Collaboration Management dialog box

• Request Model Element Lock - Send a request to the server to make a model element uneditable for other members of the collaboration

• Release Model Element Lock - Allows access to a model element for other collaboration members

• Show Locks - Displays all locks for the current project.

Connecting to the Enterprise Server

To manually connect to the Enterprise Server, select 'Enterprise|Connect To Server'.

License Manager

The Enterprise Edition uses a concurrent license scheme. This means that there are a limited number of people who may connect to the server at one time. Ordinarily, Poseidon will automatically contact the Concurrent License Server and attempt to obtain a license. If no license is available on Poseidon startup or when working with Poseidon, a dialog will pop up stating that the license is invalid and that it is trying to request a new license.

This popup provides access to the License Manager. Two tabs are available from here, but as the Enterprise Edition utilizes Concurrent Licenses, only the Concurrent License tab is of interest to us at this point. The other tab is empty and is not used in the Enterprise Edition.

For information about increasing the number of available concurrent licenses, see the Enterprise Edition Installation Guide.

Settings Tab

In the Enterprise Edition, an additional tab containing Enterprise-specific options appears in the Settings dialog, available from Edit | Settings.

• Username - This is the name Poseidon will use to identify you in any collaborations. You may select any name here.

• Enterprise Server - The logical name or IP address of the machine running the Enterprise Server.

• Temporary Files Directory - Location where the Poseidon client can store temporary files. You must either have the temporary directory set and have full permissions to that directory, or you must have full permissions to the Poseidon configuration directory. Poseidon automatically tests access each time the Collaboration Manager is opened and on each attempt to upload a project, start or join a collaboration.

• SSH Username - The username you use to log into the SSH service, should you have an SSH service running. Consult your system administrator if you are unsure of which name to use here.

• SSH Password - The password corresponding to the SSH Username

• Private Key Location - The location of the private SSH key

• Hosts File Location - The location of the SSH hosts file

• Connect to Enterprise Server on Startup - When checked, you will be immediately connected to the Enterprise Server when starting the Enterprise Client application. No connection dialog will appear. An error message will pop up if the connection attempt is unsuccessful.

• Open Collaboration Management on Startup - When checked, you will be presented with the Collaboration Management window after successfully connecting to the Enterprise Server when starting the Enterprise Client application.

• Autolocking of Selected Namespaces - When checked, an automatic lock is placed on a selected element. This lock is automatically released when the element is deselected.

• Lock Indication in Diagram - When checked, lock icons appear in conjunction with elements in diagrams.

Collaborations

UML exists primarily to facilitate between people. We can look at the symbols and understand the meaning of a much more complex system. The ease with which others can interpret drawings is an essential goal. The UML also provides a powerful mechanism for describing these systems in technical terms, so that a complete semantic and syntactic picture is presented.

Naturally, an environment where people work closely together, regardless of physical location, is an ideal setting for UML to come into play. One question has always lingered - how do we work on the same project with knowledge of what others are doing and without stepping on toes?

Poseidon for UML Enterprise Edition introduces the idea of a collaboration, where teammates have a real-time view of the project and the means to control editing through locks.

The heart of this is found in the Collaboration Manager, where you can create and join collaborations, as well as save projects to the server so that others may have access to them.

In the Collaboration Management Window, you'll see the list of active collaborations and a list of projects that have been saved to the server. To create a new collaboration with a new project, click the 'Create Collaboration' button, give the collaboration a name, and wait until the window closes. To re-open a saved project, select it in the bottom list, and click the 'Load Project' button.

You can create diagrams and model elements just as if you were working in the standalone version of Poseidon.

Projects

Projects are stored at the server level so that they are accessible to other team members.

Model Locking and Conflict Checking

It is quite possible that you may require access to a large number of elements, and as only one person may edit an element at a time, you do not want to be concerned with fighting for access with another member of your team. Element locking allows you to guarantee access for yourself, while denying edit priviliges to other team members.

When, for example, a class is locked, no one else may change the class's name, add an association to it, remove an attribute, or delete a state in that class's state machine diagram. Other users are not even allowed to select a locked element - looking at it as it appears in the diagram must suffice. Additionally, no one else may lock an element that is inside your locked namespace, and likewise you can't lock a namespace that already contains locked elements.

By default, autolocking is activated for the elements you select. This means, when you select an element, it tries to aquire a a temporary lock (which behaves like a normal one). If this is not possible (because of elements locked inside that element) no warning is issued. When you deselect the element, the lock is removed automatically. Autolocking is used to prevent conflicts as early as possible - as mentioned before, a locked element can't even be selected by other users, let alone edited.

Autolocking is very useful in most settings, but it can be a hard restriction too. For example, when you select a class, then other users will not even be able to align states that reside in that class's state machine diagram. You can deactivate auto-locking in the settings dialog. Note that auto-locking does NOT apply for the model - you can select the model in the tree, and you can lock it by hand, but it will not be locked automatically.

Locking is only possible if nothing else inside the namespace is locked (e.g. by another auto-lock), so it is very unlikely that you'd get the model-lock without consulting your co-workers first. And even if you got the models' lock, your coworkers might get a bit upset when they notice that they cannot continue working - while you selected the model just to create a few stereotypes. Any element with an autolock will appear to the owner with a green lock and clock icon.

All others will see a red lock and clock. These locks are automatically released when you select a different element.

Namespaces may also be locked manually to reserve certain elements. These must be specifically set and unset while working on the model. To lock a namespace manually, first select the namespace and then press the 'lock' icon in the toolbar. From that point forward, the element will be marked for the lock owner by a green lock in the upper left corner of that element, while all other users will see a red lock.

Elements that are contained within a locked namespace are automatically locked too, so they also get marked. To make it possible to tell the locked and the implicitly locked elements apart, the inner elements get a transparent lock. If you don't want to see the lock-symbols, you can turn them off in the settings window.

Please remember that not all elements are namespaces. Comments are not namespaces, so it is not possible to lock them one by one at the moment.