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Chord Diagram

The chord diagram can be used to visualize direct and indirect communication between assets. More generally speaking, you can depict a path that you define via configurable connections.

Configuration​

The basic steps to create a chord diagram are the following:

  1. Use the query bar to create custom queries.
  2. Use the Configure connections menu to set the connections that should be displayed. Each connection consists of a link type and a target asset type. The link type can be either specified directly or filtered out by tags, which may include multiple link types. You can specify both in the Configure connections dialog (see screenshot below).
  3. Use the Save button on the right to save the configuration of your report.

Example Configuration​

To better illustrate how to configure a chord diagram, consider the following example:

  1. We started by adding an Application asset with the name "BRM" using the query bar.
  2. Next, we configure the connections to be resolved as shown in the screenshot above:
    • Starting from the selected asset, we configure a connection to follow all links tagged with #provides and #communicates-with, and which lead to assets of the type Interface.
    • With the second connection, we continue from the interface assets using again all #provides and #communicates-with links leading to application asset.

Each connection will follow the configured links until an asset of the specified target type is found. There is one exception to this when using the resolve hierarchies option:

  • When a connection is configured to follow a link from an asset type to the same asset type and you set the option to resolve hierarchies, then the connection follows these links as many times as it can.
  • This is useful to resolve more complex communication processes, for example between multiple business processes that depend on one another.

Note also, that it is possible to configure arbitrarily many connections following possible paths along the graph.

The resulting chord diagram shows all interfaces that are connected to the "BRM" application via the configured path (via a #provides and #communicates-with link). Furthermore, you can see all applications that are again connected to those interfaces (via a #provides and #communicates-with link).