I have recently come across Enterprise Architect from Sparx Systems and think it is a very valuable tool to use. Business Processes, Requirements, Use Cases, Class Models... you name it, can all be created and handled within one program. Even better you can generate your documentation from there directly into .rtf documents which can be easily worked with in Word and thus makes it easy to send of documentation to the business without them using your software.

EA is not cheap and but def. an investment if you are using UML as your modeling language. You get to know the basic functionalities easily. Projects can be shared or even setup in a database. It has user management, tracking and version control in supporting subversion.

My organisation is using it currently on a big programme and multiple projects and it has proven helpful. Create diagrams is easy and you can store a lot of information in your notes with a diagram, that would get lost otherwise. I don't even know yet what it does for developers but they are using it as well, ensuring that all your documentation on your project will end in one repository and that is what you really want, because at the end, it's the Analyst who will be asked for the documentation of the project, don't you think so?

Anybody else having experience with EA so far?

Björn

My first experience of Enterprise Architect from Sparx was whilst I was working for the government. EA made it bearable with the amount of documentation that is required in government departments as it was easy to focus on modeling the system and when ready, produce the documentation. However, the "out of the box" templates where not very good, the ability to customise your own templates and use these was absolutely fantastic. During the build stage it was easy to track the requirements to what the developers were doing using the matrix that is built into the tool. The built in project management tool is also helpful as it allows the workers to capture risks and report them rather than relying on a separate risk register. We basically arrived at work in the morning and logged straight into EA and it was the tool used for the rest of the day. It also made it helpful with the fact that you can "detach" packages of work, for example a requirement package, and take it to a meeting (if you don't have wifi) and capture or change the requirements, and when you "reattach" the package, all the links are updated.

We initially paid for someone to come in and train us all on how to use it, however were disappointed by the trainers understanding of SDLC and that he kept telling us the main features rather than how to use them. So I recommend, that if you do opt for this tool, spend a few days reading the doco (as it is extremely comprehensive) and teach yourself the application.

When I got to another organisation that wasn't documenting any requirements (to my horror), I recommended a bunch of tools like Holocentric (which is expensive in comparison to EA) or the more cost effective EA which at about AUD$350 (per license) was a bargain. We set up the application so that the central repository was on an SQL database, and establish the project with a strict set of rules to be followed (as with any modeling tool it was important to set guidelines and standards). We were up and running. At this point EA was 2 version later than my initial experience and had a lot nicer UI so it was quickly adopted by the other user in the org, (even the developers were having a ball reverse engineering the databases into the application so that they could track and document any changes they were applying.

Overall, I have found EA to be a great application, with a decent UI (not as nice as Holocentric though) and the customer service and after sales tech support is fantastic and responsive. EA has my thumbs up.