Getting Started
Ellie runs in the cloud; no installation is needed. Use your username (email address) and password to sign in.
You can also reset your password from the login page:
Picture 1. Reset your password
Editing Content
When you wish to start editing a Model, an Entity or a Metadata, click on the ‘Edit’ button in the upper right corner of the screen.
Picture 2. Edit content
2. When you are editing a large Model, you can free up visual space by showing and hiding the sidebar on the right.
Picture 4. You can switch between the Edit and View modes in Ellie, depending on the situation.
3. In order to add an Entity, use the drag’n’drop feature by selecting an entity from the sidebar and dragging it onto the place you wish it to reside in.
Picture 5. Do a drag’n’drop swipe in order to add an Entity
4. Double-click on an Entity in the canvas to insert Metadata. There is also an ‘Edit’ button in the Metadata form, for editing.
5. Right-click on an Entity to change it’s category (there are multiple categories, all signified by colors, such as Master, Contract, Transaction, etc. (See the section on Entity types for more information on the category types)
Viewing Content
To browse content in Ellie, there is a view mode (any user that does not have Admin or Write privileges is automatically in the view mode).
Click on ‘View’
Picture 6. You can switch between Editing and Viewing the content in Ellie, depending on the situation.
(You can use the button in this area of the screen to switch from the Edit to the View mode)
2. Right-click on an entity to open a context menu, allowing you to, for example, view the Metadata of the Entity - such as seeing if there is a Description set for this specific Entity.
Picture 7. Right-clicking will preview the Metadata from the selected Entity
Drawing Relations
When you are done placing Entities into your model by using drag’n’drop, you can start drawing lines that will indicate a Relationship between the Entities. Just click on the border of a source Entity, and, while holding the left mouse button down, drag your cursor until it hits the border of another Entity. The Relationship type will be drawn with the default selected type. You can also change the default Relationship type.
Right-click on the pale grey circle at the border of an Entity, doing this will open a dropdown menu allowing you to change the Relationship type.
Picture 8. Select the preferred Relationship type
2. Click on the T in the top bar to add a free-format text box, excellent for further explaining the Relationship between these two Entities.
Picture 9. Add additional information to Relationships by drag’n’dropping the T icon
You can also attach Relationship labels to Relationship lines: Click on a Relationship line, in the exact place you want to have a Relationship label. This creates an elbow. Now, Right-click on the newly created elbow, and select Edit from the context menu.
You can now add a description and choose where it will be displayed in. The options are: above, below, left of and right of the elbow. In the following example, a Relationship label “Additional information” will be attached to the Relationship between the Company and the Person Entities. The orange circle denotes a node in the Relationship, also referred to as the elbow.
Picture 10. Editing relationships
Changing Entity Size
When you move your mouse cursor on top of an entity, corners appear. Click and drag on a corner in order to resize the Entity.
Relationship Types and Cardinalities
In the first phase you can just start by drawing a Relationship, without defining cardinalities:
Picture 11. Defining a Relationship type
This specific three-pronged cardinal means that only a general “one-to-many” is specified, with no optional-mandatory things configured, as of yet. Often in the early phases of editing this is enough (saving time, as you don’t have to dig too deep in the beginning of modeling), you can add defining details later on.
We might want to specify that each Invoice has to have an Organization attached to it. This Relationship is “one and only one” (a mandatory Organization for Invoice). This sort of Relationship will look like this:
Picture 12. Setting Cardinals works for both of the directions
First, there are no crows feet in the Relationship from Invoice to Organization, we know that this is “one-to-one”. After that, we have defined that there has to be exactly onle one Organization for each Invoice (minimum 1, maximum 1) - by adding a little cross-line (read it as “number one”).
If we want to specify that an Invoice does not have to have an Organization attached to it, we can use the following Cardinal. This one means “zero or one” (Organization is optional for an Invoice):
Picture 13. There are many cardinalities to choose from
By having no crows feet in the Relationship between the Invoice and the Organization, we now know that this is a “one to one” (max is 1). Then we can define that an Invoice does not have to have an Organization related to it, by adding a circle (you can read this as a “zero”).
Entity Subtypes
Some Entities have subtypes. Let’s look at an example of a travel agency industry to illustrate subtyping in Ellie.
Hotel Booking and Flight Booking are subtypes of Booking. Customer and Booking Confirmation are related to the main entity Booking, and Flight Booking and Hotel Booking have their own relationships.
This would be the notation that could be used, by e.g. Len Silverstone in his Universal Data Models books, and by Graeme Simision in this book Data Modeling Essentials.
In our experience, business people understand this quite intuitively.
Picture 14. Subtypes in Ellie
Entity Types
In Ellie, the idea is to make models more readable, faster to build and easier to add information about the nature of the data you are seeing. This is based on the notion that there are certain similarities between models, even across different industries.
The entities are divided into three basic classes: Master data, Contract and Transaction. In Ellie, we use the colors in the following way:
Picture 15. You can browse Entity types, when in the View mode, by clicking on the Explanation box on the bottom left corner.
Master Data
Master Data Entities represent independent data, which means that data can be stored anytime, independent of other Entities. The typical master data entities are as follows:
Customer
Product
Employee
Organization Unit
Account
Person
Location
Master data entities usually have their own identifier, such as a customer number.
Master data represents a “register” type of data, which is stored for long periods of time and occasionally updated. Often the volume of Master data is not high, compared to, for instance Transactions (usually there are more invoices than customers).
Master data Entities are intriguing for many parts of organizations. Master data such as Customer or Product are reusable entities for many models.
One part of Master data is the reference data, e.g. postal numbers, country codes, customer segments. Reference data is not necessarily the most important data, but it is definitely helpful. This type of information can be entered into an application before any other data is added.
There is a special colour (grey) assigned for reference data, available from the Extended Entity Type listing in Ellie. You can use this for further clarification of the Model.
The great news here is that there are not that many Master data Entities in any company. It would be a good idea to first start modeling by identifying the Master data Entities.
Transaction Data
Transaction Entities represent data that is transactional, such as an invoice, an order, a website visit, a financial transaction, a contact with a customer. This Transaction Entity normally has a definable date and a time. Transactions are not usually independent, as they have to have a Relationship to a Master or a Contract Entity - even sometimes being connected to another Transaction.
The volume of Transaction data is often very high.
Contract
Contract Entities depict data that has a start and an endtime, like a project, a bank account, a vendor contract, a phone subscription or a campaign.
For instance, a bank account is not Master data, because it is not independent, you have to have the Customer first, perhaps also the branch (check the picture below). A bank account is obviously not a Transaction either, so it is typically a Contract.
Contract Entities are often long-lasting and can change occasionally, or sometimes frequently. Contract Entities are by no means independent, they are most often related to several Master data Entities (such as a Customer or a Branch) and they often have one or several Transactions related to them (such as a Bank Transaction to an account).
Do keep in mind that the term Contract in the context of Ellie does not mean a “legal contract”. It simply refers to a label for a piece of data.
Setting an Entity Type
Right-click on an Entity. Choose the Entity type from the context menu. In this example, the Entity “Customer-account role” is assigned to be a Contract.
Picture 16. Selecting Entity types
In the picture above you can see that a Transaction type Bank transaction has to be related to one specific Account (Contract). An Account might belong to only one branch (these are traditional branches, but in the internet banking world, there are no branches).
The Customer-account role resolves the many-to-many relationship between the Account and Customer. The Roles are typically Contracts. The Branch and Customer are typical Master data Entities, and the text box gives some examples of the Customer-account role, in order to make this model more understandable.
Adding New Users
In Ellie, adding new users has been made incredibly easy and frictionless.
Click on the wheel icon on the Dashboard (frontpage)
Then click on Users
Picture 17. Adding new users is a snap!
3. Click on the + Create users button
4. Create as many users as you like - all you need to do is have their first and last name, valid e-mail address.
5. Define the role of each user, a role can be either Admin, Write or Read. Admins can create new content (Models, Business Glossary) and add more users. Writes can also create new Models and Business Glossary Items, but cannot add users. Readers are only allowed to view the Models, Glossary Items and Reports.
In case you have more questions, we’ll be happy to help you!
You can contact us through e-mailing johannes.hovi@ellie.fi or by phone +358 50 367 0809