Glossary relationships
Overview
Glossary relationships in Ellie allow you to create and manage relationships that can be shared across multiple models within your organization.
Just like glossary entities, these relationships provide consistency, governance, and efficiency in your data modeling process.
Key Benefits of Glossary Relationships
Consistency Across Models: When you update a glossary relationship, changes automatically propagate to all models using that relationship, ensuring consistency across your organization.
Improved Governance: Centrally managed relationships in glossaries provide better control over data modeling standards and practices.
Enhanced Discoverability: The relationship suggestion mode helps you find and apply relevant existing relationships, reducing duplication and promoting reuse.
Folder-Based Organization: Like other glossary assets, glossary relationships are organized within folders, supporting your organizational structure and permissions model.
Visual Distinctions
Ellie provides clear visual differentiation between different types of relationships:
Glossary Relationships: Displayed in a more vibrant color for clear identification
Local Relationships: Use muted colors to distinguish them from glossary relationships
Foreign Glossary Relationships: Labels and names appear in italic when the relationship comes from a different folder than your current model
Physical Model Relationships: Orange and red relationships maintain their specific color coding
When you hover over any relationship, a tooltip displays:
The relationship name
For foreign glossary relationships: the source folder path where the relationship is defined
This visual differentiation is consistent across both the modeling canvas and the Single Entity View.
Creating and Managing Glossary Relationships
Promoting Local Relationships
You can convert any local relationship in your model into a glossary relationship:
Right-click on a local relationship in your model
Select "Add to glossary" from the context menu
Provide a name if the relationship is currently unnamed
Select a glossary to store the relationship in
The relationship becomes a glossary relationship stored in a selected glossary
Requirements:
Both entities connected by the relationship must already be glossary entities
You must have write permissions to the folder's glossary
Using Relationship Suggestion Mode
The relationship suggestion mode helps you discover and apply existing glossary relationships:
Toggle suggestion mode using the button in the bottom menubar
Click on any entity in your model to see suggested glossary relationships
Hover over suggestions to see the relationship name and source folder
Click or drag a suggestion to add it to your model
Relationship suggestions come from glossaries you have access to, based on your folder permissions. For details about glossary configuration and access control, see the Working with folders and glossaries guide.
Viewing Glossary Relationships
You can view all glossary relationships in the glossary view:
Navigate to the glossary view
Browse all available glossary relationships listed alongside other glossary assets
View relationship details including connected entities and properties
This provides a comprehensive overview of all reusable relationships available in your glossary.
Single Relationship View
You can open any glossary relationship in a dedicated view for detailed management:
Accessing Single Relationship View:
Click on a glossary relationship from the glossary view or model canvas
Navigate to the dedicated relationship page for detailed editing
Features Available:
Breadcrumb Navigation: Shows organization, team/folder, and relationship name
Editable Relationship Name: Modify the relationship name directly in the header
Description Field: Multi-line text area for detailed relationship descriptions
Visual Relationship Editor: Interactive representation showing:
Connected entities (clickable for conceptual entities)
Relationship ends (One, Many, etc.)
Editable ends and labels
Entity Hover Information: View models where entities are used (displayed as chips)
Relationship Hover Information: See models where the relationship is applied
Management Actions (via three-dot menu):
Delete: Remove the relationship from the glossary
Move: Transfer the relationship to another folder
This dedicated view provides comprehensive control over glossary relationship properties and usage tracking.
Working with Glossary Relationships
Automatic Propagation
When you edit a glossary relationship, changes automatically propagate to all models using that relationship.
Changes only affect the relationship's metadata, not model-specific presentation aspects. Those include:
Relationship ends types
Name and description
Labels and arrow directions
PK-FK constraints (for physical models)
Read-Only Glossaries
Glossary relationships from write-protected glossaries have special behavior:
What You Can Do:
Adjust presentation aspects like elbow positions
Modify relationship end locations within your model
Change visual label placement on the relationship line and direction display on a model
Foreign Glossary Relationships
When using glossary relationships from different folders:
Visual Indication: Relationship labels and names appear in italic
Hover Information: Shows the source folder path
Permission Dependent: You can only use relationships from folders you have access to
Presentation Control: You maintain control over how the relationship appears in your specific model
Model Operations with Glossary Relationships
Copying Models
When you copy a model containing relationships:
Local relationships: Are duplicated as new local relationships in the copied model
Glossary relationships: The same glossary relationships are reused in the copied model
Personal folder exception: When copying from your personal folder to another location, glossary relationships from your personal folder become local relationships in the target
Converting Models
When converting a model to another level (e.g., conceptual to logical):
All glossary relationships in the source model are copied as local relationships in the new model
This ensures the converted model maintains its structure while allowing level-specific customization
The original glossary relationships remain unchanged and available for reuse
Replacing Entities
When you replace an entity that has glossary relationships:
Local copies of those relationships are automatically created in your model
Original glossary relationships are removed from your specific model (but remain in the glossary)
Name conflicts are resolved with
_copysuffixThis prevents unintended changes to shared glossary relationships
Managing Relationships in Your Model
Copy to Local
You can replace any glossary relationship with a local copy for independent modification:
Right-click on a glossary relationship in your model
Select "Copy to local" from the context menu
The glossary relationship is replaced with a local copy that you can modify independently
The original glossary relationship remains unchanged in the glossary
Replace with Glossary Relationship
For local relationships connecting two glossary entities, you can replace them with standardized glossary relationships:
Right-click on a local relationship connecting two glossary entities
Select "Replace with" from the context menu
Choose an eligible glossary relationship between the same two entities
The local relationship is removed and replaced with the selected glossary relationship
All local-specific properties are discarded in favor of the glossary definition
Bulk Replacement in Single Entity View
For larger cleanups, you can use the replace feature at the Single Entity View:
Go to the single entity view of the linked entity
View all relationships in one place, including duplicates across different models
Right-click on relationship visualizations to access replacement options
Replace duplicates in bulk without switching back and forth between models
Relationship Grouping:
By default, similar local relationships are grouped together in the single entity view
You cannot replace relationships when they are in a group of multiple relationships
Toggle the grouping option to ungroup relationships and view them individually
Replace individual relationships after ungrouping them
This is particularly useful when standardizing multiple local relationships that should use the same glossary definition.
Deleting Relationships
You can remove relationships from your model view without affecting the glossary:
Right-click on any relationship in your model
Select "Delete from model" from the context menu
Behavior:
Glossary relationships: Removed from your model view only, remains in the glossary for other models to use
Local relationships: Completely removed from your model
Restoring from Snapshots
When restoring a model from a snapshot:
Existing glossary relationships: Restored as references to their current glossary version (not the snapshot version)
Deleted glossary relationships: Restored as local relationships if the original glossary relationship no longer exists
Local relationships: Restored exactly as they were at the time of the snapshot
Permissions and Restrictions
Restrictions:
You cannot move a glossary relationship end from one entity to another
Promoting relationships requires both connected entities to be glossary entities
Editing glossary relationships requires a write permissions to the source glossary
Permissions:
Glossary relationships inherit the same permission model as other glossary assets. For detailed information about folder permissions, write protection, and access control, see the Working with folders and glossaries guide.
Best Practices
Promote Common Relationships: Convert frequently used local relationships to glossary relationships to promote consistency and reuse across your organization.
Use Descriptive Names: When promoting relationships, provide clear, descriptive names that will be meaningful to other users discovering them through suggestions.
Leverage Folder Structure: Organize glossary relationships within appropriate folders to match your organizational structure and access patterns.
Understand Propagation Impact: Before editing glossary relationships, consider that changes will affect all models using that relationship across your organization.
Plan Model Conversions: When converting models between levels, remember that glossary relationships become local. Since relationships are level-specific, if you want to reuse these relationships at the new level, you'll need to promote them back to the glossary.