Please join us for the Software AG North America User Group taking place in San Francisco, CA on May 8th. Participation in the user groups is free of charge for customers! So pass along the invite.

Share best practices
At the user groups, ARIS customers will have the opportunity to network with their peers, gain insight into technology challenges, share best practices for design & development, as well as get the latest product training/education from Software AG and communicate one-on-one with Software AG experts.

There will be informative, thought-provoking general session presentations and an ARIS breakout track session.

Why attend?
There are numerous reasons to attend the North America User Group! Here are just a few:

• Platform for networking with your peers
• Learn tips and tricks
• Share best practices for design & development
• Gain direct access to Software AG experts
• Access to customer presentations and exchange of experiences
• Opportunity to give Input into product changes and enhancement

Register today!

After having released our new design last week, today we have reached another milestone:

We have been waiting impatiently for this special moment to come and are delighted to finally welcome our 500,000th ARIS Community member! So let us all celebrate this historical moment by congratulating our newest member and giving a warm welcome to Eugen Ackermann!

Amazing, but true: We have launched ARIS Community in May 2009 and have been growing steadily since then to finally become this huge and committed community of ARIS beginners and experts sharing their knowledge and helping each other.

We are very proud of this great achievement and at the same time totally aware of the fact that we owe it all to YOU! So this is the right time to say THANK YOU for your great support in the past years.

Stay tuned :)

If you want to implement the best products for world-class customers, there is no better company to work for than Software AG. Visit our career site and find out what Software AG can do for you!

Why Software AG? With almost five decades of software expertise and a global reach in 70 countries, there is no other company poised to lead the digital revolution than Software AG.

Here are the facts:
- Nearly €1 billion in revenue
- Software AG is recognized as a leader by top analyst firms

Software AG Global Consulting Services (GCS) enables companies to address both today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges. As part of the GCS team, you will be working with some of the biggest names in the industry, Chevron, DB Netz AG, Philips, Volvo and many more, using the most current technologies and successfully resolving the most complex technical challenges.

Imagine working for a company where no other vendor can match our global reach, financial strength, or depth and breadth of product offerings. Well, welcome to Software AG.  Check our jobs for global consultants!

Visit Software AG and an audience of your peers for the 2018 International User Groups Conferences (IUG) in Berlin. Save April 11-12 for the International ARIS User Group Meeting in Berlin, Germany. Join this well-established annual conference to meet other like-minded users and ARIS experts to network and hear the latest ARIS news.

IUG is only a few short weeks away. Join us to:

• Hear success stories from global enterprises
• Learn from your peers from different industries
• Share and discuss experiences and evaluate innovative ideas
• Engage directly with Software AG experts

Registration is open, and you’ll find a draft agenda on the event website. For the first time this year, we are introducing CollaborationHub, which is your place to meet Software AG product users and dive deep into topics of mutual interest. Participants can share tips and tricks, find working solutions and make professional connections that can be extended in our online community. Learn more and join the CollaborationHub for ARIS.

Can’t make it to Berlin? No worries! Software AG hosts and joins various global and local events around the globe and also provides online events for your convenience. Please have a look at our event site and check out our calendar.

• Watch our 2017 product release update on demand
• Check out our new Digital Business Demos each week for timely webinars on digital transformation

You’ve probably heard of GDPR, the new General Data Protection Regulation, which determines how businesses do business. GDPR is a total data-protection game changer: From May 2018 on, companies will need to manage and protect personal data better than ever before.

What does that mean for you? The ARIS Community Team provides you with exclusive news around ARIS that we hope you’d like to hear about. If you want to receive the next edition of ARIS news, make sure to actively opt-in the checkbox in your ARIS Community profile - even if you already received ARIS news in the past!

Here is what you have to do to make sure you will still receive ARIS news and other updates in the future:

• go to your ARIS Community profile
• check the box "Receive ARIS News"

We promise you that both our technology and our processes are aligned with GDPR. We are no data kraken and save the minimum data necessary only. As always, you can stop receiving emails from us at any time by unsubscribing in your profile.

Don't hesitate to contact us in case of any questions.

The next live session of our ARIS 10 webinar series is coming: On March 27, at 2:00 pm you will learn how to Control the Way You Run Your Business – Integrated Process Mining with ARIS.

The pressures on your digital business are intense. Introducing new technologies, new business models, challenger brands and new competitors emerging virtually overnight forever altering the market – all blend together to create the perfect storm of digital disruption. But how do you get 360 degree view of process ops? Enterprise-wide end-to-end business operations are complex and sophisticated with too many pieces and players to evaluate it all. Where do you start?

Tom Thaler and Dr. Julian Krumeich, both of ARIS Product Management at Software AG, will show you how Process Analytics powered by ARIS allow you to improve your processes constantly and embrace innovation continuously to keep up and stay relevant.

The session lasts about 30 minutes, followed by a Q&A session. You can register for free for this or several webinars of the program. If you are interested but you cannot make it at that time, don't stress: Each registrant will receive the recording of the webinar afterwards.

How are you gaining insight into supply chain issues? Is your first notice of disruptions often customer complaints?Real-time visibility throughout your Supply Chain providing insight into any and all of the upstream and downstream links reduces your risk and makes your business agile improving your time to market.

Join Software AG and HCL for the upcoming event "Driving a Digital Supply Chain" to be held in Brisbane on Tuesday the 17th of April.

HCL will present Key Supply Chain Imperatives for customers in the digital era are centered around customer experience, speed and innovation.  Through design thinking, digitally architected methodology, HCL helps customers build 21st century supply chain platforms.

Various innovations are happening in the supply chain eco system around Visual 3D modelling, Internet of Everything, Extreme Automation, Augmented Reality and Crowd 'X' Services (Blockchain, Crowd Apps) to name a few. HCL’s Platform Transformation Journey has enabled customers for more than a decade with deliverables including but not limited to:

• A 60% reduction in customer on boarding time
• 24% FTE bandwidth release
• 100% decommissioning of legacy systems
• Proven savings in the millions of dollars

Learn more and register here.

I'm very happy to announce the release of ARIS 10 SR 4 today. The release also includes ARIS Risk & Compliance Manager 10 SR 4 and ARIS Process Performance Manager 10.2.

One of the major pillars to reach excellence is creating a digital twin of your organization. The new features of ARIS 10 SR 4 are designed to perfectly support this Enterprise Digital Twin, on premise or in the cloud.

Highlights are:

• Global roll-out of modeling conventions with automatic checks for modeling syntax, semantics, and content consistency
• Leading BPMN modeling support, ranked by OMG and supporting the Full Process Modeling Conformance class
• Connect design and reality with Process Mining and new out-of-the-box ARIS Aware dashboards for strategy, IoT, and SAP projects
• Increased end-user experience and acceptance through enhanced portal, diagram view and navigation
• Support of large enterprise scenarios thanks to enhanced administration and contribution possibilities
• Growing internationalization with right-to-left language support in model display for ease of use and broader target groups
• Advanced General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) support to ensure compliance until the deadline and beyond.

Where to find more information:

ARIS 10 SR 4 new features overview fact sheet

ARIS 10 SR 4 new features overview presentation

Please also register for free to our ARIS 10 Webinar series.The next Webinar is about ARIS 10: Excellence at work with your Enterprise Digital Twin on Thursday, April 26.

The next live session of our ARIS 10 webinar series is coming: Excellence at Work With Your Enterprise Digital Twin.

On April 26, at 2:00 pm you will learn how industry leaders reach excellence. Business transformation brings complex challenges and critical interdependencies that must be tightly managed to ensure your success. ARIS helps you create a well-defined transformational roadmap that’s tested and approved by your digital twin.

Get insights from Dr. Helge Hess, Head of ARIS Product Marketing and Management at Software AG, who will show you how the newest ARIS release (ARIS 10 SR 4) supports you to build up your Enterprise Digital Twin. Understand, analyze and improve your business operating model and become exceptional in everything you do.

The session lasts about 30 minutes, followed by a Q&A session. You can register for free for this or several webinars of the program. If you are interested but you cannot make it at that time, don't stress: Each registrant will receive the recording of the webinar afterwards.

In this blog post series, I want to show you how ARIS helps you to reach and consistently ensure an excellent quality of your business concept by rolling out design standards across the organization.

Documenting how the business operates, how it is organized and how the different business perspectives interrelate to each other is one of the core use cases of ARIS. This documentation does not only serve as a business blueprint but it also delivers a reliable basis for analyzing interdependencies on both a conceptual and an operational level. It is used as a foundation for process automation, e.g. in terms of implementing software robots (Robotic Process Automation – RPA) or specific IT services, but it also states a critical instrument for communicating best-practice knowledge to all employees of an organization. In short, an Enterprise Digital Twin, which is the logical result of a mature and high-quality business design – that is connected to the real world – is a key driver for a successful digital transformation.

Reaching a high maturity and quality of the business concept at the design time is often challenging. All the different application scenarios imply specific requirements regarding “what” and “how” should be modeled and “which” additional information need to be provided and maintained. Three examples:

1. GDPR Compliance: One of the first steps towards being compliant to the General Data Protection Regulation is the identification and documentation of all activities, that process personal data of customers. Such “processing activities” are marked via a specific ARIS-attribute. According to GDPR, all that activities require a responsibility and a corresponding risk assessment, which might be maintained again via an attribute or via satellite objects such as an organization unit, a role or a risk. For compliance reasons, it is necessary to ensure, that all that information are maintained. Otherwise an organization runs into the risk of painful penalties of up to 20 Mio. € or 4% of the global revenue.
2. Process Automation: Blueprints for processes that are intended to be automated are often described as BPMN 2.0 process or collaboration models. The ability to re-use them in workflow implementation and execution engines requires structural and syntactical correctness with regards to the standard as well as a substantial correctness and consistency to ensure the understandability for the technical counterparts. This, for example, includes the existence of start and end events, the non-interruptability of the process and the consistent definition of gateways.
3. Knowledge distribution: The communication of (process) knowledge to all employees of an organization automatically flows into discussions on how that knowledge should be visualized. Or from a modeling perspective: which symbols and colors should be used; how can we cover the corporate identity? But also from a content perspective, it is often desired to maintain additional textual or visual (graphics, videos) descriptions for models, activities or arbitrary objects.

The examples show a variety of requirements – ranging from content completeness over syntax and semantics up to the visual representation – that are typically translated into design standards! These design standards can be defined in ARIS and now also rolled out across all process designers and across all design clients (ARIS Connect Designer, ARIS Designer, ARIS Architect).

Three aspects are of major importance:

1. A global definition of individual default templates.
2. An active and automated modeling support.
3. Intelligent checks against individual modeling conventions.

ARIS leads to excellence with ease

All in all, a combination of default templates, active modeling support and automation as well as the application of semantic checks leads to the excellence you aim for:

• Save time and effort by automating recurring manual design work.
• Ensure high-quality by only releasing business knowledge, that passed a quality gate.
• Win end-user acceptance and satisfaction by present knowledge in a consistent and easy-to-consume look & feel.
• Be compliant to legal regulations such as GDPR, to specific industry standards and to your own business standards.
• Be prepared for all relevant application scenarios such as scenario planning, (robotic) process automation or process-driven management of SAP

Modeling templates define the appearance of modeling content in terms of the used symbols, the styling of connections, the positioning of attributes or the background of a model. A set of templates is already provided by ARIS itself but they can also be individually designed or adapted with regards to the individual CI (Corporate Identity) of an organization. They can be centrally managed, different templates can be assigned to different model types and thus, rolled out as a standard for all modelers and across all design clients (ARIS Architect, Designer & Connect Designer).

With that, everybody starts on the same basis, which finally ensures a consistent look & feel independently from the designer. This improves the quality of the resulting process landscape but also significantly increases the end-user acceptance and satisfaction since they are familiar with what they see.

HOW-TO: Globally roll out default templates to specific model types across all design clients and users

• Open Administration in the ARIS Architect
• Navigate to Configuration >> Conventions >> Templates >> Defaults
• Click New >> Assign default template and select the model types to which you want to assign your template
• Right click the new entry and edit
• Select the template you want to assign to the model type(s) and click OK

Next: >> Global Design Standards (2) - Active & automated design support

After next: >> Global Design Standards (3) - Intelligent checks against individual modeling conventions

Previous: << Increase the quality & maturity of your business concept!

In many situations, manual modeling effort can be reduced by automation. Regarding the previously mentioned examples, the data protection officer could be automatically assigned as a responsible person to all processing activities (activities that process personal data of customers). In other situations, objects or models are serially numbered via specific attributes. These are only two examples, where automatic routines, i.e. reports, could automatically do recurring design work instead of the designer. This does not only reduce the individual work load but also the risk of errors.

Since models are often a basis for further application scenarios, the automation capabilities (i. e. macros) might also be used for updating consecutive documents such as RACI charts, process manuals or job descriptions, whenever a new version of a model is saved.

HOW-TO: Globally roll out model type and user specific automatic routines (works also for semantic checks)

• Open Administration in the ARIS Architect
• Navigate to Evaluations >> Macros >> DESIRED GROUP
• Click New >> Macro and enter a general description for automatic routine
• Specify the context, where the automatic routine should be executed such as the trigger (e.g. model saved) and the relevant model type(s)
• Specific, what should be executed, e.g. a report or a semantic check
• Restrict the access to users or user groups, if desired
• Click OK

Next: >> Global Design Standards (3) - Intelligent checks against individual modeling conventions

Previous: << Global Design Standards (1) - Definition & roll out of individual default templates

Pre-Previous: << Increase the quality & maturity of your business concept!

Design standards (respectively modeling conventions) can be defined as rules in ARIS. This includes the existence, allocation or assignments of modeling assets, the maintenance of specific attributes, following a predefined structure and much more. Many rules are already predefined and logically grouped regarding important application scenarios in ARIS – but they can also be flexibly defined to cover the requirements of your organization.

Models in the ARIS repository can be checked against that rules using the Semantic Check. A user can choose his application scenario, e.g. modeling a BPMN process, that should be automated in the next step, and ARIS checks, whether the process is suitable for a transfer to the development unit. Or an adapted process should be part of the next release, for which it has to pass a quality gate that is covered by qualitative rules.

The user immediately gets a differentiated overview (errors, warnings, hints) on the found issues, which he is able to work on step-by-step or based on marks within the model. In addition to a highlighting of the identified issues, ARIS delivers concrete descriptions and recommendations on how an issue can be solved. In order to consistently ensure a high quality of the modeling output, the execution of semantic checks can be automated depending on the model type or the designers’ role.

HOW-TO: Definition of single rule

• Open Administration in the ARIS Architect
• Navigate to Evaluations >> Semantic checks >> Rule types >> A RULE TYPE YOU WANT TO CREATE
• Click New >> Semantic check rule and enter a general description for your new rule as well as a context (e.g. an object type) it should be applied to
• Define the rule - the procedure depends on the rule type. 
• Click OK

HOW-TO: Definition of profiles (sets of rules – this is what is being checked)

• Open Administration in the ARIS Architect
• Navigate to Evaluations >> Semantic checks >> Profiles
• Click New >> Profile and enter a general description for your application scenario
• Define the context (e.g. the model type on which the profile can be applied)
• Choose the rules, that should be checked with the profile
• Click OK

HOW-TO: Application in Connect Designer

• Open a model in the Connect Designer
• Click on the Semantic check symbol
• Choose a validation profile
• Click the play button

Previous: << Global Design Standards (2) - Active & automated design support

Pre-Previous: << Global Design Standards (1) - Definition & roll out of individual default templates

Pre-Pre-Previous: << Increase the quality & maturity of your business concept!

Schon zum 4. Mal in Folge gehen die Software AG und Scheer zusammen auf Digtial BPM Tour. Auch in diesem Jahr erfahren Besucher wieder allerhand rund um die Software ARIS. Im Fokus stehen dabei die Themen Digital Twins, Process Mining sowie ARIS 10. Interessante Vorträge aus Anwendersicht aber auch zum neuesten Forschungsstand, geben Denkanstöße und liefern Gesprächsthemen beim anschließenden Networking. Ganz im Zeichen der Digitalisierung gehen Software AG und Scheer dieses Jahr neue Wege und bieten die Möglichkeit bei zwei der vier Stopps live online dabei zu sein. Somit bekommt jeder Interessent die Chance auch ortsunabhängig an der Digtial BPM Tour teilzunehmen. 

Alle Stopps auf einen Blick:

• 16. Mai Darmstadt (live und online)
• 17. Mai Hamburg
• 19. Juni München (live und online)
• 8. November Zürich

Melden Sie sich noch heute an: https://www.scheer-group.com/unternehmen/aktuelles-events/events/digital-bpm-tour-2018/#Anmeldung

I'm happy to announce that ARIS 10 is now certified for Archimate® 3. Please have a look at the list of Archimate® 3 certified tools: https://certification.opengroup.org/register/archimate-tool.

For further details I recommend this post: http://www.ariscommunity.com/users/q2y5np9c6o38/2017-07-24-archimate-30-modeling-support-available-aris-100-sr1

Dear members,

ARIS Community was attacked by spam mails, posts and comments so that we temporarily had to go offline. However, there is no need for you to worry because no personal data was lost or hacked. Everything is safe. 

Note: If you have received subscription mails, please do NOT click the external links they contain.

Should you have questions or remarks, please contact us: contact@ariscommunity.com.

We apologize for all inconveniences caused!!!

Kind regards,
Eva 

The time for “Alexa, ask ARIS!” is now: Get information from ARIS hands-free, just with the sound of your voice! We are happy to announce that our ARIS for Alexa® Demo is now officially available on the Amazon Alexa Skills Store!

Get this skill now to see how easy it is to get information in ARIS using Amazon® Alexa®. Our comprehensive demo lets you ask Alexa about processes and information stored in the ARIS repository. You also can ask for an overview of change requests and see the respective dashboard in ARIS at the same time. All answers are based on demo data.

To get started, simply activate the “ARIS for Alexa® Demo” skill in the Alexa Skills store. There are only three easy steps from here, you will be guided on the next steps how to connect the demo to your Alexa device to get the audio output and your personal link to the visual results of your request.

Activate the skill, start asking questions “Alexa, ask ARIS“ and enjoy! We are looking forward to get your feedback.

The next live session of our ARIS 10 webinar series is coming: Scenario Planning - Choose the Right Business Setting. On July 3, at 2:00 pm you will learn more about the simulation of business process scenarios with ARIS.

Changing business processes or their settings is always risky. The interdependencies to many business aspects such as the organizational structure, resources or systems can be very complex. Finally, the effects of changes cannot easily be predicted by a process analyst or process expert.

In this session, Tom Thaler from ARIS Product Management at Software AG will show you how different business process scenarios can easily be simulated and compared using ARIS. See how easy it is to identify the best working variant with regards to time and cost efficiency as well as customer and employee satisfaction.

The session lasts about 30 minutes, followed by a Q&A session. You can register for free for this or several webinars of the program. If you are interested but you cannot make it at that time, don't stress: Each registrant will receive the recording of the webinar afterwards.

This year, CEBIT came up with a completely new concept. They claimed to be Europe's Business Festival for Innovation and Digitization - and to be honest, I was enthusiastic but skeptical if such a “traditional” fair can transform into a young and fresh tradeshow and networking event, embedded in a festival atmosphere.

But if this all-new CEBIT concept wants to turn Hannover into the world’s hotspot for digitization, Software AG wouldn’t want to miss the chance of being part of it! And what should I say... no regrets, the new CEBIT enjoyed a successful premiere and there was a lot going on at our booth: besides our experts explaining the Software AG technology, there were the traditional CEBIT guided tours, visits by politicians, IoT workshops, presentations and last but not least the University Relations team promoting job openings at our desert vehicle on the festival ground…

One highlight was the launch of the ARIS for Amazon Alexa® Demo, and an eye-catcher at our booth was the ARIS showcase: Based on a smart inbound logistics scenario, it explains descriptively what an Enterprise Digital Twin is and how you can connect it to the real world. This scenario demonstrates the digitization of business processes and how to get full transparency across the enterprise – easy to understand, even for people without BPM background and process knowledge. Check out the video of our ARIS Showcase with Lego!

At the end, CEBIT 2018 was an inspiring event, innovative, refreshing and every single minute was just fun! You’ll find more interviews and impressions by our CEBIT live reporters on University Relations’ YouTube Channel.