Organizations

This chapter describes how to represent organizations of objects that are declared within the XML document. An “organization” may represent a hierarchical tree structure, a table of contents, or a folder structure in the user interface of an ArchiMate tool, for example.

The use of organizations is entirely optional and may not be supported in some ArchiMate tools or services.

An item tag represents a structural node in a particular organization of the model concepts, views, or diagram objects. An item tag may be a parent or sibling of other item tags, each one representing a unique structural node.

An item tag may reference an ArchiMate concept, view, graphical object, or nothing (in which case it is a structural container).

One or more <organizations> tags may be declared within the XML document. Nested item tags are included within this.

XML Example

The following represents a simple folder structure consisting of a folder named “Business”. This folder contains a reference to an ArchiMate concept with the identifier "id-123" and a sub-folder named “Business Services” which contains a reference to an ArchiMate concept with the identifier "id-124":

<organizations> (1)
    <item>  (2)
        <label xml:lang="en">Business</label>  (3)
        <documentation xml:lang="en">Business Folder</documentation>  (4)
        <item identifierRef="id-123" />  (5)
        <item>  (6)
            <label xml:lang="en">Business Services</label>  (7)
            <item identifierRef="id-124" />  (8)
        </item>
    </item>
</organizations>

1	The `<organizations>` main tag.
2	An `<item>` main tag. This does not have an `identifierRef` attribute so represents a container type (folder).
3	The `<label>` tag. This represents the displayed label of the item. In this example it represents the name of the folder, “Business”.
4	Some optional documentation related to the folder.
5	A sub-item referencing an ArchiMate concept declared elsewhere in the XML document.
6	A sub-item that represents a sub-folder. This does not have an `identifierRef` attribute so represents a container type (folder).
7	The `<label>` tag. This represents the displayed label of the item. In this example it represents the name of the folder, “Business Services”.
8	A sub-item referencing an ArchiMate concept declared elsewhere in the XML document.