April 13, 2022
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4 minutes

Ellie version 4.2 released

Product
Development
Juha Korpela
Chief Product Officer, Ellie.ai

We are happy to announce that the latest update to Ellie, version 4.2, has been pushed out! You’ll find your Ellie to be automatically updated. In this blog post, we’ll explain what’s new.

Linking between Conceptual and Logical levels

In Ellie v4.2, you can now link the Conceptual and Logical levels together. This allows you to navigate easily between the business understanding of Conceptual models & the Glossary and the solution design view of Logical models.

Logical model with linked entities

These links are created between entities, and you can create them from the Logical modeling canvas. This is a simple link between Logical and Conceptual entities (naturally, it’s a many-to-many link!) that you can add when creating or modifying a logical entity. Clicking on the link on the Logical modeling canvas takes you directly to the relevant Glossary entry, allowing users to better understand what their logical entities (e.g. various facts or dimensions) are about.

The links to logical entities can, of course, be also seen from the other way direction: the Glossary view of a Conceptual entity now has an extra tab to show you which Logical entities it has been linked with. By hovering the cursor over an entity in this list, you’ll see a link to that particular Logical model.

Links to logical entities shown on the entity’s glossary view

Further improvements & new features for Logical models

Logical models are getting even more love in v4.2! We have added text boxes to the Logical modeling canvas, just like you have on the Conceptual modeling canvas. You can use them to e.g. add clarifying notes or even to-do lists directly on the model diagrams. This has been a much-requested feature!

Another important new feature is the ability to reorder the attributes of a Logical entity. If you want to have your PK fields on top, just click and drag! The ordering of the attributes is also reflected in the JSON exports (via our Model Export API, if you’re using that) of the Logical models.

It is now also possible to create copies of Logical models from the Model List, just like you have been able to create copies of Conceptual models. This is very handy when you want to have something as a basis for your new model, or perhaps just to test out some alternatives while still maintaining the original.

There are also a ton of minor fixes and updates here and there – you can check out the full changelog here.

Have fun with the new Ellie!