November 10, 2021
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5 Minutes

Ellie’s Roadmap – Q4/2021 Update

Product
Development
Team Ellie
Ellie Editorial Team

It’s again time for an update on our 12-month roadmap. We’re keeping our main priorities the same, but some scheduling changes are taking place. Read on to find out the latest information!

Logical modeling layer nearing release

We’re getting very close to the Ellie v4.0 release, where we will launch our brand-new logical modeling layer originally announced in our Q2/2021 update.

Work-in-progress screenshot of the new logical models – subject to change!

The initial 4.0 release will contain basic functionalities for logical modeling. This will provide you with the ability to create new logical models and export them out of Ellie (CSV file exports and our Model Export API will be made available for logical models in the initial release). We will keep adding new stuff into this layer in subsequent releases in early 2022, of course listening carefully to the potential feedback we get! The ability to link logical entities to the existing conceptual entities will be added in one of the first versions after the initial 4.0 release.

Glossary API and Collibra integration coming up

Especially larger organizations utilizing Ellie widely have often requested some additional governance capabilities to protect their most important models. We agree, and we will be adding such functionality to Ellie immediately after the release of logical modeling in v4.0. Write-access can then be set selectively on a model collection level, allowing your Ellie admins to set “restricted” access to all the models within.

Our very first API, the Model Export API, was launched in September with Ellie v3.8. As previously mentioned, this is the direction we will continue with our integrations: opening up as much of Ellie via APIs as possible. Our Glossary API is now scheduled for early Q2/2022, and it will enable the manipulation of the entities in Ellie’s Glossary.

In addition to APIs, we will continue developing native integrations with some chosen tools in the data ecosystem. Collibra’s data catalog capabilities and Ellie’s visual models complement each other excellently, and we are now scheduling this two-way integration for late Q2.

Further into 2022

For the second half of 2022, we aim to first re-do our existing conceptual modeling canvas with the more flexible tooling we’ve used with the upcoming logical models. This will make it easier for us to add more features to conceptual models later, and at the same time, we’ll enable CSV exports from the conceptual model canvas directly (this will already be the case with logical models from v4.0 onwards).

We’ll also get started with our Assisted Modeling features later in 2022, aiming to make not only the experience of drawing the models but also the “how to draw” part easier as we go forward. Initially, this will be guidance, tooltips, and such, but in the longer term, we want to make Ellie seriously smart. We have big ideas – keep following us to find out what is to come!