One of Ardoq's strengths is the fact that the visualizations and layouts are auto-generated and dynamically updated. While one of our core capabilities, it can sometimes be a limiting factor in reaching a desired view, diagram, or model.

The Interactive Blocks view looks similar to the Block Diagram but gives you the additional ability to interact with the view. Block Diagram sometimes lays your data in a way that is slightly off from what you have in mind, and can sometimes be a blocker for wanting to save it to a presentation and share it with your stakeholders. With Interactive Blocks view you have more control of where the components are laid out in the view and the story you want to tell with the view. This unlocks new modeling like:

Note: Interactive Blocks isn't made for working more abstractly during the ideation and design phase of a project, as you could expect from a drawing tool. The Interactive Blocks improves how you can do architecture diagrams for consumption in Ardoq.

Open your workspace and choose the Interactive Blocks view.

At first glance, the data might not be displayed in the way you'd like it to. To start editing the layout, navigate to Edit Mode. The first thing you will be asked to do is to define the initial order. Since the view is built on layers, please choose which component types you want to have on each layer under Position.

When you have chosen the positions of the component types, you will see the view moving some of the component types around. While you are still in Edit Mode, you can drag and drop the components as you like within the grid.

Happy with the layout? Click the pencil icon to go out of Edit Mode.

When you have added the view to a presentation slide, the view will be saved in the same layout as you last saved it. If there are edits made to the layout and you would like to go back to the previous state, simply click the presentation slide in the right sidebar.