The colon notation expresses a parent-child relationship or, in notation form, parent::child. It is a quick way to define multiple components and their relationships from a single column.
As an example, examine the following table:
Reference Source | Reference Target | Reference Type |
Monetization::Sales | SaaS::Google Analytics | Owns |
Once imported, it forms the following relationships:
Monetization → Parent of → Sales
SaaS → Parent of → Google Analytics
Sales → Realizes → Google Analytics
The key detail to note is that it is the children components that have the reference created between them:
Example of Mapping using Double-colon Notation
As an example, we'll use the following table of Capabilities and Applications:
Capabilities and Applications are defined using the double-colon notation and specify that a capability has sub-capabilities and that individual applications are children to an application category type.
Instead of mapping these components separately in another sheet and establishing a Custom ID-based relationship mapping, we'll create components and establish relationships directly from this single sheet.
We'll start by defining the worksheet as a references worksheet and by creating a source and target workspace:
Then we'll set the Capability column to the Source column type with the following configuration:
Format: Component path
Reference type: Implicit
If source component is missing: Create new component
Similarly, we'll set the Applications column to the Target column type with the following configuration:
Format: Component path
If target component is missing: Create new component
Finally, we'll set the Type column to the Type column type.
We'll then review our import and import our data, then look at our workspace:
You will notice that the relationships we defined with the double-colon notation are indeed replicated when imported into Ardoq (if a bit hard to see in the web of references). Specifically:
Monetization → Parent of → Sales
SaaS → Parent of → Google Analytics
Sales → Realizes → Google Analytics
Extended Examples
You can extend the parent-child relationship as much as you need by continuing to apply the :: notation. For example, take a look at the following configuration:
When importing the relationship, Ardoq will create the following structure:
As expected, every component separated by a :: will have a parent-child relationship and the final components in the chain will have relationship type defined by the Type column.
Using a Custom Component Path
If your parent-child references are coming from third-party systems that use other notation to indicate the relationship, you can configure the notation form to use different characters with the Path separator field:
For example, you can import the following configuration:
By using the following reference path separator:
