Keywords: Components, Component types, Grid Editor, context, what is a component

Components are at the core of creating a workspace in Ardoq. We'll take you through them step-by-step, with a little help from our video tutorial. Let's get started!

Components are the core data elements in your workspace. A component must be of a type that belongs to a model. For the “Small application model” example, the top-level components can be of type Application. If the application has any child components; they can only be of the type Service:

When a thing is identifiable by a single field value it can be a field; but when that field value itself has dependent field values it needs to be broken out as a separate component connected via a reference. Example: A Server component has a field on it called 'Operating System' e.g Windows, Linux. But when you want to record the support dates of the Operating System, then Operating System needs to be a component in its own right.

Every Workspace has a metamodel with a certain set of component types. The name, color, shape, or image of these can be changed to reflect the framework or the way your organization understands the architecture.

Each component's description is the main content of a component or just “plain text” via the Rich Text editor. The Rich Text editor is shown in the Pages view by when clicking Add or Edit next to the component. Watch your changes appear in real-time in the Pages view.

The Grid Editor is the easiest way to enter data manually, including creating new Components. Open the Grid Editor by clicking the bar at the bottom of the screen. You can also pop out the Grid Editor in its own window by clicking on the pop-out button to the right:

Click in the name field and start typing. Hitting the Enter key saves the new Component and moves you down to the next row where you can continue typing. Check out the article on the Grid Editor to learn all the details.

Remember that everything in Ardoq is context-sensitive, so what you are creating is always based on the selected component. If you want to create a component, then select the workspace for that component type.

If you want to create a child of a component, then select that component in the navigator.
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​Lock/Unlock Components: The component lock feature enables you to protect a component and their associated fields from being edited or deleted. For surveys, these components will be displayed as Read-only fields but will still retain the ability to create references to other components. The behavior should be the same as per the grid editor.
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To unlock the components, simply right click on the component and hit unlock or uncheck the box from the grid editor.

This feature is accessible through the Grid Editor, Navigation tree menu or by right clicking on a respective component in a visualization

Please see below image for a breakdown of permissions related to this feature:

This hopefully helps you get started. If you still feel stuck or need more information, reach out to us via our website or by using the in-app chat.
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