Linking and Synchronizing Models

The chapters in this part describe the PowerDesigner features that help you create links between models and trace the impact of changes between models.

• Getting Started with Linking and Syncing
  The PowerDesigner Enterprise Modeling environment allow you to create and exploit complex interdependencies between objects to model interconnected systems and view them in many different ways.
• Generating Models and Model Objects
  PowerDesigner provides a number of predefined model-to-model generation paths along with a mechanism for generating any model object into any other kind of object in another type of model.
• Shortcuts and Replicas
  Shortcuts and object replications allow you to reuse objects defined in one model or package elsewhere. You should use a shortcut when you want to reference an object in another model or package, and a replica when you want to create a local copy of the object and make changes to one or more of its properties.
• Object Mappings
  Object mapping allows you to establish connections between objects belonging to heterogeneous models and diagrams. You create mappings between objects to model O/R (Object-Relational) mappings, which associate classes with tables to store OOM objects into a relational database, or simply to express a correspondence between objects in different models.
• Impact and Lineage Analysis
  Before you perform an action on a model object, such as deleting a table or changing the datatype of a primary key column, you can preview which other objects will be impacted (impact analysis) and identify the objects that take part in the definition of the object (lineage analysis). You can generate the analysis to an impact analysis model (IAM) to review it in a diagram and save it for future reference.