The influence relationship models that an element affects the implementation or achievement of some motivation element. The example below illustrates the use of the influence relationship to model the different effects of the same motivation element, Assign Personal Assistant. This…

The access relationship models the ability of behavior and active structure elements to observe or act upon passive structure elements. The example below illustrates the access relationship. The Create Invoice sub-process writes/creates the Invoice object; the Send Invoice sub-process reads…

The serving relationship models that an element provides its functionality to another element which describes how the services or interfaces offered by a behavior or active structure element serve entities in their environment. This relationship is applied for both the…

Dependency relationships describe how elements support or are used by other elements. Three types of dependency relationship are distinguished: The serving relationship represents a control dependency, denoted by a solid line. The access relationship represents a data dependency, denoted by…

The realization relationship indicates that an entity plays a critical role in the creation, achievement, sustenance, or operation of a more abstract entity.. The example below illustrates two ways to use the realization relationship. A Transaction Processing function realizes a…

The aggregation relationship indicates that an element groups a number of other concepts. The example below includes the two ways to express the assignment relationship. The example shows two ways to express that the Customer File aggregates an Insurance Policy and Insurance Claim: The aggregation…

The assignment relationship expresses the allocation of responsibility, performance of behavior, or execution. The example below includes the two ways to express the assignment relationship. The Finance active structure element is assigned to the Transaction Processing function, and the Payment…

The composition relationship indicates that an element consists of one or more other concepts. Example below shows the two ways to express that the Financial Processing function is composed of three sub-functions: The composition relationship has been inspired by the…

Structural relationships represent the ‘static’ coherence within an architecture. The composing concept (the ‘from’ side of the relationship) is always an element; the composed concept (the ‘to’ side of the relationship) may in some cases also be another relationship. Nesting…

ArchiMate defines a core set of generic relationships, each of which can connect a predefined set of source and target concepts: The relationships are classified as follows: Structural relationships – model the static construction or composition of concepts of the same…