What needs improvement with Avolution ABACUS?

Avolution ABACUS has the drawback of needing data filtering at the development level, unlike some tools that offer filtering at deployment. Two areas where Avolution ABACUS could be improved are regional support and flexibility in model selection. Sometimes, it's challenging to access support or updates in certain regions, which can slow down progress. Additionally, it would be beneficial if the tool allowed more flexibility in selecting multiple models within a single unit. It would be great if we could select multiple models within one project. Also, having better data filtering options would be useful. It would save a lot of time if the architecture diagrams could update automatically whenever the data changes instead of being updated manually every time.

Only 60 to 70 percent of the overall tool can be used, and it can be better. The usability of the tool is an area with shortcomings that need improvement.

I suggested to them one software product development enhancement. It was a way of handling their page. If you can imagine a virtual page, everything on the page is in view when you're only using half of the page. My suggestion to them was for the application to become more aware of page usage, so that if I'm not using the other half of the page, why keep it in context with the overall view? When I save, then only bring back up that which I've used. Don't bring up the entire page and all the blank spaces or space within it. I suggested for them to have a way of segmenting their page based on the object position and rendering that has been actually drawn out on that page, so they could make better use of the virtual page based on the diagrams or the entities that are within the page. Whatever they're using to handle what I would call virtual page mapping with the objects that you're drawing on the page, I would have liked to see the product interface be more aware of the dimensions of the overall page that they present, and where the last position of the object that you placed on the page is, and make it go in print. I don't want to see all the free space. For example, the right margin: If I only used half a page to put an object onto their overall page size which they've allocated virtually, don't give me the free space on the right hand side, just wherever the object is ending. Allow for that and maybe a little bit more, so that the object appears as large as it possibly can be, because it's not just one page. A drawing can consist of multiple pages. What I want is to be able to draw on the page size set by Abacus, and when it ends up being a four by four virtual page: four individual pages, I don't want my object to go across two and a half pages out of the four pages. When I say print, get rid of where my object on the right hand side ends or at the bottom, and only render within the page, which could initially be a four by four matrix. Only bring back in the print part of it that which my drawing utilizes, not all of the predetermined four by four matrix: the combination of pages that you provided me for drawing on. In this way, the object when it's actually rendered either in the print mode or on screen is as large as possible, as opposed to just trying to fit it within the dimension of what you predetermined a page size should be. I've forgotten another product that actually did that quite well, and this is why I was able to suggest to them. I even suggested that they look at that particular product to get the concept. This is what needs to be improved in ABACUS. Whether or not they've added my suggestion in their research and development life cycle, still remains to be seen. I should follow up this year, and see what they thought. They received it. They thought it was well thought out. I provided them with some samples, because I had experienced another product that did that quite well. I just thought it would be a good thing as a feature. Other than that, I love what they do within their enterprise architectural space as a software solution. The only one that I found which I would like included in their next release was the utilization of print. Print primarily, if you have a page set up, and you have the ability to have contiguous pages going vertically and horizontally based on the size of your drawings, I would prefer at some time to be able to say that my drawing is one and a half pages as opposed to the full two pages. I would like to be able to say: "Well, hey, this is where my drawing ends." What I'd like is for this product to fix my drawing. What would be ideal is for it to fix my page size so I'll have control over the page size after I complete my drawing, because that way, when you render it on screen, you get to control the viewpoint or the view size based on the utilization of objects on the page, as opposed to defaulting to what the product says, e.g. "Oh, you've gone onto two pages." When really, I've only used up one and a half of those pages. That's what I was trying to indicate to them. What I'd like is to be able to give you my virtual page size and I'm holding you to that.

I use reference models, which are taxonomies, in my EA work. It is a reference model/taxonomy of things with capabilities, sub capabilities, and sub-sub capabilities, so you're working it down. I haven't yet found a simple way to implement that in Abacus. It could be that it is there, but I don't know how to do it.

In the future, there could be improvements in integration and enhancements. A few important enhancements I would like to see would be advanced analytical reports, collective analysis, and real-time analytics. This would increase customer satisfaction.

It doesn't have the simulation capability, which would be helpful in doing some business process analysis and improvements.

One of the usual issues that I have and would like to see improved is something I have already talked to the company about through email support. It is regarding the support of UML (Unified Modeling Language). They are supporting a very old release of UML. I think the version of UML that they are supporting is version 2.1. The specification of this UML appeared 11 years ago. We need this update to manage parts of our modeling more efficiently. It seems Avolution does not think it is something that is of general user interest. We hoped that it was because it is important for what we do. It saves us a lot of time, actually. I hope they will take my suggestion and update it as it will make the product more useful. That is really our main issue for our situational needs. Some people will not utilize ABACUS as an enterprise solution. But actually, we want to extend the usage of this product and include it in our design detail for our enterprise architecture. To link this solution into our architecture is our ultimate objective. There are probably some things that Avolution could add to the product to enhance it and keep up with what some other products are introducing. For example, reverse engineering should be supported. It also does not support some of the common programming languages, like Java. I do stay aware of what other competing products are doing and I can see these features in other tools already. It would be good if they were implemented.

It's an out-of-the-box capable tool. For myself, I think that it works extremely well and it's very useful because, for the most part, I know what I am doing. For some of the functionality, it might be a little complicated for people getting started. The reporting could be easier to configure. In the next release, I would like to be able to float some more menus. When I am inputting information about an object into the database, getting that information entered can be done in multiple ways. This is good but sometimes you have to go to a different screen in order to input additional information.

This solution needs to improve resource usage because it has a heavy browser. It is easy to use, but it takes time to load and to run other programs. It's not about usability; it consumes a lot of resources and memory. The open-source alternative is very light and easy to use on any device. This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price. While this is one of the most powerful tools on the market, it does not integrate well with Microsoft Office or others. In the next release, I would like better integration.

The user interface needs improvement because it is not user-friendly. They need dashboards because I think that it is really important in the market at the moment. Dashboards seem to be the solid bridge between the business and IT departments, and I didn't see anything there. The people that are going to decide to buy the product are the top management, and they are not interested in seeing the everyday operational aspects. Rather, they want to see results, which is why you need dashboards. They have an open door for integration with the model, but that's all. Integration with third-party tools needs to be improved. We did some research on this, and they have open doors with certain tools, but at least in this assessment, it was not clear how to do it. They say that you can do it, but we could not figure out how. So, this is an odd part that I think they can make more clear. I asked whether they have APIs available, or whether we had to create them from scratch, but I didn't get an answer. There is a feature called the versioning of the models, and it is not easy. It is hard because it requires a lot of technical skill to work with a model, process, or another artifact. If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support.

The workflow and the collaboration need improvement.