Discover Aquila, HOPEX's brand-new release, and explore the innovations it brings to drive the transformation of your organization!
HOPEX Aquila provides innovative features that redefine the standards of Enterprise Architecture, Business Process Management, Data Governance, and Governance, Risk, and Compliance.
HOPEX Aquila's enhancements and new capabilities are driven by advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning and include significant benefits to organizations, including:
- Increased efficiency – powered by generative AI and machine learning, routine, time-consuming activities can be automated, and recommendations on IT rationalization and cloud migration strategies are automatic
- Informed decision-making – make data-driven decisions regarding the organization's transformation goals with a new simplified report builder.
- Enhanced user experience – completely revamped UX/UI, making the solution more intuitive and adapted to the user's maturity".
Explore the principal enhancements provided by HOPEX Aquila, outlined in the following sections, with specific improvements highlighted for each solution.
All products
HOPEX Aquila introduces groundbreaking advancements in user interface design to enhance the overall user experience, ensuring that users can seamlessly utilize the solution without requiring extensive training.
Home Page
HOPEX Aquila introduces a new modern homepage that adheres to three core 'user-centric' principles:
- Swift Information Access: This homepage ensures rapid access to information, sparing users to ponder over data locations or search methods.
- Utility-Centered Design: The homepage is purposefully tailored to showcase what is genuinely valuable.
- Full UI Modernization Integration: This screen benefits from the comprehensive modernization of the entire platform's user interface.
The homepage boasts a well-defined and coherent structure, each section serving a distinct purpose and presenting specific data. Moreover, each user can personalize their homepage by choosing a report from the selection at the bottom of the screen in the last section.
Tab management
HOPEX Aquila is designed to facilitate effortless multitasking with its user-friendly multi-tab functionality, allowing users to open and manage multiple tabs in parallel seamlessly.
Card list and 'overview' screen tab on the property pages
HOPEX Aquila introduces a novel 'overview' screen for the centralized presentation of vital object information. Certain objects can be explored within Aquila via a new 'cards list' view on the left panel.
When a user clicks on a card within this left panel, the main screen area is dynamically updated to showcase comprehensive details of the object featured in that card. This screen, aptly named the 'overview,' is the default interface for describing any object within HOPEX Aquila.
Within this 'overview' screen, all primary attributes of an object are prominently displayed, providing a clear and comprehensive portrayal of the selected object.
Tab and section filters on the Property page
Enjoy a personalized experience tailored to your needs and evolving with your maturity thanks to end-users ability to configure modular property pages.
In an object's property page, the tabs and sections in a tab can be modified by the user, who can select or deselect the tabs to display with a checkbox system.
Report navigation menu
The new Reports navigation menu opens a page that allows users to locate their preferred reports or create new ones effortlessly. On the Reports page, users can view their recently accessed reports and access various filters to assist in finding additional reports.
Furthermore, the Report creation page showcases standard and custom report templates at the user's disposal.
Main Search
The main search feature has been improved for enhanced intuitiveness, delivering a superior user experience.
Abstract MetaClasses are part of the scope of the "main search" feature in HOPEX Aquila.
The "autocomplete" feature is triggered when the user has entered at least three characters on the keyboard.
In search results, characters entered by the user in the search bar are displayed in yellow.
Diagram creation
Diagram creation is facilitated through a new wizard, seamlessly accessible from an object's properties page. This wizard suggests the most important diagrams for describing the object.
List view: information on diagrams
In object lists, a newly added column now provides information regarding the number of diagrams describing each object. This enhancement simplifies the user's ability to discern whether single or multiple diagrams describe an object and streamlines direct access to these diagrams.
IT Portfolio Management
Profile simplification
HOPEX Aquila streamlines the profiles that were present in previous versions. Its significant innovation lies in the introduction of a unified Enterprise Architect profile, providing access to all the essential features required for covering a wide scope of Enterprise Architecture use cases, including:
- Application Portfolio Management
- Solution Architecture
- Strategic Planning
- Business Process modeling
- Data Architecture
The visibility and accessibility of these features are contingent upon the user's subscribed solutions (IT Portfolio Management, IT Business Management, IT Architecture, Business Process Analysis, and Data architecture).
HOPEX Aquila's interface follows the principle of progressive disclosure to deliver an optimal user experience. It adapts to the user's aspirations and expertise, allowing them to evolve gradually over time without switching between different tools or desktop environments.
The other profiles available for Enterprise Architecture are:
- EA Functional Administrator
- EA Contributor
- EA Viewer
AI-driven APM
HOPEX Aquila includes a new AI-driven Application Portfolio Management solution offering intelligent application detection and automatic capability mapping features, accelerating EA data inventory.
Empowered by generative AI and machine learning, HOPEX conducts an in-depth analysis of any list of software products, categorizing each of them as an application or technology. HOPEX harnesses the integration with OpenAI to extract information about these software products, ensuring precise results. Users must validate these recommendations before the wizard creates the application or technology in the repository and links it to the original software products. Additionally, users can enhance the element's name and assign ownership, whether it belongs to a portfolio or an individual.
Furthermore, HOPEX's AI-driven APM also furnishes automatic recommendations regarding the business capabilities supported by the identified applications. Like the previous step, users are provided with an interface to validate, add, or remove capabilities before the wizard establishes the links within the repository. This task is made more straightforward by directly visualizing the business capability map, enriched with new application connections.
Smart Analysis
Smart Analysis user experience and the user interface have been fully redesigned. This feature provides recommendations for application rationalization and cloud migration.
Accessing Smart Analyses is now conveniently achieved through the 'Tools' menu under 'Smart Analysis,' and the user journey has been streamlined to just three clicks:
- Choose the analysis type (TIME analysis or Cloud Migration analysis).
- Select the Application portfolio.
- Click on the 'Launch' button.
Recommendations are now color-coded to emphasize the decisions that need to be made, and users can easily select the desired decision from a dropdown list:
For more detailed information, users can click on the 'Visualize Application' button."
IT Architecture
Profile simplification
The number of IT Architecture profiles has been streamlined to just four:
- Solution Architect, serving as the primary user profile.
- Solution Architecture Functional Administrator, offering added functionality like reference data management.
- Application Contributor, with permission to modify all repository content except diagrams.
- Application Viewer provides read-only access without the ability to make any changes in the repository.
All these profiles now enjoy a refreshed desktop featuring an updated UI/UX. Below is an example of the desktop for the Solution Architect profile.
Building Block Version Management
A new mechanism is introduced for managing versions of the main building blocks of IT Architecture (Application, Microservice...).
Version management is achieved by duplicating a building block; then, a dedicated tool allows the user to define precisely what the new version will be made of.
By analyzing the composition and description of the source building block, the tool offers recommendations for each component, suggesting whether it should remain as is, be removed, or require a new version (that will be automatically created).
Capability to upload an image as a sketching background image
Users can now upload images within sketching diagrams, including pictures created with external tools in the HOPEX repository, thus centralizing all documentation related to architectural items.
Business Process Analysis
New BPA desktop
As with the other solutions, a brand-new BPA desktop is now available, featuring an enhanced user interface and user experience. The key updates include:
- A revamped homepage design that incorporates essential KPIs, primary user actions (such as "create process diagrams"), and main report display.
- A streamlined hamburger menu organization, emphasizing primary entry points like processes, customer journeys, and risk-related content.
- Improved navigation, including features like an embedded diagrams navigator within pages to enhance the user's experience.
- Simplified and user-configurable page contents, allowing users to customize tabs and section filtering with a minimal default setup for ease of use.
Process maps
Numerous enhancements have been implemented in the process hierarchy to streamline process management. The key modifications include:
- Renaming 'Business Process' to 'Process Category' across all solutions.
- Renaming 'Organizational Process' to 'Process.'
- We are introducing Process Category diagrams to depict Process Categories, replacing the previous Business Process BPMN diagrams.
- We are introducing new Process Maps, represented by Process Map Diagrams, which supersede the earlier Business Process Overview diagrams.
- Introduction of two new Process Maps contextual reports: 'box-in-box' and 'tree-maps.'
Furthermore, the content libraries have been updated, with APQC modules now accessible in the HOPEX store and aligned with the new 'Process Map' model.
Diagramming improvements
New Intellibar
The Intellibar look and feel have been improved:
New objects are created according to the selected arrow direction: up/down/left/right.
New objects are positioned automatically with a defined spacing relative to the previous object and horizontal/vertical alignment by default.
Intellibar contents have been reduced to focus on the main objects.
Auto layout algorithm improvement
The process diagram reorganization has been improved:
- Objects having multiple links to other objects (e.g., a data object written by an operation and read by another, a risk positioned on two operations) are placed in a better way
- Objects of the same kind linked to one given entity (e.g., several data objects read by the same operation, multiple risks for a single operation) are positioned in a better way
- Inbound/outbound message flows for a single operation are more evenly distributed to avoid overlapping their carried content label.
Data Governance
New desktop for all users
A new Data Governance desktop is delivered in HOPEX Aquila, with an updated UI/UX.
- The new homepage design with KPIs, main user actions ("Search in Business Glossary," "Search in Data Catalog"), and main report display
- Simplified hamburger menu organization focusing on the main entry points: Data Catalogs, Glossary, Architecture, Compliance.
Data Catalog from Quick Access
The Data Catalog search tool is now conveniently accessible through the Quick Access feature on the home page, seamlessly integrated into the design of the new desktop.
Data Reports Template Improvement
The Data standard report templates have been improved in HOPEX Aquila.
Report categories ('functions') have been added, enabling easy filtering in the new report discovery UI.
Governance Risk and Compliance
New desktop for GRC users
The Home Page has been redesigned:
- Help links have been added in the top right corner to quickly access the MEGA Community and the Ideation Forum.
- Three blocks of indicators focus the user on their responsibilities, tasks, and scope.
- Below is an added section with Quick actions, Favorites, and the History of the latest objects navigated.
Interactive Heatmap
Collaboratively and swiftly generate risk heatmaps through intuitive drag-and-drop functionality!
The standard way to assess Risks within Assessment Campaigns and Multiple Direct Risk Assessments has been set to an Interactive Heatmap.
A new Questionnaire Renderer has been created for the Questionnaire Template: the Heatmap, and a fresh Questionnaire Template has been created.
Cards for the main GRC Objects
Cards have been created for the following MetaClasses:
- Risk
- Control
- Action Plan
- Recommendation
- Key Indicator
To explore comprehensive details about all the innovations and modifications introduced in HOPEX Aquila, please refer to the complete Release Note.
Looking to Migrate to HOPEX Aquila? Visit the HOPEX Aquila Upgrade page and the HOPEX Store.
