Using Elements, you can build a data inventory of your technology - either automatically for Salesforce (what we call an Org Model) or manually for any other technology (what we call a Reference model). Whether you create a Salesforce Org Model or a Ref model, you can use our product to document any part of your technology configuration, link it to business processes that the technology supports, and link it to planned changes.

When you have synced Orgs belonging to the same implementation (i.e. the production org and associated sandboxes) any documentation and any comment added in one Org model is automatically visible in the other Org models. 

This feature allows Salesforce admins, consultants and developers to stay aware of each other's work and collaborate across multiple environments. Read this article on collaborating using the feedback tab.

In order to be able to add documentation to the Org Model, you need edit rights on that model. Read this article to learn who can make you an editor.

​

There are a number of different attachments that can be linked to an Org and Ref model item and used as documentation. In order to add an attachment or a link, open the "Documentation / In-app help" tab in the right panel for the selected item and then click on "Add documentation". You can also right-click on a node and add documentation from the context menu. 

The standard attachments are: 

Ref/ Org Model nodes can be linked to individual activities in process diagrams to provide contextual information on both ends (i.e. which part of the process this bit of technology supports). You can also use these links as Salesforce end-user help.

In order to create a link between a process activity and a model node, click Copy Node on a node (right-click menu or under the "Documentation / In app help" tab).

Then find the diagram activity you want to link to, right-click on the activity while in edit mode, and select "Org Model Node" under the "Add documentation" option.

You can view the Salesforce metadata links on a process while in view mode after expanding the toolbar by clicking the blue down arrow in the top right corner of the app. You will see blue cloud icons on activities.

Clicking on those cloud icons will show you a context menu of available Salesforce metadata links.

When you link the Salesforce Org Model node with a process activity, you are not just linking this particular node, you are linking the same node from Production & all associated Sandbox Org Models. Clicking on the available metadata from the blue icon will pop up a modal window with the list of all metadata connections across existing environments. You will be able to either navigate to the org models or to Salesforce setup for the selected item, in the selected environment.

In the Ref/Org Model you can roll over the process activity link to see an image of the process & information about the name of the activity, process diagram & map to contextualize the link. You can click on the name of the activity at the top of the rollover to open the diagram in a new tab.

The easiest way to link requirements & stories to a model node is to open the "Changes: requirements/ stories" tab in the right panel and click "Add requirement" or "Add story".

You can pick an existing requirement/story to link to or create a new one.

You can also click Copy requirement on requirement / or Copy story on a story in the Change app, go to the Org / Ref Model node, and then select an option to "Paste requirement" or "Paste story". Furthermore, you can do that either from the "Documentation" tab or from the context menu on a node (if you right-click for the context menu, select Copy reference). When you link a story to a node, you can specify the desired outcome of the story/change to the node as either: Create, Update or Delete.

At any point, you can also hover over a requirement/story in the right panel to see more information. Click on the pencil icon to edit the item directly, or click on the name to navigate to the list of requirements/stories in the main application.

In order to evaluate the level of documentation of your data model you can run a report "Documentation" to see the list of all requirements, stories, process links, rich text notes and URLs attached across your Org. 

For Salesforce Org Models, you can additionally launch Salesforce Org Analytics to see the aggregate data and visualisations on documentation for your Org.