Version 6.5 brings even more collaboration workflows to Ellie, enabling data teams to bring data product design significantly closer to business teams and key stakeholders.

Whiteboard — Your Collaboration Canvas

This new canvas enables teams to collaborate like they would in Miro or Lucidchart, but with the added benefit of the context of your data modeling tool. It’s perfect for driving discussions with domain experts, capturing business processes, and defining logic.

The Whiteboard brings the same ease of use as Ellie’s other canvases, enabling users to create a flowchart to map processes and complex business logic.

Plus, you can import images to enhance your visual storytelling, add comments to facilitate real-time feedback and collaboration, and brainstorm around your data initiatives — all within one integrated platform.

This streamlines the data product design process and ensures that every team member, regardless of their familiarity with data modeling, can contribute effectively to the conversation.

Personal Collection Workflow

Another addition is the Personal Collection Workflow. In Ellie, the Personal Collection acts as a draft folder where users can model independently.

This upgrade enables users to copy models from the general model collection to their personal collection, make necessary changes, and then publish the updated one to the common repository.

It follows a workflow that’s similar to Git. Users can create a branch of a model within their personal space, make modifications, and then submit it for approval or publish it instantly if they have the necessary permission.

This creates a safe environment for making changes and ensures that only thoroughly-reviewed updates reach production.

Contributor User Type

In response to the needs of large data projects, we are introducing a new user type — the Contributor.

Contributors can only edit models and glossary items within their personal space. To edit an existing model from the common repository, they can use the “Copy and Edit” button to duplicate the model and entities in their personal collection.

They can then make the necessary changes and submit it for review and approval, to an admin or another user with the appropriate rights. The model is available in the shared repository once approved.

It’s particularly useful for companies looking to involve more people in data product design or data modeling, without the risk of unintentional disruptions.

Contributors —  who might be domain experts or engineers but not data modelers — can now make suggestions and improvements in a controlled environment, ensuring that the integrity of the data models is maintained.

REST API Support for Physical Modeling

With Ellie.ai 6.5, we are expanding our robust REST API capabilities to include physical modeling.

Previously, our REST API supported users in importing and exporting glossaries, as well as conceptual and logical models. We are now extending this functionality to enable import and export of physical models.

More details on how to use this feature can be found in our API documentation.

The latest version is now available to all of our customers. If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions, please reach out to us at support@ellie.ai.