What is Blueprints?

Blueprints is a complete stack for documentation, analysis, and management of a complex information environment.

Interfaces

Web client

We can guarantee that the Blueprints web client is one of the more impressive things your browser can do. It's a full-featured graph workspace, and it will quickly become your preferred way to work with your data.

REST API

Anything the interactive client does, and more, can be automated through the REST API. It makes reaching into Blueprints for information a fast and simple process.

SmartSync

SmartSync agents and extractors can help you maintain the most up-to-date information in your model automatically.

Language

CML

A powerful, compact graph query language, CML allows you to get under the hood of the graph database underlying Blueprints. Build automation, and request diagrams with a topological expression.

Datastore

Graph Database

Graph databases have unique advantages for representing relationships between a large number of entities.

__KIVA

Beyond diagrams

Blueprints™ graphs go beyond static diagrams, giving you a powerful visualization of your structured information. You're able to navigate the data spatially, with the graph reacting to your mouse or touch, communicating useful information about connectivity and status.

When you add new information to the screen, such as another object, or a chain of relations, the graph will fluidly expand and morph as Blueprints™ algorithmically re-flows the document to best present your data.

You'll be amazed at how much time and frustration is saved. Your data always looks great, no adjustment required.

Reactive documents

Blueprints™ graphs aren't just pretty pictures, they're a door into the model, a true "graphical interface". You can use them to pull up more information about an object, trace relationships, or create new ones. You can create or modify different attributes on an object, or change the way it's being rendered.

By harmonizing the visual language of the graph and user interface, Blueprints™ communicates an intuitive sense for how the system works. It's easy to learn, easy to explain - which makes it easy for everybody to use.

Easy to drill down

Blueprints™ strives to deliver a natural and complete menu system that can express all the power of more advanced CML techniques.

When selecting objects or relations to show, they allow you to rapidly "drill down" through different filters and criteria to identify the set you're interested in.

Because each step of the menu is populated with only what matches the criteria of the last step, you can get a sense of the structure of your information.

It also prepares you to use CML, because many of the pages and workflows you develop while using the menus are mirrored in the phrasing of their equivalent CML commands.

Compose a visual topology

Blueprints™ supports composable features that give you the agility to examine and integrate new kinds of data.

The view will be your building block. Views are compact perspectives that you design to illuminate relations and structure in your model.

Specify a view using CML, and the complete selective powers of the platform are placed at your disposal, letting you fluently express millions of searches and questions.

Views will appear in the dynamic menu system, and become valid CML commands available in the report builder, web services, and API.

Create views to apply impact analysis, examine network connectivity, associate business processes, or construct a dependency chain.

Render charts and diagrams

Provide any appropriate metric, across any set of objects, and Blueprints™ will generate pie charts, bar charts, and scatter plots with ease.

Like everything else in Blueprints™, these charts are dynamic, updating automatically to reflect any changes in the model, or any change in your input. Color schemes, labels, and fields can all be configured. Choosing data to render in your plot in your plot is as simple as pulling them up on screen.

Any charts you create, along with any graph or table, for that matter, can be added to a report using the report builder, and all your infographics will be re-generated at the time the report is requested, so that they always reflect the most up-to-date state of your model.

Scan and sort with tables

Because sometimes, you need a table. You can to render dynamic tables side-by-side with the reactive graph, with no loss of information.

Simply highlight any object or relation with your mouse, and its complete composition and history are instantly loaded into tables for your perusal.

This includes every command the object was ever involved in, the user who ran the command, and the date it was executed.

You can edit entries for objects or relations, set attributes, sort by different columns, and highlight parts of the graph by selecting cells of the table.

Create new rows or alter existing ones to create new objects, attributes, and relations, just like a spreadsheet.

The diagram will automatically adjust to your changes, re-flowing the graph and entering your commands into the history. You even get the equivalent CML printed in the interpreter, to help you learn how it works.

Join sessions, share screens

Blueprints™ allows any number of users to simultaneously view and work on the model. By default, each user operates in their own session, with access privleges, personal preferences, command history, current view rendering of the model.

Users can join eachother's sessions, and share a common view described by the options set by the session leader.

Individual users are able to run commands, communicate, and see the changes and rendering they enact together in real-time.

Being able to collaborate over a shared resource like Blueprints™ makes it much easier to keep your team on the same page. Training and consultation can be done inside the tool itself, and consistency is maintained automatically.

Build comprehensive reports and summaries

Not everybody will be interacting with a Blueprints™ model directly, of course. Sometimes you'll need to summarize and present a situation in concentrated form, or compile a handbook, audit, or inventory. For these tasks and many others, Blueprints™ equips you with a powerful report builder that will instantly generate a stunning document to your specifications.

The report builder does the heavy lifting for you, incorporating the latest state of your model, automatically cross-referencing diagrams throughout, formatting a full table of contents, and constructing an exhaustive index.

A simple drag-and-drop interface lets you encapsulate and deliver a comprehensive record of your modeled environment in no time at all. Reports are the "other export option", an attractive, human-readable result.

Organization is about people, and connecting your team, management, and users remains the ultimate integration task.

Craft custom objects and relations

Blueprints™ is just the tool you want it to be. Match it to your problem domain using powerful administration facilities.

Create custom object and relation types with styles, shapes, and colors of your own. Don't clutter menus and models with objects, views, and options you don't need. Disable unused items to further streamline the interface and make it easier for users and technicians to get oriented. With Blueprints™, your model is what you make it.

Administrators can define a schema to govern the allowable behavior of the Blueprints™ model. You have granular control over things like permissible relations between objects or object classes, whether a relation should imply a dependency, and

Set policy and enforce standards

To reduce duplication and encourage a standard convention, administrators are able to specify required attributes and attribute sets that must be filled before an object or relation can be created. It's also possible to set default attributes and annotations. When setting an attribute name or value, users are able to choose from a list of attributes on similar objects, helping to discourage spelling or case errors.

It's even possible to create new menu items and attach them to either the global menu, or to a specific object or relation menu. It's possible to attach links to external documentation, such as disaster recovery procedure, or personnel directories.

Selectively publish views and capabilities

Administrators can publish any customizations to specific users or user groups. Access controls and user privlege levels are available to help organize workflow and delimit select capabilities.

Administrators don't have a monopoly on these features, either. Every user is able to maintain their own personalizations, including views, bookmarks, and reports. In addition, they can access to any material published to their group by an administrator.