Aras Innovator 2023

Release
Graph Navigation User Guide

Document #: D-008110
Last Modified: 12/8/2022
 Aras Innovator 2023 Release
Graph Navigation User Guide

Copyright Information
Copyright © 2022 Aras Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Aras Corporation
100 Brickstone Square
Suite 100
Andover, MA 01810

Phone: 978-806-9400
Fax: 978-794-9826

E-mail: Support@aras.com

Website: https://www.aras.com/

Notice of Rights
Copyright © 2022 by Aras Corporation. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the
Open Publication License, V1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).
Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is prohibited without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Distribution of the work or derivative of the work in any standard (paper) book form for commercial purposes is prohibited unless
prior permission is obtained from the copyright holder.

Aras Innovator, Aras, and the Aras Corp "A" logo are registered trademarks of Aras Corporation in the United States and other
countries.
All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.

Notice of Liability
The information contained in this document is distributed on an "As Is" basis, without warranty of any kind, express or implied,
including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose or a warranty of non-
infringement. Aras shall have no liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused
directly or indirectly by the information contained in this document or by the software or hardware products described herein.

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Graph Navigation User Guide

Table of Contents
Send Us Your Comments ............................................................................................. 4
Document Conventions ................................................................................................ 5
1 Overview ................................................................................................................... 6
2 Opening a Graph View ............................................................................................. 7
3 Interacting with a Graph View ................................................................................. 8
3.1 Graph View Selector .................................................................................................................... 8
3.2 Layout Selector ............................................................................................................................ 8
3.3 Center on Context Item ................................................................................................................ 8
3.4 Fit All ............................................................................................................................................ 8
3.5 Pan and Zoom .............................................................................................................................. 9
3.6 Expand and Collapse ................................................................................................................... 9
3.6.1 Expand........................................................................................................................... 9
3.6.2 Collapse ....................................................................................................................... 10
3.6.3 Selective Expand and Collapse ................................................................................... 10
3.7 Context Menu Options ............................................................................................................... 11
3.7.1 Open Item .................................................................................................................... 11
3.7.2 Open Item Graph View ................................................................................................ 11
3.7.3 Center Node in Graph View......................................................................................... 11

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Graph Navigation User Guide

Send Us Your Comments

Aras Corporation welcomes your comments and suggestions on the quality and usefulness of this
document. Your input is an important part of the information used for future revisions.
o Did you find any errors?
o Is the information clearly presented?
o Do you need more information? If so, where and what level of detail?
o Are the examples correct? Do you need more examples?
o What features did you like most?

If you find any errors or have any other suggestions for improvement, indicate the document title, and the
chapter, section, and page number (if available).

You can send comments to us in the following ways:

Email:
TechDocs@aras.com
Subject: Aras Product Documentation
Or,

Postal service:
Aras Corporation
100 Brickstone Square
Suite 100
Andover, MA 01810
Attention: Aras Technical Documentation

If you would like a reply, provide your name, email address, address, and telephone number.

If you have usage issues with the software, visit https://www.aras.com/support

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Graph Navigation User Guide

Document Conventions
The following table highlights the document conventions used in the document:

Convention Description

This shows the names of menu items, dialog boxes, dialog

Bold box elements, and commands.
Example: Click OK.

Code examples appear in courier font. It may represent

Code
text you type or data you read.

Yellow highlight Code highlighted in yellow draws attention to the code that
is being indicated in the content.

Yellow highlight Red text highlighted in yellow indicates the code parameter
with red text that needs to be changed or replaced.

Italics Reference to other documents.

Note: Notes contain additional useful information.

Warnings contain important information. Pay special

Warning attention to information highlighted this way.

Successive menu Successive menu choices may appear with a greater than
choices sign (-->) between the items that you will select
consecutively.
Example: Navigate to File --> Save --> OK.

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Graph Navigation User Guide

1 Overview
The Graph Navigation application provides a means to visualize and explore complex data structures.
Administrators configure and customize graph views for enabled ItemTypes. Users can open a Graph
View and quickly find related items by expanding the underlying data and opening item forms for selected
nodes in new tabs. This guide explains the built-in, interactive features of Graphs and how an end user
can leverage these tools.

Figure 1.

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Graph Navigation User Guide

2 Opening a Graph View

Graph Views can be configured to display either within the relationship tab of an item or in a separate tab
by calling the Show Graph action on an enabled Item type. Configuration instructions are found in the
Aras Innovator 2023 Release - Graph Navigation Administrator Guide.

Note: The way the graph view is opened may vary greatly depending on how it is configured by an
Administrator.

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Graph Navigation User Guide

3 Interacting with a Graph View

Once you open a Graph View, there are a number of interaction tools and actions available to use within
the Graph View Toolbar. These are described in the following sections.

3.1 Graph View Selector

Figure 2.
Select a Graph View to display from the list of enabled Graph Views for the Context Item. This list is
specific to the user and is based on the context ItemType and user permissions to the GVDs in the
system.

3.2 Layout Selector

Select a layout from the Graph Layout dropdown . Available layouts are:
• Horizontal Tree Layout – A horizontal tree layout is populated from left to right, as shown in
Figure 1.
• Vertical Tree Layout – A vertical tree layout is populated from top to bottom.
• Force Layout – A force-directed layout is populated from the context item outward in all
directions such that interconnected nodes are grouped together.

3.3 Center on Context Item

Click the Center on Context Item Icon to bring the context item to the center of the view. Note that
the zoom level will not change when you click the icon.

3.4 Fit All

Click the Fit All Icon to bring all expanded content into the view. This changes the zoom level and
centers the content so all nodes and connectors are visible without the need to scroll.

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Graph Navigation User Guide

3.5 Pan and Zoom

Use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out of a Graph View. To pan around the Graph View, press and
hold the left mouse button and move the mouse. Alternatively, use scrollbars to pan around the Graph
View.

3.6 Expand and Collapse

The expand/collapse button displayed on each node indicates the state of the node. Possible states are:

No Related Nodes All Related Nodes Some Related Nodes All Related Nodes
Collapsed Expanded Expanded

Figure 3.

3.6.1 Expand

To expand all outgoing connectors from a node, click on the expand/collapse button. You can also right-
click on a node to bring up the context menu and select Expand. To control which relationships are being
expanded, use Selective Expand (Section 3.6.3)

Figure 4.

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Graph Navigation User Guide

3.6.2 Collapse

You can either click the Expand/Collapse button to collapse all outgoing connectors from a node, or you
can right-click on a node and select Collapse from the context menu. Use Selective Collapse to control
which relationships are being expanded. (Section 3.6.3).

Figure 5.

3.6.3 Selective Expand and Collapse

You can choose to selectively expand or collapse specific relationships and properties. Right click on the
expand/collapse button to bring up the selection menu. In the selection menu, use the checkboxes to filter
the expansion and then click apply to expand or collapse the selections.

Figure 6.

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3.7 Context Menu Options

Right click within the Graph View to access the context menu.

Figure 7.

3.7.1 Open Item

To open an item visible in a Graph View, right-click on a node to access the context menu and then select
Open Item. The Item form opens in a new tab.

3.7.2 Open Item Graph View

To open a Graph View with a specific node as the new context item, right-click on a node to pull up a
context menu and then select an available Graph View from the Open Graph View fly-out menu. The
new Graph View will then be opened in a new tab. The Open Graph View option will only be available
when valid Graph Views are available for the context item.

3.7.3 Center Node in Graph View

To center the Graph View on a specific node, right click on a node and then select Center in Window.
The selected node will then appear in the center of the view. Note that the zoom level will not change
when this action is performed.

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