How to share concepts and concept schemes across models

Semaphore supports sharing concepts and concept schemes across multiple models. Although sharing concepts/concept schemes can be used to quickly build related models, the primary benefit of this functionality is to allow you to centrally manage concepts and concept schemes, and then, when needed, synchronize target models to retrieve the latest concepts, relationships, and data.

This topic guides you through the following procedures related to sharing concepts/concept schemes:

• Export concepts/concept schemes to another model
• Manually synchronize shared concepts/concept schemes
• Configure automated synchronization of shared concepts

Assumptions

Before you start, you need the following:

• A source model that contains at least one concept scheme with a concept.
• A target model. Note that, if sharing only concepts, the model must contain a concept scheme.
• MANAGER, EDITOR, or CONTRIBUTOR permissions for each model.

Export concepts/concept schemes to another model

To share concepts/concept schemes across models, you must first export them from a source model to a target model. After that, you can update the concepts/concept schemes in the source and synchronize them in the target models as needed.

In this procedure, you will export a concept with subordinate concepts (subtree), Siblings, from a source model, Community, into a concept scheme, People, in a target model, Test.

To export concepts/concept schemes:

1. Open the model containing the concepts you want to export (in this example, Community); then, click Open Master or open a task.

2. From the list of concepts on the left, click for the concept or concept scheme you want to export; then, select Export concept or Export concept scheme. The Export <concept_name> window opens.

   

3. Provide values for the following options; then, click Export:

   • Target model: Specify the name of the model to which you want to export your concept. For example, Test.
   • Target task: Specify the KMM task to use for processing this export. If you are using the Master model, and not a task, this value is Master.
   • Target concept or concept scheme (for concepts only): Select the target concept or concept scheme for the export. For example, People.
   • Export with subtree: Enable to include subordinate concepts in the export.

   

Results: If successful, the path to your concepts in the target model is displayed in the Export <concept_name> window. You can centrally maintain your exported concepts from the source model and sync your target model(s) to fetch new subordinate concepts, relationships, and data. See Manually synchronize shared concepts/concept schemes and Configure automated synchronization of shared concepts for more information.

Note: Concepts that are shared between models are indicated in target models with the imported data symbol. Hover over shared concepts for the name of the source model.

Manually synchronize shared concepts/concept schemes

To apply any changes you have made to the concepts/concept schemes in the source model, you need to synchronize the concepts in your target models. If you do not want to synchronize all the changes from the source, this is the recommended way to update your shared concepts/concept schemes.

To manually synchronize shared concepts/concept schemes:

1. Navigate to the target model; then, click Open Master.

2. From the list of concepts/concept schemes on the left, click for the concept or concept scheme you want to sync; then, select Update concept or Update concept scheme. The Update <concept_name> window opens.

   

3. In the Update <concept_name> window, review the objects to be synchronized; then, click Update.

Results: If successful, a confirmation message is returned in the Update <concept_name> window. Any changes to concepts/concept schemes exported from the source model have been synchronized with those in the target model. Note that you might have to repeat this process if you have multiple target models.

Configure automated synchronization of shared concepts

If you prefer, you can set up Semaphore to regularly synchronize shared concepts/concept schemes in the target models.

Caution: Enable automated synchronization only when you want all changes from shared concepts/concept schemes in the source model to propagate to target models with automation enabled. Monitor changes to the source model regularly to prevent unintended updates in target models.

To configure automated synchronization of shared concepts:

1. Navigate to the target model; then, click Open Master.

2. Select Master > Model Settings. The Edit Model pane opens.

3. Select the Advanced Settings tab.

   

4. Enable Enable Branch Sync and select the synchronization interval from the drop-down.

5. Optionally, you can click Synchronize Now to synchronize all your shared concepts and concept schemes in the model immediately.

6. Click Submit to apply your changes.

Outcome

You now have concepts/concept schemes shared across multiple models. When you need to make an update, change the concepts/concept schemes in the source, and then synchronize the target models to retrieve your changes.