Avolution ramps up digital business productivity with Abacus 5.2 release

Avolution's Abacus Toolset is for enterprise architects that sit astride both technology and business strategy, tasked with delivering timely advice on everything from technical debt management to IoT strategy.

For these employees, seamless data integration is a necessary – not a luxury, says Avolution, a global provider of enterprise architecture.

Avolution recently released the latest version of Abacus Toolset – version 5.2 – which helps architects and digital business managers bring together data feeds from key sources to streamline their modeling and analysis.

This allows them to provide quick responses to day-to-day queries, assessments of opportunities and risks, and technology and business roadmaps.

The latest version includes a range of new updates, including enhanced API, SSO and enterprise architecture reporting.

"Our focus on making data access and integration quick and easy for Abacus users continues, with the addition of an enhanced REST API," says Avolution's Grant Quick.

"By using a stateless protocol, this API simplifies external integrations significantly. It allows data from a huge range of common sources to be exchanged with Abacus, via open standards.

This is additional to current Abacus adapters which allow integration and roundtripping with Excel, Visio, SharePoint, Google Sheets, Microsoft OneDrive, ServiceNow, Technopedia, and CMDBs.

Abacus 5.2 also includes an enhanced Single Sign-On authentication for Abacus Cloud and Intelligence users, which uses Active Directory Federation Services to streamline access for users.

Updates to Avolution's ABACUS Intelligence module provide new dynamic catalogues which boost interactive data analysis, enabling self-service in-browser queries and on-the-go impact analysis.

"Visualisations are responsive," adds Quick. "Filtering one chart allows you to instantly see the filtered data in other related charts as well as other dashboards, providing a seamless user experience.

Updates to a range of libraries include BPMN 2.0, Australian Government Architecture (AGA), BizBok and ArchiMate 3.0, plus import of the ArchiMate 3.0 and BPMN 2.0 interchange standards.

Overall, over one hundred additional updates have been included in the release with the aim of improving workflows and reporting, enabling easy configuration, automations and intuitive user experience.

Matrices can be filtered by connections; catalogue names are fully configurable and project scripts can be embedded inside the project.

Abacus 5.2 is available as either a cloud-based web-app or for on-premise deployment.