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CARTANO

The canvases

Thirty-one ways of telling the same truth.

They all draw on the same repository. An application described once appears in the application view, the capability map and the roadmap — without being re-keyed, and with no risk of divergence. The figures below show the structure of each canvas; the studio itself is seen in a demo — on your models.

Data

The angle that neither the architecture suites nor the drawing tools cover.

customer PK id name reg_no country invoice PK id FK customer_id amount issued_on status line FK invoice_id label net_price 1n
ERD · 5 notations

Data model

Entities, typed attributes, keys and cardinalities. Notation of your choosing — crow's foot, IDEF1X, UML, Chen, Barker — without redrawing.

Settles: where the data lives, and who answers for it.
billing.invoice conforming dataContractSpecification: 1.1.0 info: title: Invoice owner: finance-department models: invoice: fields: id: { type: string, required } amount: { type: decimal }
DCS · open format

Data contract

The physical model published as a machine-readable contract — the bridge between the architecture and the data product factory.

Settles: what we promise consumers.
Generated DDL postgres 17 CREATE TABLEinvoice ( id uuid PRIMARY KEY, customer_id uuid NOT NULL, amount numeric(12,2), issued_on date, FOREIGN KEY(customer_id) REFERENCES customer(id) ); CREATE INDEX ON invoice(customer_id);
SQL

Physical schema

The DDL follows from the model, with its types, keys and indexes. Nothing is transcribed by hand, so nothing drifts.

Settles: what actually reaches the database.
BRONZE SILVER GOLD Engineering Analytics Contracts Conformed Readings Deduplicated Total cost
Medallion · layers × roles

Data pipeline

Bronze, silver, gold as columns, the writing role as lanes: where a dataset sits says its stage and who answers for it. Cartano describes the pipeline; the dbt factory takes it from there.

Refuses: personal data served without anonymisation.

Process and business

What the organisation does, before talking about the software that supports it.

Customer Accounting Order Approval Invoice Collect if > €5k
BPMN 2.0

Processes

Lanes, tasks, gateways and flows. The actors come from the repository: a renamed department is renamed everywhere.

Settles: who does what, and in what order.
SELL Prospectinglevel 2 Quotinglevel 3 Contractlevel 3 MAKE Planlevel 4 Producelevel 2 Inspectlevel 3 SERVE Deliverlevel 4 Supportlevel 3 ENABLE Financelevel 4 HRlevel 1 ITlevel 3 lens: maturity — the amber tiles are the least mature
TOGAF · phase B

Capabilities

What the company knows how to do, by domain. Lenses colour the map by maturity, cost or criticality. No connectors — a capability does not call another capability.

Settles: where to invest first.
Request PT 20 minLT 2 d %C&A 90 Study PT 4 hLT 6 d %C&A 70 Approval PT 30 minLT 11 d %C&A 55 Delivery PT 1 hLT 3 d %C&A 95 value-add time 5 h 50 lead time 22 d flow efficiency 3.3 %
Value stream · lean

Value stream

Ordered steps with process time, lead time and complete-and-accurate rate. Flow efficiency is computed — not estimated.

Settles: where the time is really lost.

Applications and technology

The software and the machines, connected to what they serve.

BUSINESS Invoice Collect Recover APPLICATION Billing SaaS Ledger CRM TECHNOLOGY Postgres 17 OVH VPS S3
ArchiMate 3.2

Applications

The three layers and their dependencies, with the TOGAF viewpoints. You see at a glance what falls over if a server does.

Settles: what depends on what.
INTERNET Browser CDN DMZ nginx / TLS API PRIVATE Postgres Backup the band comes from the POSITION
ArchiMate · technology

Technology

Network zones and components. Here an object's band follows from where you drop it — moving a server into the DMZ is declaring it in the DMZ.

Settles: what is exposed, and to whom.
Document - id : UUID + publish() : void + withdraw() : void DataModel - entities : Set + generateDDL() ProcessModel - lanes : List + exportBPMN()
UML 2.5 · classes

Classes

The richest canvas: attributes, operations, visibility, inheritance. Java, TypeScript and PlantUML generation from the model.

Settles: the structure before the code.

Intent and trajectory

Why we do things, and in what order we will do them.

Q1Q2 Q3Q4 Plateau 1 Unified repository Plateau 2 Legacy decommission Plateau 3 Open to partners prerequisite — a plateau cannot start before the one it depends on
TOGAF · phases E and F

Roadmap

Plateaus, milestones, prerequisites and budget envelopes. Dependencies are checked: a plateau cannot begin before the one it depends on.

Settles: the order, and what it costs.
STAKEHOLDERS Board Security DRIVERS Compliance IT cost GOALS Cut by 20 %within 2 years REQUIREMENTS Completeinventory Cost perapplication the band comes from the object's TYPE A goal not linked to a driver is raised as an issue.
ArchiMate · motivation

Motivation

Stakeholders, drivers, goals and requirements, in columns. An object's band follows from its type — you cannot file a goal among the drivers.

Settles: why this project exists.
Executive board Finance department Accounting Management control IT department Engineering position entirely DERIVED Nothing to lay out by hand: the tree arranges itself from the reporting lines declared in the repository. A department that moves moves everywhere at once.
ArchiMate · business

Organisation

The tree of units and roles. No position is entered: it is derived entirely from the reporting lines in the repository.

Settles: who reports to whom.

Adding a canvas, here, means adding a catalogue file — not starting a project. That is why there are thirty-one of them, not six.

Governance & control

The family that changes what the product is: these nine do not draw, they compute a verdict — and block publication until the organisation has answered it. A diagram you cannot hold anyone to is not worth a report.

ArchiMate · risk

Risk register

Five columns, the fifth of which accepts no object: residual risk is computed. A control that is merely planned counts for one fifth.

Refuses: above the declared appetite, with no control.
ADR · by quarter

Decision log

What the organisation settled, when, and what it replaces. Lateness is derived from the calendar — nobody types it in.

Refuses: an irreversible decision with no alternative examined.
Obligation → evidence

Compliance

From obligation to evidence, through requirement and control. Evidence expiry is derived from its declared frequency, never from a typed status.

Refuses: a blocking requirement with no valid evidence.
GDPR · sensitivity

Data classification

Sensitivity bands where position classifies. Moving a data item reclassifies it; a flow that declassifies it is refused.

Refuses: unlimited retention, a transfer with no safeguard.
Radar 4 × 4

Technology radar

Quadrants and rings, position entirely derived. Every item cites the decision that put it there — not free text, the decision from the log.

Refuses: active use of a “phase out” item with no dated waiver.
DORA · RTO / RPO

Business continuity

The promise held against the dependencies. You never come back faster than your slowest dependency — and only the graph shows it.

Refuses: a promised RTO lower than the achievable one.
Versions & retirement

API catalogue

A deprecation stands on two legs: a deadline and a destination. With no retirement date, nothing will ever migrate.

Refuses: migrating to a version that is itself deprecated.
Gartner TIME

TIME portfolio

Two scores per application — business value, technical quality — and the quadrant follows. Nobody picks it, and that is the whole point.

Refuses: condemning the platform that carries what you invest in.
Procurement · deadlines

Vendor contracts

The notice deadline is computed: term minus notice period. Typed in, it would be wrong by the next quarter.

Refuses: believing you are covered longer than your shortest contract.

The UML workshop, and what comes from elsewhere

Six diagrams from the 2.5 standard, plus the two canvases born of a need no notation covered: taking in an existing drawing, and describing what circulates.

UML 2.5 · use cases

Use cases

Actors, cases, includes and extends. The agents' entry point: this is where the need is stated before it is modelled.

UML 2.5 · components

Components

What the software exposes and what it requires — provided and required interfaces, assembled dependencies.

UML 2.5 · packages

Packages

How the code is split into domains. A class cites its package by reference, never by copied text.

UML 2.5 · sequence

Sequence

Participants, lifelines, ordered messages. Order carries the chronology: you reorder, you do not drag.

UML 2.5 · state machine

State machine

States, transitions, initial and final. The shape is the point — a machine has no swimlane.

ArchiMate 3.2 · nested blocks

Application data flow

Building blocks that nest into one another — components, services, nodes — and directed flows that declare what they carry. Moving a container carries its content.

Refuses: a flow with no declared data cannot be specified.
Free plan · no grammar

Free canvas

The only canvas that imposes nothing: the target for any drawing from elsewhere. Faithful entry first — positions, sizes, colours, shapes — and interpretation later, if at all.

Reports: whatever stays “to qualify”, for as long as it does.
Import · draw.io

Your existing drawings come in

Drop a .drawio file: each page becomes a document, positions and colours carried over as they are. Zones are derived from the geometry — nobody declares them in draw.io.

The report states everything that did not make it.

The C4 model

The architecture of one piece of software at three scales, each zooming into the previous one. Go down from a system to its containers, from a container to its components — and the lower level is born already filled with its neighbours.

C4 · level 1

Context

Who uses the system, and which other systems it talks to. The view that non-technical readers read too.

C4 · level 2

Containers

Web app, API, database, message queue: what runs separately, placed inside the system boundary, with its technology.

Flags: an arrow that says neither what it does nor how.
C4 · level 3

Components

Inside one container, block by block. All three levels export to Structurizr DSL and C4-PlantUML.

See it run, rather than see pictures.

Thirty minutes on your own cases. We model in front of you, and we show you a model that refuses to publish because it is wrong.

Book a demo See the canvases