Overview
Welcome to the new Ardoq Discover experience! This experience is designed to make it easier for you to find architecture data, view dashboards and reports, and manage your tasks. When you first log in to Ardoq, the Discover homepage is your starting point. Here you will see:
Search Bar: Quickly find applications, capabilities, or people.
Quick Links: Shortcuts to important Dashboards and Reports pinned by your admin team.
Tasks: A snapshot of surveys or approvals waiting for your attention.
My Applications: If your organization has linked your account to a Person component, and you're an application owner, you'll see a widget listing the applications you own.
Watch this video walkthrough to get familiar with the new experience:
Or try this easy visual click-through.
Finding details about an Application (or other component)
Most of the time, you’ll want to find information about components, like applications and business capabilities, and either view their details or see them visualized in their business context. In Discover, you can do this either by searching or browsing the Inventory.
To find a single application, use the search bar when you know the name of what you're looking for. Here are the steps you can take:
1. Log in to Ardoq. As a user with the Contributor role, Discover will automatically be your starting screen.
2. Use the search bar to type the name of the application or another component you need (e.g., "Ardoq").
💡 AI Assistant on Discover
If your organization has the AI Assistant enabled, the Search Bar is replaced with an AI chat input where you can ask questions about your architecture in plain English. Search is still available via Cmd/Ctrl+K or from the sidebar. See AI Assistant in Discover.
3. Click the name in the results list to go to the Overview Page (this is your data sheet).
4. To visualize the component in context, use the viewpoint selector. If your admin has set priority viewpoints for this component type, Ardoq opens one of them first (instead of the default overview). You can find the rest in the picker (the Open view dropdown on the Component Overview page, or the quick-select dropdown and viewpoint side panel in the view), with 'See all [type] Viewpoints' for the full list. You can switch to any other viewpoint you have access to.
Note: Your Architecture team can shortlist one or more viewpoints for each component type so that the most relevant visualization opens first. You'll find them at the top of the viewpoint picker, and you can always switch to another view.
Browsing applications (and other component types)
Use the Inventory when you want to look through the list of all applications or other data. You can access this in two ways:
From the Homepage: Click on the Browse Data callout.
From the Sidebar: Navigate to Data > Inventory and click to enter the overview of different component types (e.g., Applications).
Working with the List
Once you open a list (like "Applications"), you have several powerful options:
Document New: If you need to add something new, click the “Document new Application" button in the top right to start a survey.
Visualize Data: Select one or more items in the table. You can then choose to Open in specific visualizations (defaulting to the Block Diagram) to see them instantly.
Quickly access the applications you own: the My Applications widget
If you're an application owner, you may see a My Applications widget on your Discover homepage, listing every application you own.
To use it:
On your Discover homepage, look for the My Applications widget.
Click the name of any application in the list to open its Overview Page, the same page you'd reach by searching for it.
From there, click Application overview or any other available viewpoint to visualize it in context, just like in Finding details about an Application above.
Note: this widget is opt-in, so not every organization has it turned on, and it only shows applications tied to you through the Owns relationship. If you own applications but don't see the widget, check with your admin: your account may not be linked to a Person component yet, or you may be missing view access to the Person or Applications workspace.
Finding Reports, Dashboards, and Presentations shared with you
There are two main ways to access the reports, dashboards, and presentations shared with you: via the Quick links on the home page or the Sidebar menu.
Quick Links
On your Discover homepage, you will see a section for Quick Links. These are specific Dashboards, Reports, or Presentations that your Admin has pinned for quick access.
Note: This list may not include everything you have access to, only the most relevant items selected by your team.
Browsing all Dashboards and Reports
If you want to see all the dashboards and reports available to you:
Go to the Sidebar menu.
Click on Analytics.
Select either Dashboards overview or Reports overview.
These overview pages list every asset you have permission to view. From here, you can:
Open: Click on any item to view the full report or dashboard.
Share: Click the link icon (top right inside the view) or use the vertical ellipses (⋮) menu on the list item to copy the URL for sharing with others.
Favorite: Click the star icon to mark an item as a favorite (it will turn yellow). You can then use the filters to show only your favorite items.
Filter: Use the simple filtering options at the top of the list to find what you need.
Presentations
Presentations are accessed separately:
Go to the Sidebar menu.
Click on Presentations.
Here you will see all the presentations shared with you.
Press the Play button on a presentation to open it in a new window and play it in full screen.
You can also Favorite presentations here for easy access later.
Completing tasks
If your Admin has assigned you any tasks, these items will appear in the Tasks box directly on your Discover landing page.
You can also manage your work by navigating to Tasks in the sidebar menu. This section provides a comprehensive list of all your active To-Do items as well as a history of Completed tasks.
Types of Tasks
Generally, you will encounter two types of requests:
Data Contribution (Surveys): Requests to provide missing information or update existing records, such as filling out application details if you are an application owner.
Data Approval (Broadcasts): Requests to review and approve data submitted by others. This occurs when you have been selected as a data approver by your Admin or EA team.
How to complete a task
Click on a task in the list (either from the homepage or the left-side menu) to open it.
Review the information or fill in the required fields in the main screen.
Once finished, click the Submit button at the bottom of the form.
The task will automatically move to the Completed section in your task list.
