The Balance Parent command balances the currently-displayed diagram against its parent process symbol. To run the Balance Parent report, you must be looking at a child diagram. It is not necessary to select any symbols. Click Reports > Balance Parent.

If the names of the flows going into and out of the parent symbol and the child diagram are different, the system must look deeper into the data dictionary to derive all the data elements being carried by the parent and child flows. If any of the data flows are defined by structures rather than elements, System Architect will continue to search the dictionary until the underlying data elements are found. If the parent and its child both have the same elements flowing in and have the same elements flowing out, they are considered balanced.

Frequently, designers add data flows and complete diagrams before adding the data elements and structures to the flows. Flows that have not been defined with elements and structures, but are stored in the dictionary, will be considered for balancing as long as the flow going into the parent symbol and the flow going into the child diagram have the same name.

Data structures not defined with data elements cannot be balanced.

Under some conditions, the balancing report will also include in its processing doubly-attached flows on the child diagram. Flows attached to externals or data stores can be included in the balancing process if the parent diagram also has same-named flows attached to same-named externals/data stores. A doubly-attached data flow will also be included for balancing if one end is attached to an "annotation" symbol, such as a picture symbol or a presentation symbol. Unlike external or data store symbols, which must be matched by a same-named symbol in the parent diagram, annotation symbols can exist in the child diagram only.

For a list of balance check error codes, see Balance check errors.