Get your data in Alfabet FastLane

Up-to-date information is a key challenge to understanding the IT portfolio. One of the most important tasks is to capture your data in Alfabet FastLane so that you can begin using its powerful analytics. Once you have imported the data that describes the objects in your IT landscape, you can begin to understand and align your IT portfolio with the business strategy. Alfabet FastLane recognizes that you may have various data sources or even unstructured data. Some of the data may be simple to add manually or you may have complex data sources across multiple files. Alfabet FastLane enables you to manually input data in easy-to-use data workbenches for the easy cases as well as capture and import data via XLSX files that you download from via Data Import functionalities.

An agile data capture approach that allows you to initially import of large amounts of data and update gaps manually at a later date decreases the initial workload and allows you to derive value quickly. Not all object classes are required at first, and you only need to capture data for the object classes that are relevant for your enterprise. Once the main objects are captured, you can specify the relationships and dependencies between those objects. After the initial bulk upload is completed, you can continue to add more data or update your existing data whenever necessary to manage your IT repository and keep it up-to-date. The imported data will be available in the database and other users in your user community with relevant access permissions can further refine or complete the data input in the context of data workbenches.

The following methods of data capture are available in Alfabet FastLane:

Capture data via XLSX files: Only the Portfolio Admin user profile can import data via the Simplified Data Capture or Advanced Data Capturefunctionalities. These functionalities allow you to capture as well as maintain large amounts of data in XLSX files. You can capture data in XLSX files that are specific to business questions, which allows you to capture data for specific business questions without the need to configure data capture templates. Or you can capture data in XLSX files on a class-by-class basis which is a more involved configuration process. In either case, an XLSX file is generated explicitly for one object class and any existing data in the repository is exported to the XLSX file. You can update, delete, or make no changes to existing data, or add new rows to the XLSX file to create new objects. The columns in the XLSX file let you capture attributes, referenced objects, indicators, roles, lifecycle information, and generic attributes.

Capture data manually: Users with the Portfolio Admin, Portfolio Manager, Application Manager, or Technology Manager user profiles can add and edit the data in data workbenches. This is an effective method if you have only a short and simple list of data to capture or data needs to be periodically updated. For example, if your company has only a few locations or only a few business units, you could easily capture those locations or organizations in data workbenches.