Capture IT capability data

An IT capability is a basic capability such as an infrastructure service that is offered in the context of data center operations. Mainframe Operations, Database Management, or Backup & Recovery are examples of typical IT capabilities. IT capabilities can be associated with components that potentially provides support to the IT capability. An IT capability can have an unlimited number of subordinate IT capabilities as well as an unlimited number of subordinate levels in the tree structure. However, an IT capability can be subordinate to only one IT capability at a given time.

IT capabilities are structured in an IT capability hierarchy. Before you begin, you should consider which IT capabilities are your main IT capabilities and which are their subordinate IT capabilities. It is recommended that you conceptualize your IT capabilities in a hierarchy with at least two levels. The top two levels of IT capabilities are analyzed in the context of various business questions in Alfabet FastLane.

Start with the main IT capabilities in your company and assign each of these IT capabilities a number such as 1, 2, and so on. Next consider the subordinate IT capabilities below each top-level IT capability and assign a logical numerical system: 1.1, 1.2., 1.3, etc. For example, Servers, Database, and Programming Languages would be typical high level IT capabilities with Level ID attributes set to 1, 2, and 3 respectively. The IT capability Servers ( Level ID = 2) might have the subordinate IT capabilities Application Servers ( Level ID = 2.1), Web Servers ( Level ID = 2.2), and Messaging Systems ( Level ID = 2.3).

In the navigation panel, click Technical Architecture > IT Capabilities to open the explorer and data workbench for IT capabilities.​ Per default, the data workbench displays only a set of basic attributes. You can add more columns to capture other attributes directly in the data workbench or you can navigate to an IT capability's content area and define it in more detail there. Click to learn about how to use data workbenches.

Add a new root-level IT capability. Click the root node of the explorer and click the New button. The edit panel opens on the right where you can define basic data.

Add a subordinate IT capability. Click the parent IT capability in the explorer, go to the Overview page and open the Sub-Domains view. Click New > Create New IT Capability. The edit panel opens on the right where you can define basic data.

Change the parent of a IT capability. In the Sub-Domains view, click New > Move Existing IT Capability Here to open a selector where you can chose the IT capability to move to the new parent IT capability.

Edit an existing IT capability. Edit the IT capability directly in the data table. Or select the checkbox  DWB_Checkbox for the IT capability you want to edit and click the Edit  dlt-icon-edit_Teal button to open the edit panel.

Define the IT capability's basic data. All mandatory fields must be defined to create the IT capability and save it.

Components must already be in the repository in order to define the components that provide the IT capability. Some business questions in Alfabet FastLane can only be answered if the relationships between components and IT capabilities are defined. Click to find out how to capture component data.

Component support the company to realize its IT capabilities. For each IT capability, specify the components that support the IT capability in order to understand how the IT infrastructure may be at risk due to IT failure.

  1. Click the navigate Navigate button of the IT capability to open the content area.
  2. Go to the Technology Portfolio page and scroll to the Components view to create a new component.
  3. Click New > Add Existing Component to IT Capability. Select the components that provide support to the IT capability and click OK.

In Alfabet FastLane, responsibilities are documented via the concept of roles, whereby each role is based on a preconfigured role type or a custom role type defined by your company. In contrast to an authorized user who has read/write permissions, a person assigned a role for an asset will not have read/write permissions based on the role definition. The role is primarily for documentation purposes to provide information about stakeholders interested or responsible for the asset. If the user should have read/write permissions, they must either be the authorized user of the asset or assigned to an authorized user group associated with the asset.

Alfabet FastLane provides out-of-the-box role types that enable you to understand who is responsible for your IT assets in your IT portfolio. Additional role types that are relevant for your company can also be added.

Assigning users and organizations to roles is critical to understanding responsibility for assets in the IT and is required to answer the business question Who is responsible for our assets?

To define the users and organizations that have a role for an asset, click the navigate Navigate button of the asset you want to define. Go to the Overview page and scroll to the Responsibilities view and open it. Click in a column cell to open a selector to define a role for the asset. Depending on the role column, you may be able to select a person or an organization. Switch between Person or Organization in the selector.

A person can have one of the following roles or a custom role added by your company:

  • Architect: A person who is responsible for the governance of the asset.
  • Business Owner: A person or organization that owns the asset and is responsible for managing the functional requirements.
  • IT Owner: A person or IT organization that owns the asset and thus typically responsible for approval decisions.
  • Stakeholder: A person or organization that has an interest in the asset and therefore requires read-only access permissions.

An organization can have one of the following roles or a custom role added by your company:

  • Business Owner: A person or organization that owns the asset and is responsible for managing the functional requirements.
  • IT Owner: A person or IT organization that owns the asset and thus typically responsible for approval decisions.
  • Operations: An IT organization responsible for the operations of the asset.
  • Stakeholder: A person or organization that has an interest in the asset and therefore requires read-only access permissions.

A generic attribute enable you to capture custom information about an asset. Your portfolio administrator may have already created predefined custom attributes that the object class for the asset you are working with. If this is the case, the preconfigured generic attribute can be added to an asset.

For example, the generic attribute Rationalization Status could be configured to capture whether an application is in the scope of rationalization activities. Thus it would be assigned to the class Application with a default value set to False. As an authorized user of an application, you can add this attribute to your application and change the value if you want to.

To specify a generic attribute for an asset, navigate to the data workbench where the asset is defined. In the data table, click the navigate Navigate button of the asset you want to define. Go to the Overview page and scroll to the Generic Attributes view.

Add a preconfigured generic attribute to the asset. Click New > Add Generic Attributes from Class Configuration. Change the default value in the Value field as needed. The values that may be specified will depend on the type of property defined in the Type field.

Create a new generic attribute for the asset. Click New > Create New Generic Attribute. Define the following fields and click OK:

  • Name: Enter a name that is easy for other users to understand.
  • Type: Select the type of property that the generic attribute is. The field will display standard property types and enumerations. If you select an enumeration, the enumeration values will be displayed in the Value field.
  • Value: Specify the attribute value for the selected object class. The values that may be specified will depend on the type of property defined in the Type field. Other users might copy this attribute. The value you define will be the default value but they will be able to change it for their asset.

Copy an existing generic attribute from an asset based on the same object class. Click New > Copy Existing Generic Attributes. In the selector, select the assets that have the generic attributes you want to copy to your asset and click OK. You can change the value as needed.

You can attach documents to objects in Alfabet FastLane in the Attachments view available in object profiles.

To define a generic attribute for an asset, navigate to the data workbench where the asset is defined. In the data table, click the navigate Navigate button of the asset you want to define. Go to the Overview page and scroll to the Attachments view and open it.

Upload a document to the asset. Click New > Add Document. Select the file from your local drive and click Upload. The document is displayed in the data table.

  • Note that when you upload a document, you must ensure that the document is not encrypted. Encryption might be caused by Microsoft™ Information Protection. Only documents with the sensitivity label "Public" can be uploaded. Other reasons for encryption might also apply due to your company's security policies.
  • The following file types are allowed: .xlsx, .doc, .docx, .ppt, .pptx, .pdf, .zip, .png, .jpg, and .json The following file types are not allowed: .exe, .bat, .cmd, .ps1, .txt, .xml, .wsdl, .html, .svg

Add a URL to the asset. You can define a URL for the selected object. The user must have access permissions to the document and have access to the network path specified in the link and, typically, be in the same network domain.

  • Title: Enter a meaningful title for the URL link to help users understand why you included this URL with the selected object.
  • URL: Enter a valid URL starting with the prefix https://www. or http://www. The URL link may contain up to 511 characters. The user’s Windows® environment must be able to identify the document extension and identify the correct application to open the document. A validation will be executed to ensure that a new URL is well-formatted and does not contain a period <.> without a leading or trailing blank space.

The following browsers support opening the files via the Web link definition in Alfabet FastLane: Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 11.0 and Microsoft® Edge® in conjunction with Windows® 10. Mozilla® Firefox® 24.0 or higher including Mozilla® Firefox® Quantum are also supported but require additional configuration in the browser settings.