Capture business process data

Some companies define their business in terms of a business process model made up of business processes. A business process is a repeatable set of activities that represent work required to achieve a business objective. Typical business processes include marketing services, selling products, delivering services, distributing products, invoicing for services, and accounting for money received.

In contrast, some companies use business capabilities as a governance structure. Business capabilities describe the main functions and competencies about what is necessary to run the business. A business capability is captured as an abstract description of what is done in a company to meet its business objectives independent of the organization's structure, business processes, and people. For example, Support and Services is a high-level abstract description of a business capability whereas Deliver Services is a description of a repeatable activity (business process) that takes place.

A business process rarely operates in isolation. Other business processes will depend on it and it will depend on other business processes. A business process may have as many levels of subordinate business processes as needed, although three levels should be sufficient in the business process hierarchy to describe the value chain. Business processes at the top level are primarily abstract and present an overview of the process hierarchy. The business process hierarchy becomes more detailed on the level of the subordinate business processes.

You company's main business processes should be defined as the highest level business processes. Each business process may have multiple subordinate business processes, whereby it is recommended that the business process model not have more than 3 or 4 levels to provide manageability.

Software GmbH provides interoperability between Alfabet FastLane and ARIS. Both ARIS and Alfabet FastLane maintain data about business process models and objects in the IT landscape in order to support planning and management capabilities. whereas Alfabet FastLane focuses on IT portfolio management and ARIS on business process analysis and management. The available interoperability between the two solutions allows both ARIS and Alfabet FastLane to be used in synergy. If your company is interested in an integration to ARIS, please contact: https://empower.softwareag.com/ContactSupport. A one-time registration is required to access the Empower Portal.

Add business processes to the repository

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

Start with the main business processes in your company and assign each of these business processes a number such as 1, 2, and so on. Next consider the subordinate business processes below each top-level business process and assign a logical numerical system: 1.1, 1.2., 1.3, etc. For example, Product and Client Support and Sales and Relationship Management would be a typical high level business process with Level ID attributes set to 1 and 2 respectively. The business process Product and Client Support ( Level ID = 1) might have the subordinate business processes Research ( Level ID =1.1) and Product Marketing ( Level ID = 1.2). And Product Marketing might have the sub-processes Branding ( Level ID = 1.2.1) and Market Communications ( Level ID = 1.2.2).

In the navigation panel, click Business Architecture > Business Processes to open the explorer for business processes.

Add a new root-level business process. Click the root node of the explorer and click New button to open the wizard to create a business process.

Add a new subordinate business process. Click the parent business process in the explorer, go to the Overview tab and open the Subordinate Business Processes view. Click New > Create New Business Process to open the wizard.

Change the parent of a business process. Click the new parent business process in the explorer, go to the Overview tab and open the Subordinate Business Processes view. Click New > Move Existing Business Process Here to open a selector where you can chose the business process to move to the new parent business process.

Change the parent of a business process. In the Subordinate Business Processes view, click New > Move Existing Business Process Here to open a selector where you can chose the business process to move to the new parent business process.

Edit an existing business process. Select the checkbox for the business process you want to edit and click the Edit button to open the wizard.

Define the business process' basic data. The Go to Step field displayed at the bottom of the wizard should show Basic Data so that you can capture the mandatory information about the business process. Define the following fields and click Next to save your data. All mandatory fields must be defined to create the business process and save it.

Level ID: (Recommended) Enter a level ID for the business process in the business process model. Each business process should be assigned a number in the Level ID attribute. The business processes will be displayed in alphabetical and numerical order. You can leave this attribute empty at first and assign the level ID to your business processes after they have been created.

Name: (Mandatory) The name of the business process. The name should capture the activity that must be carried out.

Business Relevance: (Recommended) Indicates how relevant the business process is for the business.

Mission Critical: The business process is crucial to the organization's business and therefore essential to the accomplishment of the vision, goals and objectives.
Business Evolving: The business process responds to internal and external change and helps to support the necessary steps to transition the organization's business.
Business Enabling: The business process is currently core to the business of the organization and describes what currently exists in the business.
Business Operating: The business process is not unique to the business but does provide the support required to operate the business.

Business Process Model: This field is only relevant if you have an integration to ARIS. In this case, select the business process model that the business process belongs to. If your company is interested in an integration to ARIS, please contact: https://empower.softwareag.com/ContactSupport. A one-time registration is required to access the Empower Portal.
Description: Provide an explanation about the business process.

Assign applications to the business processes

Ideally your company has documented its application . Applications should already be in the repository in order to define the application that supports the business process. Some business questions in Alfabet FastLane can only be answered if the relationships between applications and business processes are defined.

Applications support the company's business processes. For each business process, you should specify the applications that support the business process in order to understand the operational support in the company..

In the navigation panel, click Business Architecture > Business Processes to open the data workbench for business processes.
Select the checkbox for the business process you want to edit and click the Edit button to open the wizard.
Click the Edit button to open the wizard and select Supporting Applications in the Go to Step field.
Click New > Add Existing Application. Select the applications that provide support to the business process and click OK. Click Next in the wizard to save your changes.

Define the users and organizations that have a role for the asset

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 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.

Attach documents and URLs to the asset

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 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 asset 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.