Capture business data

In the navigation panel, click Information Architecture > Business Data to open the data workbench for business data.​

Add a new business data. Click the New button to open the wizard.

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

Define the business data's basic data. Define the following fields in the wizard and click OK or Next to save your data. All mandatory fields must be defined to create the business data and save it.

• Name: (Mandatory) Enter a unique name for the business data. The use of a comma (,) in the name business data is not recommended. To assure correct handling, the comma (,) will be replaced by a period (.) in conjunction with the display of business data in the CRUD matrices.
• Version: (Mandatory) Enter a version number for the business data. The name and version number of the business data should be unique.
• Data Category: (Mandatory) Assign the business data to a data category. The business data is typically the instantiation of the data category.
• Business Capability: (Recommended) Select the business capability that the business data is relevant for.

  business capability

  A business capability is a high-level description of what is done in a company to meet its business objectives. Market development, product development, and support and services are examples of business capabilities.

• Data Classification: Classify the business data based on data protection requirements. Possible options are: Confidential - Non-Personal Data, Confidential - Personal Data, Restricted, Unrestricted, and Unknown
• Description: Enter a meaningful description that will clarify the purpose of the business data.

An application can be a source of an outgoing information flow and the target of an incoming information flow. The information flows transfer the business data that applications either create, read, update, or delete (CRUD).

1. In the navigation panel, click Information Architecture > Information Flows to open the data workbench for information flows.​ The syntax of the information flow name is: <Source Application> > <Target Application>.
2. In the data table, click the navigate  button of the information flow you want to define. Go to the Overview tab and open and scroll to the Business Data page and open it.
3. Click New > Create Business Data and define the business data's basic information or click Add Existing Business Data to select a business data that is in the repository. Click OK or Next to save the data.

An application can be a source of an outgoing information flow and the target of an incoming information flow. The information flow transfers the business data that applications operate on. The application can create, read, update, delete (CRUD), or process the business data. The application's information flows may also use the business data.

In the navigation panel, click Application Architecture > Applications to open the data workbench for applications.​ In the data table, click the navigate   button of the application whose use of business data you want to define. Go to the Overview tab and open and scroll to the Business Data page and open it.

Select the checkbox  for the business data you want to edit and click the Business Data Usage button to open the editor to define how the application operates on the business data. Select all checkboxes that are relevant for the application and click OK to save the specification.

Specify the usage of the business data by the source or target application or the information flow. In the Overview tab of the application, click either the application displayed in either the From (Source) Owner attribute or To (Target) Owner attribute to navigate to the application. In the Information Context tab, scroll to the Business Data page to open it.​ Select the checkbox   for the information flow you want to edit and click the Business Data Usage button to open the editor to define how the application operates on the business data. Select all checkboxes that are relevant for the application and click OK to save the specification.

• Create: Select if the business data can be created by the application.
• Is Input: Select if the business data can be used by any of the application's incoming information flows.
• Read: Select if the business data can be read by the application.
• Is Output: Select if the business data can be used by any of the application's outgoing information flows.
• Update: Select if the business data can be updated by the application.
• Delete: Select if the business data can be deleted by the application.
• Processing: Select if the application processes information pertaining to the business data. Processing indicates that the business data is handled in the context of the relevant object without the data being altered, created or deleted. The data is typically kept locally so that a desynchronization results between the processed business data and the system(s) of records for the business data.

  Typically, it is not the raw data that is processed but some aggregation or abstraction of the business data (for example, data in an operational data store or an OLAP-based reporting solution).

• Business Data Usage Comments: If required, provide additional information about the business data usage.

In Alfabet, 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 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.

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.

An evaluation is a measurement of the performance of an asset. The evaluation of applications is relevant for many business questions in Alfabet and is critical to have meaningful results in these analyses.

Evaluation types are preconfigured by Software GmbH. Each evaluation type bundles a set of indicator types that are assigned values. Your company may also configure custom evaluation types.

Define the asset's indicators. Click the navigate   button of the asset to open the content area. Go to the Overview page and scroll to the Evaluations view and open it. Click in the Value column for an indicator type and specify the value.

Update computed indicators. Click three-dots button   > Compute Indicators to update the indicators that are automatically calculated based on the values of other indicators and attributes. The computed indicators will be updated based on the current data.

Set all undefined values to the default value. The portfolio administrator who has configured the indicator types may specify default values for the indicators. You can update indicators that have no values defined with the predefined default values.

To enter the default values for all undefined indicator types, click Action > Set Undefined Values to Default. Please note that the updated values will not be reflected in the Last Update field.

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

To define document or URL 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.

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: 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.