Capture vendor data
A well-established and functional vendor management system is an important part of technology portfolio management, leading to better planning of technology roadmaps for better governance of the enterprise technology portfolio. A vendor is a supplier of software purchased by the enterprise. The vendor can supply multiple technological components that are used in the company. For example, the vendor Oracle may provide the components Oracle Database 11g R2, Oracle WebLogic Server 12C, and Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) 7.
You can manually capture vendors or via the import of components from the IT-Pedia® repository. Components can be imported based on IT products from ITPedia®. When components are imported, their vendors will also be automatically imported to Alfabet. The vendor that supplies the component will be specified based on the Manufacturer of the imported product. If the vendor already exists in the repository, the vendor will be automatically associated with the component. If the vendor does not yet exist in the repository, it will be automatically added to the repository along with the new component based on the Manufacturer. Click to find out how to import components and their vendors from IT-Pedia.
In the navigation panel, click Business Architecture > Vendors to open the explorer and data workbench for vendors. 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 a vendor's content area and define it in more detail there. Click to learn about how to use data workbenches.
Add a new vendor. 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.
Edit an existing vendor. Edit the vendor directly in the data table. Or select the checkbox 
for the vendor you want to edit and click the Edit 
button to open the edit panel.
Define the vendor's basic data. All mandatory fields must be defined to create the vendor and save it.
- Name: Enter the vendor’s name.
- Short Name: Enter an abbreviated name for the vendor.
- Website: Enter the URL targeting the vendor's website.
- Description: Enter a meaningful description that will clarify the purpose of the vendor.
- Contact Information: Enter the contact details for the vendor.
IT-Pedia® is a comprehensive IT product library that provides an up-to-date source of data about IT products of all types including, for example, hardware, software, and network devices. Alfabet provides an out-of-the-box integration with IT-Pedia that allows you to import components and the vendors that supply them to the Alfabet repository.
The IT-Pedia Model Catalog as well as the My Product Catalog are available for IT-Pedia integration. When an IT product is imported form IT-Pedia, it is imported as a component. Components and vendors already imported from IT-Pedia can be synchronized on a periodic and ad-hoc basis.
The following data will be imported with the component:
-
Start and end dates: The following table shows the mapping of the IT-Pedia product dates to the attributes for components in Alfabet.
IT-Pedia Product Date Alfabet Component Release Date Start Date End of Extended Support End Date -
Lifecycle: The component lifecycle will be automatically created based on the lifecycle data in IT-Pedia. Components created based on IT-Pedia products may have the lifecycle phase Manufacturer Support or Manufacturer Extended Support. The following columns show in the IT-Pedia selector are relevant for mapping dates and lifecycle phases to Alfabet components:
- Release Date
- End of Support
- End of Extended Support
The table shows how these IT-Pedia product dates are mapped to the start and end dates of the component lifecycle phases in Alfabet.
Rules will apply about what shall happen when there are no dates in the relevant columns for IT-Pedia products.IT-Pedia Product Date Alfabet Component Release Date Start date of lifecycle phase Manufacturer Support. The component's Start Date is the same date as the start date of the component's lifecycle phase Manufacturer Support .
End of Support End date of lifecycle phase Manufacturer Support.
End of Support Start date of lifecycle phase Manufacturer Extended Support.
End of Extended Support End date of lifecycle phase Manufacturer Extended Support.
The component's End Date is the same date as the end date of the component's lifecycle phase Extended Manufacturer Support.
- Vendors: The vendor that supplies the component will be specified based on the Manufacturer of the imported product. If the vendor already exists in the repository, the vendor will be automatically associated with the component. If the vendor does not yet exist in the repository, it will be automatically added to the repository along with the new component based on the Manufacturer.
Import components and vendors from IT-Pedia. In the navigation panel, go to Components to open the data workbench for components.
- Click the three vertical dots
button in the right corner of the toolbar and select Import from IT-Pedia. - Specify whether you want the data to be imported from Model Catalog or My Product Catalog.
- Click the Update button to fill the selector with initial data.
- You can use the following fields to enter search criteria to find the IT products to add to Alfabet. You can enter the name or just part of the name.
- Product: Enter the name or part of the name of the products you want to find.
- Version: Add the version number to limit the results found based on the product name.
- Edition: Add the edition to limit the results found based on the product name.
- Manufacturer: Enter the name or part of the name of the manufacturer of the products.
- Model: Enter the product model name to find the products.
Review the IT-Pedia product data for components. Components that have been imported from IT-Pedia will be added to the Components data workbench.
- Click Structure and select relevant columns for various IT-Pedia product attributes such as Product Name, Product ID, Manufacturer Name, Manufacture ID, Model Name, and Model ID.
- You can add columns to the data workbench to ensure that your components and IT-Pedia are aligned:
- To ensure that a component is kept-up-to-date with information in IT-Pedia, click Structure and select IT-Pedia Enrichment. In the IT-Pedia Enrichment column, select Yes if the component shall be included via the update job that runs daily.
- To ensure that the My Product Catalog is also updated with the component data in Alfabet, click Structure and select Synchronize with IT-Pedia. In the Sycnhronize with IT-Pedia column, select Yes if the component shall be included when you trigger synchronization via > Synchronize with IT-Pedia.
- You can view a composite of all information about the IT-Pedia product that a component is based on. In the data table, click the navigate
button of the component you want to view. In the content area, click More > IT-Pedia Data to view all relevant information about the IT-Pedia product.
Review the IT-Pedia product data for vendors. Vendors that have been imported from IT-Pedia will be added to the Vendors data workbench.
Synchronize the My Product Catalog in IT-Pedia with your component data.
Typically a scheduled batch job will run daily in the background to synchronize component information in the My Product Catalog. You can also trigger the synchronization on an ad-hoc basis at any time.
- Ensure that the Synchronize with IT-Pedia column is displayed in the data workbench and select Yes for the components that shall be included when you trigger synchronization.
- Click the three vertical dots button in the right corner of the toolbar and select Synchronize with IT-Pedia.
The products used to create components in Alfabet will be updated in My Product Catalog in IT-Pedia. The component's start and end date as well as lifecycle and vendor information will be updated. Components that have been deleted in the repository will also be deleted from My Product Catalog.
Merge duplicate components. Duplicate components can be merged to a selected component.
- Click the three vertical dots button in the right corner of the toolbar and select Merge Duplicate Components.
- A window opens showing a list of duplicate components based on the IT-Pedia ID. Select a component that shall be the master component and click OK. The master component will remain in the repository and the other components will be deleted. Any local components, platform elements, or IT capabilities assigned to the deleted components will be moved to the new master component.
- Click the three vertical dots button and select Synchronize with IT-Pedia to delete the components in IT-Pedia and update the My Product Catalog.
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.
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.
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.
- 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: 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.