Capture contract group data
Technology portfolios are defined in Alfabet via contract groups that bundle components. Each component can be assigned to multiple component groups. The components should be bundled in component groups that are relevant to the goals for the portfolio assessment process.
A license to the extension package Contract Management is required to work with contract groups.
Users with the user profiles Portfolio Manager, and Portfolio Admin can add and edit contract groups in Alfabet. Click for an overview of permission concepts.
You can add a new contract group from anywhere in the product via the orange New button in the header. Or go to Business Architecture > Contract Groups:
- Add a contract group at the top-level of the hierarchy. 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. The Name attribute is mandatory.
- Create a new contract group as a child (subordinate) of this contract group. Click the parent contract group in the explorer, go to Overview > Subordinate Contract Groups view. Click New > Create New Contract Group.
- Make an existing contract group a child (subordinate) of this contract group. Click the parent contract group in the explorer, go to Overview > Subordinate Contract Groups view. Click New > Move Existing Contract Group Here. A selector opens where you can chose a contract group and move it to this contract group. The contract group you chose is now a child of the contract group you are working with.
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Edit a contract group. Edit the contract group directly in the data table. Or select the checkbox
for the contract group you want to edit and click the Edit 
button to open the edit panel. -
Navigate to the contract group's content area.Click the Navigate
button next to a contract group to open its content area. Specify the contract group's attributes as well as the relationships that the contract group has to other assets in the repository.
Try to capture as much information as possible about the contract group because complete data considerably improves the results of business questions and other analytics.
Once a contract group is in the repository, you can define more details about it in the Contract Groups data workbench.
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 via the Structure column. Click to learn about how to use data workbenches.
Or you can select an individual contract group in the data workbench and navigate to its content area and specify and analyze the contract group in detail. In the data workbench, click the Navigate button to open the contract group's content area. Go to the Overview page.
Define the contract group's basic data.
- Name: (Mandatory) Enter a meaningful name for the contract group so that users understand its purpose.
- Parent Contract Group: Specify the contract group that is the parent of this contract group in the contract group hierarchy.
- Description: Provide information about the contract group so that other users understand its purpose.
- Authorized Access tab: The user who creates the contract group is the authorized user per default. This can be changed. Select one or more authorized user groups that shall have write permissions to the object. All users in the authorized user group can edit the contract group.
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?.
Responsibilities are based on preconfigured role types. Your company may also configure custom role types via the Portfolio Admin user profile. Depending on the role type, a specified user and/or a specified organization may fulfill the responsibility for the contract group. A user assigned responsibility via a role has read-only permissions to the contract groups. To change data about the contract group, they must also be specified as an authorized user or member of an authorized user group.
Roles can be assigned to a contract group in the Contract Groups data workbench or the contract group content area via Overview > Responsibilities.
Each role column represents the responsibility that a user or organization has for the contract group. A person can have one of the following roles or a custom role added by your company:
- Business Owner: A person or organization that owns the contract group.
- Stakeholder: A person or organization that has an interest in the contract group and therefore requires read-only access permissions.
- Click a column cell to open a selector to define the role for the contract group. Depending on the role column, the selector may have a section for both Person and Organization.
- Expand the relevant section and select the person or organization to assign their role to the contract group.
Contracts must already be in the repository in order to assign them to a contract group. Click here for details about capturing contract data.
Contract groups logically structure and bundle the contracts and allow you to assess the technology portfolio. You can assign contracts to multiple contract groups in order to analyze your contracts from various perspectives.
Click the navigate button of the contract group to open the content area. Go to Overview > Asset Grouping. In the Contracts field, enter the name of the contract you want to assign to the contract group. Or click in the field to open the selector and select each contract that you want to assign to the contract group. Click outside of the selector to close it and update the Asset Grouping field.