Overview of the user interface

Alfabet provides a clean, modern, and intuitive user interface that is easy to navigate. Use the sidebar navigation panel on the left to find your entry point to start working with your data in the content area on the right. Or if you know the name of the asset you want to work with, use the Search field to quickly find the asset you want to work with.

You can navigate through Alfabet by clicking the As you navigate through the user interface, Use the back arrow and forward arrow in your browser to go to views in your navigation history.

The visibility of data workbenches and business questions will depend on the user profile you log in with. The image below displays what users with the Portfolio Manager user profile see.

115_OverviewUI

	Profile menu: Switch to another user profile that is assigned to you. user profile A user profile determines the preconfigured set of functionalities and views in Alfabet. Every user must have at least one user profile to log in. The user profile will grant either read-only or read/write permissions to the objects that are visible to the user.
	Search: Enter the name of the data you are looking for. You can reduce the amount of matches by selecting the relevant object classes to search. object class Alfabet is based on a class model that includes classes like Application, Business Capability, Component. etc. Each object is an instantiation of its object class. For example, an application like SAP@CRM System is an instantiation of the class Application.
	New +: Add an asset to the data repository. Only permissible classes are displayed in the drop-down.
	Notifications: View notifications about triggered processes and files to download.
	Help: Access the help and other means of support. You can also report an issue and even send us your ideas and suggestions.
	Favorites button: Click to bookmark your view.
	User: View your personal information and specify your user settings. The Sign-Out button is also here.
	Search Navigation: Type the name of a business question or object class to show matches in the left navigation panel.
	Home: Return to the start page if you have navigated away from it.
	The content you see in the content area in the center pane depends on your context and user profile. The Home button shows the following pages: content area A content area is a view with a collection of tabbed pages. Each page may have multiple content items such as cards and views. Every asset has a content area where the asset's attributes can be defined as well as other relevant views to capture information. My Dashboard is your start page that you can customize to show the data and views you want. Architecture Summary shows runtime information about the IT portfolio. Business Questions provides quick links to the business questions.
	Click the black three dots menu to add new content or hide content in the content page.
	The content area in the center pane may contain one or more views. Drag a view border to rearrange the layout of the views. Click the view caption to drill down to the view. Click to learn how you can change the content and layout of the content area
	Click any three-dots menu in a view or anywhere else in the product to open a sub-menu with actions.
	Recent Assets: Access the data that you have most recently touched.
	Data Quality Issues: View a report showing data quality issues for the assets that you have responsibility for.
	Favorites: Access your favorite data and views.
	Diagrams: Create and design ArchiMate viewpoints and storyboard views.
	Expand the architecture sections to view your company's UT assets. You can capture and maintain data for assets that you have write permissions for.
	Business Architecture: Capture and maintain data for business capabilities , business processes , locations , organizations , and vendors. 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. business process A business process is an activity or set of activities that represent work required to accomplish a specific organizational objective. Marketing services, selling products, delivering services, distributing products, invoicing for services, and accounting for money received are examples of business processes. location A location is a geographic place that could be a country, city, building, or room, for example. organization An organization is a business-driven governance structure such as an administrative or functional unit in the company. vendor A vendor is a supplier of components.
	Application Architecture: Capture and maintain data for applications and application groups. application An application is a complete installation of a software offering a functionality to an end user. The application might consist of or require other technical components to run. application group An application group bundles a set of applications for an analytical purpose. For example, an application group may be a portfolio of CRM applications to be analyzed. An application may be assigned to multiple application groups and can therefore be analyzed from many different perspectives.
	Information Architecture: Capture and maintain data for information flows , data categories, and business data. information flow An information flow describes the exchange of business data between source and target applications. business data Business data is the information exchanged between applications or components. Business data is transferred by information flows.
	Technology Architecture: Capture and maintain data for IT capabilities , components , virtual servers , and physical server. IT capability An IT capability bundles and structures content-specific components necessary for the IT infrastructure of data center operations. Mainframe operations, database management, and backup and recovery procedures are examples of IT capabilities. component A standard component is a reusable block of functionality that provides technical functionality to an application or to the platforms that an application runs on. Components do not usually provide functionality to end users. Typical components are operating systems, database management systems, or application servers. A component that is used in an application's platform is a local component and is not is reusable. virtual server A virtual server is typically an application server or web server. Virtual servers typically run on physical servers that are located in different locations around the world. physical server A physical server is a hardware device that deploys applications and components. Virtual servers may run on physical servers that are located in different locations around the world.
	Project Architecture: Capture and maintain data for projects and project groups.
	Business Questions: Access analytics about relevant business questions. The business questions are structured in categories for governance, transparency, rationalization, roadmapping, risk, and cloud migration. business question A business question provides business-relevant information about the IT portfolio in the form of graphic analytics. "Who is responsible for our assets?", "What are our investment/retirement candidates?", and "How will IT failure impact our business?" are examples of business questions.
	Expand/collapse arrows: Collapse the left navigation panel to make more space for the main content area. Click to make the navigation panel visible again. Click the symbols in the collapsed navigation panel can to open the corresponding view in the content area. The side navigation panel will expand automatically. For menu items with a sub-menu, the navigation panel will expand automatically and the menu will be expanded so users can click the relevant option.