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Business data are exchanged between applications and their technical components by means of information flows. A business data is the concrete instantiation of a business object, which represents the abstract entity that is relevant to the company's business.

Alfabet provides two different scenarios to capture data flows in the information architecture . With the Basic Data Management use case, data usage is captured and managed via business objects. The Advanced Data Management use case adds another layer of detail by adding business data to the information hierarchy as instantiations of business objects. Review the navigation panel to understand whether your enterprise models data flows and data usage via the hierarchy Business Object Categories > Business Objects ( Basic Data Management ) or Business Object Categories > Business Objects > Business Data ( Advanced Data Management).

Add business data to the repository

Users with the user profiles Portfolio Manager and Portfolio Admin can add and edit business data in Alfabet . Click for an overview of permission concepts.

Go to Information Architecture > Business Data data workbench and click New > Business Data.

Click the Navigate  Navigate button next to a business data to open its content area. Specify the business data's basic dataas well as the relationships that the business data has to other assets in the repository.

Try to capture as much information as possible about the business data because complete data considerably improves the results of business questions and other analytics.

Specify the business data's basic data

Once a business data is in the repository, you can define more details about it in the Business Data data workbench . Or specify and analyze the business data in detail in its content area . In the data workbench, click the Navigate button for a business data to open its content area > Overview page. All mandatory fields must be defined to create the business data and save it.

Per default, the data workbench displays a limited set of basic attributes. You can add more columns via the Structure column to capture other attributes directly in the data workbench.

  • 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 object in the CRUD matrices.
  • Short Name: An abbreviation of 3-4 letters to use in diagrams and other visualizations.
  • Description: A meaningful description that will clarify the purpose of the business data.
  • 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.
  • DPIA Rating: Evaluate the level of risk to personal data based on the data protection impact assessment (DPIA) required to comply with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Select a value between very high and very low or choose Not Required if a data protection impact assessment is not relevant.
  • Architect: The person who is responsible for the governance of the business data.

Define the stakeholders and business owners for a business data

A role represents a functional responsibility that a user or organization has for the business data. Assigning roles to users and organizations 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 business data. A user assigned responsibility via a role has read-only permissions to the business object. To change data about the business data, they must also be specified as an authorized user or member of an authorized user group.

Roles can be assigned to a business object in the Business Objects data workbench or the business data content area via Overview > Responsibilities. A person or organization can have one of the following roles or a custom role added by your company:

  • Architect: The person who is responsible for the governance of the business data.
  • Business Owner: A person or organization that owns the business data and understands its purpose for the business.
  • Stakeholder: A person or organization that has an interest in the business data and therefore requires read-only access permissions.

To specify responsibilities for the business data:

  1. Click in the relevant role field to open the selector.
  2. Expand the ORGANIZATION or USER sections in the selector and select the person or organization fulfilling the role.
  3. Click OK to save the role definition and close the selector.

Specify the information flows that transfer the business data

Ideally your company has documented its information flows . Information flows should already be in the repository in order to define the business data that is transferred. Some analytics in Alfabet can only be understood if the relationships between information flows and business object are defined.

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). You can specify multiple information flows that transfer the business data.

  1. Go to the business data's content area > Overview > Connections > Information Flows field.
  2. Enter the name of the information flow that the transfers the business data, or click in the field to open the selector. Select each information flow that you want to assign to the business data. The syntax of the information flow name is: <Source Application> > <Target Application>.
  3. Click outside of the selector to close it and update the Information Flows field.

Specify the data attributes for the business data

Capture the data attributes like type (VAR, VARCHAR, NUMERIC, BLOB, and REFERENCE) for the business data.

Go to the business data's content area > Overview > Data Attributes Overview > Create Data Attribute. In the editor, specify the Name and the following relevant fields.

  • Column Number: Enter the position of the attribute within the business data structure. The column number determines the order in which attributes are displayed and stored.
  • Type: Select the data type of the attribute, such as text, number, date, or Boolean value. The selected type determines the format and permitted values of the attribute.
  • Size: Specify the maximum number of characters or digits that can be stored in the attribute. This value defines the attribute's allowable length.
  • Referenced Business Object: Specify the business object referenced by this attribute. Use this property to create a relationship between the current business object and another business object in the repository.
  • Is Index: Select this option to create an index for the attribute. Indexes can improve the performance of searches, filtering, and data retrieval operations involving this attribute. Use indexing for attributes that are frequently queried or used in lookup operations.
  • Cardinality: Specify the relationship cardinality between this attribute and the referenced business object. Cardinality determines how many instances of the current business data can be linked to instances of the referenced business object. For example, the relationship can be one-to-one, many-to-one, or many-to-many.

Ideally, the data attributes specified for the business data are aligned with the data attributes defined for the parent business object. You can check the data attributes for compliance in the content area of the parent business object.

Specify how applications use the business data

Applications can create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) a business data. An application may operate in multiple ways on a business data. For example, the application CRM CSS may create and update the business data Customers.

  1. Go to the business data's content area > Application Context > Business Data Usage.
  2. Click the Add button > Add Existing Application and select the application that operates on the business data and click OK.
  3. Select Yes in the following columns that are relevant for the business data.
    • 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.
    • Usage Comments: If required, provide additional information about how the application uses the business data.

Understand which applications process the business data

Go to the business data's content area > Application Context > Processing Applications. The view shows all applications that operate on the business data.

Per default, the data workbench displays a limited set of basic attributes. You can add more columns via the Structure column to capture other attributes directly in the data workbench.

Check the data quality of the business data

At any point in time, you can check the data quality of the business data you are defining to see where gaps exist.

In the data table, click the Navigate button of the business data you want to define. Go to the business data's content area > Data Quality > Data Quality Details. Expand the table in order to review the data quality issues. Click the link in the Resolution column to navigate to the location where you can correct the data quality issue.

Which business questions focus on business data?