Capture information flow data
Information flows exchange business objects between applications. For each information flow, one application is considered the source of the information flow and the other application is considered the target of the information flow. The information flows transfer the business object that applications either create, read, update, or delete (CRUD).
The number of information flows that an application is associated with helps the application architect determine the complexity of the application, potential redundancies among applications, and the effort involved in migrating or replacing an application.
Users with the user profiles Portfolio Manager, and Portfolio Admin can add and edit information flows in Alfabet. Click for an overview of permission concepts.
Go to Information Architecture > Information Flows to open the data workbench for information flow.
The syntax of the information flow name is: <Source Application> > <Target Application>:
- Click New > Information Flow.
- Click the Navigate
button next to an information flow to open its content area. Specify the information flow's attributes as well as the relationships that the information flow has to other assets in the repository.
Try to capture as much information as possible about the information flow because complete data considerably improves the results of business questions and other analytics.
Alfabet provides different levels of maturity to capture data transfer. If your company has activated Basic Data Management use case, the transfer of data by information flows occurs via business objects. If the Advanced Data Management use case is activated, the class Business Data is added at the leaf level of the hierarchy Business Object Category > Business Object > Business Data. The business data are concrete, logical instances of business objects, which represent an abstract entity such as a customer, invoice, or order. For example, the high-level business object Customer will have the concrete business data Name and Phone Number which is transferred by information flows. Data usage and CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations are maintained directly on the business data.
The documentation below uses the term "business data" in a generic way to describe the transfer of data by a business object or business 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 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 data table, click the Navigate button to open the information flow's content area. Go to the Overview > Connection Data. In the Business Data or Business Objects field, specify the data that is transferred by the information flow.
Specify how the source or target application uses the data. In the Overview page of the information flow, scroll to the Transferred Business Objects or Transferred Business Data page and double-click a business data. In the content area of the business object/business data, go to Application Context > CRUD Matrix. For each business data, select Yes or No in the following columns to describe how the application uses the business data.
- Create: Select if the business data can be created by the application.
- Read: Select if the business data can be read by the application.
- 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 Comment: Provide additional information about the use of the business data by the application.
The following business questions are relevant for the analysis of information flows: