Capture peripheral data

The license package Enterprise Architecture Management is required to work with peripherals.

A peripheral is an element in the IT landscape that is outside of the core scope of the Alfabet solution. A peripheral typically represents an application that is managed by business partners, such as an EDI gateway or a B2B marketplace. Peripherals are connected to applications in the IT landscape by means of information flows. In contrast to an application, a peripheral’s local components or business services as well as the details of its technical platform are of no relevance in the Alfabet solution.

The license package Enterprise Architecture Management is required to work with peripherals.

A peripheral is an element in the IT landscape that is outside of the core scope of the Alfabet solution. A peripheral typically represents an application that is managed by business partners, such as an EDI gateway or a B2B marketplace. Peripherals are connected to applications in the IT landscape by means of information flows. In contrast to an application, a peripheral’s local components or business services as well as the details of its technical platform are of no relevance in the Alfabet solution.

Once a peripheral is in the repository, you can define more details about it in the Peripherals data workbench.

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.

Or specify and analyze the peripheral in detail in its content area . In the data workbench, click the Navigate button for a peripheral to open its content area > Overview page.

Define the peripheral's basic data.

Define the architecture attributes.

Define the lifecycle attributes. All attributes in the Lifecycle Data attribute group in the peripheral's content area should be specified before you specify the application's lifecycle phases.

The peripheral's lifecycle describes the succession of stages that it goes through over time. Alfabet allows all stages of a peripheral's lifecycle to be documented from its phase-in to its phase-out of the organization including planning the build and deployment, putting it into production, and sundowning it.

The peripheral's lifecycle is visualized in Gantt charts that highlight the peripheral’s active period, which is the time between the start and end date when the application is actually being used. This is the period when the object state is set to Active. The active period typically corresponds to the lifecycle phases that represent when the peripheral is in production, but this will depend on your company's lifecycle management methodology.

Go to the peripherl's content area > Overview.

Capture general data about the peripheral. Go to the Lifecycle Data attribute box and specify the following.

  • Start Date and End Date: Captures when the peripheral is actively running and can be used in the company. The Object State attribute should be specified set to Active during this period.
  • Object State: Describes the operational use of the peripheral in the real world. Possible values are:
    • Plan: The peripheral is proposed to be used and still in the stages of planning and building.
    • Active: The peripheral is currently being used. The active period begins with the peripheral's start date and stops with the end date.
    • Retired: The peripheral is no longer used.

    The object state should be changed from Plan to Active once the peripheral's start date is reached. It should be changed to Retired when the peripheral's end data is reached.

  • Successor: The next peripheral that will follow this peripheral version.

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 peripheral. A user assigned responsibility via a role has read-only permissions to the application. To change data about the peripheral, they must also be specified as an authorized user or member of a n authorized user group.

Roles can be assigned to a peripheral in the Peripherals data workbench or the peripheral content area via Overview > Responsibilities.

Each role column represents the responsibility that a user or organization has for the peripheral. A person can have one of the following roles or a custom role added by your company:

An organization can have one of the following roles or a custom role added by your company:

  1. Click a column cell to open a selector to define the role for the application. Depending on the role column, the selector may have a section for both Person and Organization.
  2. Expand the relevant section and select the person or organization to assign their role to the peripheral.

An evaluation is a measurement of the performance of a peripheral. Evaluation types bundle a set of indicator types that can be evaluated per asset. Evaluation types are preconfigured and your company may also configure custom evaluation types via the Portfolio Admin user profile.

You can define a peripheral's indicators directly in the Peripherals data workbench or in the peripheral's content area via Overview > Evaluation. The view shows evaluation types in the Evaluation column with their associated indicator types in the Indicator column.

Understand the purpose of the indicator. Click the tooltip button for an explanation about the indicator. Any indicators that are colored orange are calculated by the system and cannot be manually edited.

Specify the value of an indicator. Select a value for each indicator in the Value column. Specify relevant information about the indicator in the Comments column.

Alternatively, click the Edit button to open an editor where you can enter verbose comments, or click the  ThreeDots_Black 3-dots button > Group Edit to edit multiple indicator types at once in an editor format.

Update default values for empty indicators. Click Action > Set Undefined Values to Default. All empty indicators for which a default value has been configured will be updated. Please note that the updated values will not be reflected in the Last Update field.

Manage computed indicators. Any indicators that are colored orange are calculated by the system and cannot be manually edited. To trigger the update of computed indicators, click the  ThreeDots_Black 3-dots button > Compute Indicators. To hide the computed indicators from view, click the  ThreeDots_Black 3-dots button > Hide Computed Indicators.

Go to the peripheral's content area > Overview > Operational Expenses view and open it. The view shows the committed budget for the peripheral. You can capture the costs for all cost types over the specified period of time displayed in the view.

Set the start and end years of the view. Click the  Filter local button and change the First Year and Last Year fields.

Specify the requested budget for the peripheral. by entering the costs directly in the Request column for the year and cost type. You can enter costs in any currency that your portfolio administrator has configured. The available currencies are listed in the drop-down available in the Currency column.

Specify the committed budget for the peripheral. by entering the costs directly in the Budget column for the year and cost type. You can enter costs in any currency that your portfolio administrator has configured. The available currencies are listed in the drop-down available in the Currency column.

Specify the current budget allocated for the peripheral. by entering the costs directly in the Current column for the year and cost type. You can enter costs in any currency that your portfolio administrator has configured. The available currencies are listed in the drop-down available in the Currency column.

Change the currency in the Total row. Click the  Filter local button and change the Total Sum Currency field. The sum in the the Total row will be calculated in the currency based on the currency exchange rate specified by your portfolio administrator.

Aggregate the values for the cost type hierarchy. If your administrative user has specified a hierarchy of cost types, you can display the cost information as an aggregation of the peripheral’s costs along the cost types. Click View > Aggregate Cost Along Cost Hierarchy. The costs will be displayed in the Total Sum Currency filter.

Information flows exchange business data between applications. For each information flow, one application or peripheral is considered the source of the information flow and the other application or peripheral is considered the target of the information flow. 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.

A peripheral may have an unlimited number of incoming and outgoing information flows. The source or target of an information flow can either be an application or peripheral. Neither the source nor the target application/peripheral can have a Retired object state.

Go to a peripheral's content area > Information Context. Scroll to the Information Flows view.

  • Click the New plus button > Create Incoming Information Flow if the peripheral you are working with is the target of the information flow. In the Search for field, select either Application or Peripheral. Specify the source of the information flow in the Source Application field. Y
  • Click the New plus button > Create Outgoing Information Flow if the peripheral you are working with is the source of the information flow. In the Search for field, select either Application or Peripheral. Specify the target of the information flow in the Target Application field.

Specify the following attributes:

  • Short Name: Define an abbreviation of 3-4 letters to display in diagrams and business graphics.
  • Version: Enter a unique version number.
  • Object State: The object state may only be set to active if both its source and target applications/peripherals have an active object state.The information flow must be set to retired if either the source or target application is retired. Possible values are:
    • Plan: The information flow is proposed to be used and still in the stages of planning and building.
    • Active: The information flow is currently and used now. The active period begins with the information flow's start date and ends with the end date.
    • Retired: The information flow is no longer used.
  • Release Status: This is an approval status and typically indicates the level of quality of the information about the information flow. Possible values are:
    • Draft: The information flow has only mandatory data defined.
    • Under Review: The information flow is documented and being reviewed. An information flow with this release status cannot be deleted.
    • Approved: The information flow has been approved by the responsible stakeholders. An information flow cannot be deleted when it has an approved release status. An information flow with this release status cannot be deleted.
    • Data imported: The data regarding this information flow has been imported from an external system. Additional changes may be required to improve the data quality. An information flow with this release status can be deleted.
    • Trash: The information flow is no longer valid and can be deleted.
  • Start Date and End Date: Captures the period when the information flow is actively running and can be used in the company. The Object State should be set to Active during this period.
  • From (Source) and To (Target): You can change the source or target of the information flow to a local component that has been defined for the source or target application. The component name will be displayed in parenthesis behind the application in the information flow name.
  • Connection details: Specify the connection type , connection method , connection frequency , and connection data format for the information flow.
  • Description: Enter a meaningful description that will clarify the purpose of the information flow.
  • Authorized Access: As the creator of the information flow, you are automatically defined as the authorized user per default. The authorized user of the information flow can be changed. You can also define any authorized user group that should have Read/Write access permissions to the information flow.

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

In the data table, click the navigate Navigate button of the peripheral you want to define. Go to the peripheral'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.