Capture business objects
Business objects are the data that is exchanged between applications and their technical components by means of information flows. A business object is the concrete instantiation of a business object category, which represents the abstract entity that is relevant to the company's business.
Users with the user profiles Portfolio Manager and Portfolio Admin can add and edit business objects in Alfabet. Click for an overview of permission concepts.
Go to Information Architecture > Business Objects data workbench and click New > Business Object.
Click the Navigate 
button next to a business to open its content area. Specify the business object's attributes as well as the relationships that the business object has to other assets in the repository.
Try to capture as much information as possible about the business object because complete data considerably improves the results of business questions and other analytics.
Ideally your company has documented its information flows . Information flows should already be in the Alfabet repository in order to define the transfer of business objects.
- In the navigation panel, click Information Architecture > Information Flows to open the data workbench for information flows. The syntax of the information flow name is: <Source Application> > <Target Application>.
- In the data table, click the navigate button of the information flow you want to define. Go to the Overview tab and open and scroll to the Business Object page and open it.
- Click New > Create Business Object and define the business object Add Existing Business Data to select a business data that is in the repository. Click OK or Next to save the data.
Once a business object is in the repository, you can define more details about it in the Business Objects 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 business object in detail in its content area . In the data workbench, click the Navigate button for a business object to open its content area > Overview page.
Define the business object's basic data. All mandatory fields must be defined to create the business object and save it.
- Name: (Mandatory) Enter a unique name for the business object. The use of a comma (,) in the name business object 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 object.
- 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 object.
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 business object. A user assigned responsibility via a role has read-only permissions to the business object. To change data about the business object, they must also be specified as an authorized user or member of a n authorized user group.
Roles can be assigned to a business object in the Business Objects data workbench or the business object content area via Overview > Responsibilities.
Each role column represents the responsibility that a user or organization has for the business object. 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 object.
- Business Owner: A person or organization that owns the business object and understands its purpose for the business.
- Stakeholder: A person or organization that has an interest in the business object and therefore requires read-only access permissions.
- Click a column cell to open a selector to define the role for the business object. 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 business object.
Ideally your company has documented its information flows . Information flows should already be in the repository in order to define the business object 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 object that applications either create, read, update, or delete (CRUD). You can specify multiple information flows that transfer the business object.
- Go to the business object's content area > Overview > Connections > Information Flows field.
- Enter the name of the information flow that the transfers the business object, or click in the field to open the selector. Select each information flow that you want to assign to the business object. The syntax of the information flow name is: <Source Application> > <Target Application>.
- Click outside of the selector to close it and update the Information Flows field.
Try to capture as much information as possible about the business object because complete data considerably improves the results of business questions and other analytics.
Applications can create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) a business object. An application may operate in multiple ways on a business object. For example, the application CRM CSS may create and update the business object Customers.
- Go to the business object's content area > Overview > Business Object Usage.
- Click the Add button > Add Existing Application and select the application that operates on the business object and click OK.
- Select Yes in the following columns that are relevant for the business object.
- Create: Select if the business object can be created by the application.
- Is Input: Select if the business object can be used by any of the application's incoming information flows.
- Read: Select if the business object can be read by the application.
- Is Output: Select if the business object can be used by any of the application's outgoing information flows.
- Update: Select if the business object can be updated by the application.
- Delete: Select if the business object can be deleted by the application.
- Usage Comments: If required, provide additional information about how the application uses the business object.
At any point in time, you can check the data quality of the business object you are defining to see where gaps exist.
In the data table, click the Navigate button of the business object you want to define. Go to the business object'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.
- What are our architecture dependencies?
- How will IT failure impact our business?
- Where do we use sensitive data?