Capture peripheral data

The license package Enterprise Architecture Management is required to work with peripherals. The use case Architecture Governance must be activated.

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.

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 peripheral is actually being used. This is the period when the object state should be 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 peripheral's content area > Overview > Lifecycle Dataand 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. 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. 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.
  • Successor: The next peripheral that will follow this peripheral version.

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

To specify responsibilities for the peripheral:

  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.

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.