An application is an IT product that provides functionality to end users and supports the business to accomplish its mission. An application has a defined lifecycle and may have predecessor and successor versions. Applications can be bundled in application groups in order to evaluate the applications from different perspectives.

An application differs from a component in that the application directly supports the enterprise's business capabilities, business processes, and organizations via operational business supports. Typically, users will know the application by name and it will have its own budget. Components, on the other hand, do not typically provide functionality to end users but rather provide technical functionality to support an application.

To streamline documenting the application portfolio, it is recommended that the relevant business capabilities, business processes, and organizations in your business architecture are captured in the repository before you capture your application data.

Add a new application: In the navigation panel, click Application Architecture > Applications to open the data workbench for applications. Add a new application via the New  button, or edit an application displayed in the data table by selecting the checkbox   for the object you want to edit and click the Edit    button. Specify the most important information by navigating through the wizard via the Go to Step ​ field displayed at the bottom of the wizard.

• Go to Step > Basic Data: (mandatory) Define the Name, Version, Start Date, and End Date fields. .
  • Object State: (recommended) Describes the operational status of the application and indicates whether it is actively used, planned to be used, or has been used in the past. The application's start and end dates indicate the planned period of activity for the object. Therefore object state should be changed from Plan to Active once the start date is reached.
  • Release Status: (recommended) Describes the level of approval of the documented information about the application. An application cannot be deleted when it has an approved release status. It cannot be edited when it has a retired release status.
  • Authorized Access tab: The users in the user groups specified for the application will be able to see the application in Alfabet FastLane. Only users assigned to a user profile that has read/write permissions may edit the application.

    user group

    A user group determines the visibility of objects. One or more user groups may be granted authorized access to an object. The object is visible to all users assigned to a specified user group.

    user profile

    A user profile determines the preconfigured set of functionalities and views in Alfabet FastLane. Every user must have at least one user profile to log in. The user profile will grant either read-only or read/write permissions to the objects that are visible to the user.

• Define the users and organizations that have a role for the application: Go to Step > Responsibilities: Describes the functional role that a user or organization has for the application. Roles are defined for informational purposes only and provide detail about users or organizations that may have information about or a stake in the object. The user or organization is not required to maintain the application's data. The definition of a role for an object does not impact access rights. Click Person to associate a user with the application. The user can have one of the following roles or a custom role added by your company: Application Manager, Architect, Business Owner, IT Owner and Stakeholder. Click Organization to associate an organization with the application. The organization can have on of the following role or a custom role added by your company: Business Owner, IT Owner, Operations, and Stakeholder.

  role

  A role describes the functional relationship that a user or organization has for an 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?.

• Evaluate the application's indicators: Go to Step > Evaluations: An evaluation is a measurement of the performance of an application. Preconfigured indicator types and possibly custom indicator types added by your company are available to evaluate. The indicator types are bundled in groups called evaluation types. You can define values for most indicator types. Some indicator types are configured to be computed. You can trigger the automatic execution of these indicators via the Calculate button.

  Select an indicator type and click Edit Indicator or click Group Edit to open a dialog where all indicator types can be edited.

• Document the application lifecycle: Go to Step > Lifecycle: An application lifecycle describes the different phases of the planned schedule of the application. The lifecycle phases are Plan, Pilot, Production, Sunset, and Retired. The active period of the application is the time between the application's start and end date. Each lifecycle phase is aligned with the proceeding and succeeding lifecycle phase that has been defined. Typically, the object state is set to Active during the lifecycle phase Production.

Add application groups and assign applications to them: In the navigation panel, click Application Architecture > Application Groups to open the data workbench for application groups.​ The explorer shows the hierarchy of application groups and the applications assigned to them.

1. To add a new application group at the top level of the explorer hierarchy, click the Applications by Group node. In the Root Application Groups view, add a new application group at the top level of the explorer hierarchy.
2. To add a subordinate application group, click an application group in the explorer and open the Subordinate Applications Groups view.
3. To add applications to an application group, click an application group in the explorer, go to the Application Context tab and open the Applications view. You can add new applications or move existing applications to the application group you selected in the explorer.

Specify the business capabilities that the application supports: Go to Application Architecture > Applications to open the data workbench for applications. Select an application and click the navigate button. Go to the Business Context tab and open the Associated Domains view. You can define the business capabilities that the application provides.

When you specify a business capability that the application supports, a reference is automatically created between the business capability and application. The relationship between the application and business capability is called an operational business support. business support A business support is the reference between a business capability and an application and indicates that the application provides operational business support to the business capability.

Specify the business processes that the application provides operational support to: Go to Application Architecture > Applications to open the data workbench for applications. Select an application and click the navigate button. Go to the Business Context tab and open the Business Processes view. You can add the business processes that the application provides operational support to.

Specify the organizations that use the application: Go to Application Architecture > Applications to open the data workbench for applications. Select an application and click the navigate button. Go to the Business Context tab and open the Used Organizations view. You can define the organizations that the application uses.