Capture vendor data
A well-established and functional vendor management system is an important part of technology portfolio management, leading to better planning of technology roadmaps for better governance of the enterprise technology portfolio. A vendor is a supplier of software purchased by the enterprise. The vendor can supply multiple technological components that are used in the company. For example, the vendor Oracle may provide the components Oracle Database 11g R2, Oracle WebLogic Server 12C, and Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) 7.
You can manually capture vendors or via the import of components from the IT-Pedia® repository. Components can be imported based on IT products from ITPedia®. When components are imported, their vendors will also be automatically imported to Alfabet FastLane. The vendor that supplies the component will be specified based on the Manufacturer of the imported product. If the vendor already exists in the repository, the vendor will be automatically associated with the component. If the vendor does not yet exist in the repository, it will be automatically added to the repository along with the new component based on the Manufacturer
You can manually add vendors by defining new vendors and specifying their data, as described below. Or you can import vendors based on the import of IT products from IT-Pedia® as described in the section Import components and their vendors from IT-Pedia.
In the navigation panel, go to Vendors to open the data workbench for vendors.
Add a new vendor. Click the New button to open the wizard.
Edit an existing vendor. Select the checkbox 
for the vendor you want to edit and click the Edit 
button to open the wizard. The Go to Step field displayed at the bottom of the wizard should show Basic Data so that you can capture the mandatory information about the vendor.
Define the vendor's basic data. Define the following fields and click OK or Next to save your data. All mandatory fields must be defined to create the vendor and save it.
- Name: Enter the vendor’s name.
- Short Name: Enter an abbreviated name for the vendor.
- Website: Enter the URL targeting the vendor's website.
- Description: Enter a meaningful description that will clarify the purpose of the vendor.
- Contact Information: Enter the contact details for the vendor.
IT-Pedia® is a comprehensive IT product library that provides an up-to-date source of data about IT products of all types including, for example, hardware, software, and network devices. Alfabet FastLane provides an out-of-the-box integration with IT-Pedia that allows you to import components and the vendors that supply them to the Alfabet FastLane repository.
Only the IT-Pedia model catalog is available in the integration to ITPedia. Items from the procurement catalog cannot be created in Alfabet FastLane.
When an IT product is imported form IT-Pedia, it is imported as a component. The following data will be imported with the component:
- Start and end dates: The Start Date of the component in Alfabet FastLane is based on the Release Date of the imported product. The End Date of the component is based on the End of Extended Support of the imported product.
- Lifecycle: The component lifecycle will be automatically created based on the lifecycle data in IT-Pedia. The following lifecycles phases are available for components imported from IT-Pedia: Plan, Production, End of Sale, End of Support, and End of Extended Support.
- Vendors: The vendor that supplies the component will be specified based on the Manufacturer of the imported product. If the vendor already exists in the repository, the vendor will be automatically associated with the component. If the vendor does not yet exist in the repository, it will be automatically added to the repository along with the new component based on the Manufacturer.
Import components and vendors from IT-Pedia. In the navigation panel, go to Components to open the data workbench for components.
Click the three vertical dots 
button in the right corner of the toolbar and select Import from IT-Pedia. Click the Update button to fill the selector with initial data. You can use the following fields to enter search criteria to find the IT products to add to Alfabet FastLane. You can enter the name or just part of the name.
- Product: Enter the name or part of the name of the products you want to find.
- Version: Add the version number to limit the results found based on the product name.
- Edition: Add the edition to limit the results found based on the product name.
- Manufacturer: Enter the name or part of the name of the manufacturer of the products.
- Model: Enter the product model name to find the products.
Review the IT-Pedia product data for components. Components that have been imported from IT-Pedia will be added to the Components data workbench.
- You can add columns for various IT-Pedia product attributes such as Product Name, Product ID, Manufacturer Name, Manufacture ID, Model Name, and Model ID.
- You can view a composite of all information about the IT-Pedia product that a component is based on. In the data table, click the navigate
button of the component you want to view. Click the More tab and select IT-Pedia Data to view all relevant information about the IT-Pedia product.
Review the IT-Pedia product data for vendors. Vendors that have been imported from IT-Pedia will be added to the Vendors data workbench.
In contrast to the concept of an authorized user or authorized user group which grants read/write permissions to an object, roles which are fulfilled by people or organizations may also be specified for an object. The role definition specifies the functional relationship or responsibility that a user or organization has to an object. The specification of a role is primarily for documentation purposes and provides additional information about stakeholders interested or responsible for the object. A person assigned to have a role for an object will not have read/write permissions based on the role definition. If the user shall have read/write permissions, they must be assigned to an authorized user group specified for the object.
Alfabet FastLane provides out-of-the-box role types that enable you to understand who is responsible for your IT assets in your IT portfolio. Additional role types that are relevant for your company can also be added.
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?
To define the users and organizations that have a role for an asset, navigate to the data workbench where the asset is defined. You can either:
- Click the Edit button to open the wizard and select Responsibilities in the Go to Step field
- In the data table, click the navigate button of the asset you want to define. Click Overview and scroll to the Responsibilities page and open it.
Define the users that have a role for an asset. In the toolbar, click Person to associate a user with the asset. The user can have one of the following roles or a custom role added by your company:
- Architect: A person who is responsible for the governance of the asset.
- Business Owner: A person or organization that owns the asset and is responsible for managing the functional requirements.
- IT Owner: A person or IT organization that owns the asset and thus typically responsible for approval decisions.
- Stakeholder: A person or organization that has an interest in the asset and therefore requires read-only access permissions.
In the selector, find the user to assign the role to and click OK.
Define the organizations that have a role for an asset. In the toolbar, click Organization to associate an organization with the asset. The user can have one of the following roles or a custom role added by your company:
- Business Owner: A person or organization that owns the asset and is responsible for managing the functional requirements.
- IT Owner: A person or IT organization that owns the asset and thus typically responsible for approval decisions.
- Operations: An IT organization responsible for the operations of the asset.
- Stakeholder: A person or organization that has an interest in the asset and therefore requires read-only access permissions.
In the selector, find the organization to assign the role to and click OK.
You can attach documents to objects in Alfabet FastLane in the Attachments view available in object profiles.
To define a generic attribute for an asset, navigate to the data workbench where the asset is defined. In the data table, click the navigate button of the asset you want to define. Click Overview and scroll to the Attachments page and open it.
Upload a document to the asset.
Click New > Add Document. Select the file from your local drive and click Upload. The document is displayed in the data table.
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Add a URL to the asset. You can define a URL for the selected object. The user must have access permissions to the document and have access to the network path specified in the link and, typically, be in the same network domain.
- Title: Enter a meaningful title for the URL link to help users understand why you included this URL with the selected object.
- URL: Enter a valid URL starting with the prefix https://www. or http://www. The URL link may contain up to 511 characters. The user’s Windows® environment must be able to identify the document extension and identify the correct application to open the document. A validation will be executed to ensure that a new URL is well-formatted and does not contain a period <.> without a leading or trailing blank space.
The following browsers support opening the files via the Web link definition in Alfabet FastLane: Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 11.0 and Microsoft® Edge® in conjunction with Windows® 10. Mozilla® Firefox® 24.0 or higher including Mozilla® Firefox® Quantum are also supported but require additional configuration in the browser settings.