Where to capture Business Services

Post Reply
EntArtJoe
Posts: 35
Joined: 05 Sep 2016, 08:35

Hi There
I'm making good progress with the default model as a base, but I want to use the Business Functions/Service Model report in the Viewer, I have captured Business Domains, Capabilities, Roles, Processes, Activities... But this "Business Functions/Service" report shows an empty table.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong

Thanks
Joseph
jmk
Posts: 137
Joined: 31 May 2012, 12:08
Location: France

Hi,
You have to use the Product_Type class to enter business services under essential

See the following description
http://www.enterprise-architecture.org/ ... _Type.html
EntArtJoe
Posts: 35
Joined: 05 Sep 2016, 08:35

Hi there
Thanks for your reply, I appreciate the pointer in the right direction, may I ask for a simple example because I located the Product_Class in Protege and I thought added some sample data, but still see nothing in the Business Function/Service View. Similarly in the "Business Capability to Business Process Analysis" view I can see my Business Capabilities and Business Processes, but no Applications, even though I believe I have captured the relevant Applications.

Really appreciate any tips on this.

Regards
Joseph
User avatar
jonathan.carter
Posts: 1087
Joined: 04 Feb 2009, 15:44

Hi,

This particular view is driven by instances of Product_Type class. You can scope the view to control which Product_Type instances (Business Service) will be used.

For each Business Service, the view queries the consumers (defined by instances of Group_Role and Individual_Role connected in the target audience slot) of this service. It’ll look for the processes (logical and physical) that are connected to the Service and then the Applications that support those processes.

Start with a new instance of Product_Type and connect it up to the Target Audience and then the Business Processes that are performed to produce / deliver this service and build it up from there in terms of the content.

Note that a Product_Type can be internally facing (e.g. the IT department provide an ‘IT Services’ product to the organisation) or externally facing (e.g. those services that are provided to your customers)

As a side note, we deliberately called these ‘business services’ products as the term ‘service’ has become so overloaded across IT, business and architecture that it has become almost meaningless. Therefore, we took the approach that the the services that an enterprise delivers are its products. Clearly, this fits well with manufacturing organisations as they make products but we are confident that this approach works just as well for service organisations, where their products are the services that they deliver.

Jonathan
Essential Project Team
jmk
Posts: 137
Joined: 31 May 2012, 12:08
Location: France

Thanks Jonathan for taking over ....

I would ask/remark one more thing, while we are at the Product related parts of essential :

How does it come about that Product_types and Products are both in the Business Logical Layer (both are subclasses of the Logical Business) ?

I would expect Products to be in Business Physical as they are implemented by *Physical* Processes ....

http://www.enterprise-architecture.org/ ... ocess.html

Regards,
J.-M
User avatar
jonathan.carter
Posts: 1087
Joined: 04 Feb 2009, 15:44

Hi,

Great question.
What made the decision for us was that in the Business Physical layer we are talking about actual teams, people, sites and so on. Tangible things.

In contrast, the Product class is still a logical description even though it is very specific about that thing. If we make cars, a particular model, Ford Focus could be an example of a Product. But that is a description - a logical definition - of what instances of 'Ford Focus' would look like and the attributes that it can have (e.g. colour, Vehicle Identification Number, engine size). It would not describe a physical instance of the car that has, e.g. VIN XYZ1234.

Or, to take another example, if we are a record company, we might product CDs for our artists' recordings. Each CD would be an instance of Product including its barcoded product identifier, its catalogue number etc. However, it would not be describing each copy of that CD that is sold to consumers.

We decided that Essential probably was not the best place to record and track each individual product that an organisation produces (there could be millions!) and so we omitted the Physical Product Instance class from the Business Physical.

This approach also supports service organisations and helps to demonstrate the wide range of products that are being delivered. In particular it can help show where customers are receiving 'standard' products and where there are bespoke products (customised services) being delivered to customers. For such organisations, again the Product class is used to describe the services that the company is providing to their customers.

Jonathan
Essential Project Team
EntArtJoe
Posts: 35
Joined: 05 Sep 2016, 08:35

Hi Guys
Thanks for the comments and interesting discussion, I'm finding the tool very comprehensive and quite applicable to our organisation. It really helps to have some insight into your design decisions this way.

Regards
Joseph
Post Reply