The Visible Business Templates

The Visible Business Template Model is a high-level data model containing nearly fifty business subject areas or object classes encompassing over 600 entities with over 1,000 attributes. Each of the object classes is centered on a “kernel” entity. The kernel entities were established based on their relevance in the business environment. The object classes constructed around the kernel entity vary in complexity. The object class PERIOD, for example, consists of only three entities. Others, such as PERFORMANCE are very complex and consist of between 20 and 30 different entities.

Visible's Business Templates are based on a data model containing:

• 50 business subject areas

• Over 600 entities and

• 1,000 attributes.

The model is fully normalized with a high level of abstraction making the model reusable. Each of the object classes is centered around a "kernel" entity. The kernel entities were established based on their relevance in the business environment. Closely related data are grouped by subject area referred to as business objects.

The Business Templates model is normalized to "fifth business normal form," which means that it truly is relational and can capture business rules as data, i.e., as static values for entity instances (and tables that are readily changeable).

The following list presents some of the object classes used in the Business Templates :

Visible Business Templates

• Cost-effectively develop a reusable, standard enterprise information architecture
• Change your staff's time and focus from continually redefining business functions to designing proprietary business systems that will give you a competitive advantage
• Quickly jumpstart the development of quality data warehouses and EIS's
• Gain the benefits of object –oriented analysis techniques without having to abandon established relational databases and RDMBS technology
• Take advantage of years of modeling and data architecture experience without the time, expense, learning curve, and pitfalls of developing your architecture from scratch
• Integrate or verify the quality of your independent data models.

Visible Business Templates – Key Benefits

• Provides the basis for reengineering the enterprise
• Reduces time and costs of building an Enterprise Information Architecture
• Ensures that new systems will effectively meet business needs
• Promotes the reuse of business objects across the enterpriseStandardizes data
• Ensures information system interoperability
• Improves data quality

Visible Business Templates attempt to fulfill the ideal of total model reuse through familiar objects and patterns. The key to this approach is to consider a model that it constructed out of reusable components; i.e., object classes. Every model contains fairly common object classes developed over and over again in different guises. By raising the level of abstraction, we are able to generalize about the object classes and their relationships within a model - thus the Visible Business Template Model .

Visible's comprehensive Business Template Models provide the basic data architecture needed to build integrated information systems.

The premise of the Visible's Business Templates is that:

1. All businesses, even diverse businesses perform a set of common functions, e.g. Marketing, Sales, Research, Production, Purchasing, Human Resources, etc.,
2. Each business function performs many of the same activities, e.g. Contract Management, Contact Management, Document Management, Inventory Control, Budgeting, Accounting, Hiring, Training, etc.,
3. Many of the activities act on similar data, e.g. organizations, people, skills, products, services, facilities, locations, assets, liabilities, accounts, documents, etc.,
4. In many cases, the similar data is in fact the same data, e.g. Mr. Jones, Ms. Smith, Washington DC, Dallas, etc.,

In Visible's Business Templates, closely related data are grouped by subject areas (business objects). While many business activities can be supported by data from a single subject area, other activities need data from several subject areas. The Business Template Model shows the interdependency of the subject areas. By grouping the activities performed by business function; the subject areas, hence the data, needed to support the business function are determined.

Visible's Business Templates are the result of years of experience gained by our consultants activities an many diverse businesses.

In addition, the model provides the basic data relationships that are not often stated during the “system requirements gathering” phase of major projects.

Visible's Business Templates contain common object classes that support multiple activities; rather than activity specific object classes often developed over and over again in different guises. Recognition of repeating business patterns during the development of business models over the years, has enabled Visible Systems to establish these object classes.

A Top-Down, Component-Based Approach

Consistent with Visible's principles of sound Enterprise Engineering, Business Templates supports a top-down approach. It helps companies jump-start a workable enterprise information architecture by providing a fully normalized, high-quality model of all the common business objects and processes an organization could possibly need. The company then customizes this model, or template, to suit its particular terminology and business structure by defining data and processes at all corporate levels. This top-down approach helps companies transform data into useful, timely, accurate corporate information. The Business Templates assumes that: (1) most businesses perform a common set of business functions, such as Marketing, Sales, Research, Production, and Purchasing; (2) each business function performs many of the same activities in the management of Contacts, Documents, Contracts, Inventory, Control, Budgeting, Accounting, Hiring, Training, etc.; (3) many of the activities act on similar data, e.g. organizations, people, skills, products, services, facilities, locations, assets, liabilities, accounts, documents, etc. By promoting the reuse of the business objects across the various functions of the business system, the Business Templates provides the basic data and relationships that are often not stated during the system requirements gathering phase of major projects. This also ensures that the new system will meet the business needs. Although the concept of component-based application development has been around for many years, earlier tools were only suitable for enterprise modeling and did not provide a mechanism for building entire systems from pre-built components or for defining reuseable business objects early in the life cycle. Visible Business Templates attempt to fulfill the ideal of total model reuse through familiar objects and patterns. The key to this approach is to consider a model as constructed of reusable components, i.e., object classes. Every model contains common object classes and by raising the level of abstraction, the Business Templates provides a common template about object classes and the relationships within the model.

A Template of Business Objects

Business Templates are based on a data model that contains more than 50 business subject areas or primary object classes encompassing over 600 entities with 1,000 attributes. The model is fully normalized with a high level of abstraction making the model reusable. Each of the object classes is centered around a "kernel" entity. The kernel entities were established based on their relevance in the business environment. The object classes constructed around the kernel entity vary in complexity. The object class PERIOD, for example, consists of only three entities. Others, such as PERFORMANCE, are very complex and can consist of between 30 and 40 entities. In the Visible Business Templates, closely related data are grouped by subject area referred to as business objects. While many business activities can be supported by data from a single subject area, other activities need data from several subject areas. The Business Templates shows the interdependency of the subject areas. By grouping the activities performed by business function, the subject area, or data needed to support the business function is determined. Visible Business Templates contain common object classes that support multiple activities; rather than activity specific object classes often developed numerous times. Recognition of repeating business patterns during the development of business models, has allowed Visible to establish these object classes. Visible Business Templates are normalized to "fifth business normal form," which means that it truly is relational and can capture business rules as data, i.e., as static values for entity instances (and tables that are readily changeable).

Constructing an Enterprise Information Architecture

A company using the Visible Business Templates would customize the functions, activities, and data to conform to its enterprise and operational business requirements. First, the company, guided by Visible's skills-transfer consultants, conducts top-down joint application development sessions with executives to determine a vision for the enterprise information architecture. Similar sessions are then held with operational groups. During the process, definitions of key data, business rules, and processes are defined. For example, the company might always refer to customers as "clients" and they define "clients" as having certain characteristics, so the template would be modified accordingly. Then, whenever decision support information was sought on "clients" - such as the growth in the number of new clients during the past quarter - executives could be certain the information was accurate and all-inclusive and would be presented using readily recognizable terminology. The organization of the Visible Business Templates product into "universal" business objects also supports cross-functional, cross-organizational, object-oriented software development. Each business object can be quickly tailored to an organization's specific requirement then implemented in a few weeks as a new information system.

Additional Development Benefits

Visible Business Templates are fully compatible with Visible Advantage, a powerful business management, database design, and application development tool, so that companies can immediately translate the Business Templates into individual development efforts. Complete business objects or selected components can be assembled to build new systems, such as customer information systems, data warehouses, executive information systems, and decision support systems. This approach allows new systems to be assembled-to-order versus made-to-order. Organizations can derive object-oriented process model logic directly from data models. Multiple physical designs can be generated and maintained allowing organizations to cross-reference multiple systems in the same encyclopedia. Each physical design may use a different DBMS.

Data Model for “Organization” Object Class

A data model exists for each business object. A number of business processes are encapsulated around the data, so that each business object can stand alone permitting it has been developed as a reuseable component in diverse applications.