Business Information Modeling Basics Alar Krist Swedabnk Group

Business Information Modeling Basics Alar Krist Swedabnk Group TTÜ külalisõppejõud 5118398 Alar. Krist@Swedbank. ee

Goals – Why we need this course • Knowledge of – essence of data models – data modeling principles, methods, best practices – why, how, when we need and use data models • Skills of – Business data modeling 2

Topics - What we have to learn • What – is a model, what is a data model, types and levels of data model • Why – We need data models model • How to: – Define and model business data • define terms in business glossary • create structural business rules • create data quality rules • Create business information model • Which – Is a good and usable data model 3

Audience • • • Business analysts Business architects Data stewards IT (data) architects IT analysts IT deveopers 4

A basic approach of Data Modeling

Main pattern in real world - events relates parties and things Party Thing Event 6

Things in real world • Things: – – • Physical things (you can see and touch) • ATM, Fixed assets, Goods, physical product, Cash, Safe deposit box, , Branch building, • Geographic area (country, county, address), … Logical object: (you can not touch) • Classifiers (types, groups, …), Financial service / Product, Organization unit, Cost centre • Bookkeeping Account, Time units (calendar- year, month, week, day ) Parties: – – – Individual / private persons • Employee, Private customer, … Legal persons (set of individuals) • Legal customer, Company (with registering number in some registry), household, Association of individuals, Association of companies, … Robots (automated processes, created by persons) 7

Events in real world • Events – Agreed time events • new year, public holidays, … – Irregular events (related to things and parties, just happens, you can not plan) • accident, error, invoice is received, customer call to helpdesk … – Actions (at least 1 party participates, related with things and/or relationships, you can plan actions) • Make a payment, Conclude agreement between parties of providing and buying services, Create Invoice, send invoice, Buy goods, Sell product, call to Client, Log in, … 8

Relationship patterns in real world • Relationship patterns, such as Legal relations, structure of things, arrangements, business transactions, lifecycle events… Usually relationships are results of events – Party: Ownership of legal company, Marriage, Parent – child, … – Thing – thing: car – parts – details, building – room, ATM – building, Cash – ATM, … – Party – thing: party – vehicle, party - house, employee – branch, … – Thing – Event: vehicle – accident, vehicle – rental, ATM – ending cash, ATM – error, – Party – thing – event: agreement (customer, service provider, service, signing agreement), party rents a car, – Party – Event: party – birth, party – death, employee – holiday, – Event – event: car accident – fixing the car, ATM ending cash – adding cash, 9

Main patterns in real world - detailed Party type Event type Party Thing type Thing Event Party relationship Event relationship Thing structure 10

Examples of main pattern • Events releates parties – A Child borns to a mother (and to a father) – Woman and man get married, . . . diversed, • Events relates parties and things – Customer books a car, customer rents a car – Student studies a course, teacher leads a cource • Events happends with parties – Person borns, accident happends with person, person dies – Company has created (by persons)? , company has closed (by. . . ) – Design and construct a Car, sell, buy, register a car • Events happends with things – Accident with a car, preparation of a car 11

A general process how to create Business Information Model

The essence of Business Information Model BIM = Definitions of business concepts + Business rules how concepts are related + Visual model based on concepts and rules Visual Business Information Model (set of diagrams) Based on Definitions of business concepts (in business glossary) Based on Definitions of structural business rules (in business rule repository) 13

General motivation – Why we need unified BIM • • • For common business language For clear understanding the business concepts and rules For better communication between business units • • For better communication between business and IT people For describing business information requirements for IT systems – • • What information is required by business For reducing integration costs between business units, business services and IT systems For better context of projects within Swedbank 14

How to create BIM - summary of deliverables, activities and roles Activities Results Common Definitions of business concepts delivers 1. Define business concepts Roles Performs business specialists, business architects, business analysts uses Structural business rules – How concepts are related 2. Define structural business rules Overall visual (entity level) Business Information Models 3 a. Create Overal Business Information Models Conceptualist, Moderator, Information modeler responsible Detail visual (attribute level) Business Information Models 3 b. Create Detail Business Information Models Business responsible, including information responsible

How to create BIM – iterative and incremental process 1. Define business concepts 3. Create visual Model 2. Define business concepts 2. Define structural business rules 1. Create visual Model 3. Define structural business rules 16

Description of BIM creation iterative process 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Gather and define main (entity level) business concepts, - such as Party, Customer, Organisation, Cost center, etc. Gather and describe structural business rules for main concepts, - such as one party may have 0 to many Physical Addresses Draw the entity level BIM by visualisation of main business concepts and their relationships (both subtyping and multiplicity relationships) based on structural rules Gather and define detail (attribute level) business concepts - such as first name, birth date, gender of individual Party Gather and define structural business rules of relationships between main (entity level) concepts and detail (property level) concepts, such as - Legal Party has exactly one business name in one Language; - Party has exactly one (or many? ) residency country, - Party has many communication Languages Draw the attribute level BIM by visualising all detail (attribute level) concepts Analyse and decide when some detail (attribute level) concept should be a separate main (entity level) concept - such as Party communication language, Party skill, Party residency country 17

Visual BIM - notation overview

1. Define business concepts 19

What is a business concept, term and definition • Concepts are the constituents of thought which mirrors things of the real world (people, things, events, and so on). We can talk about concepts only by using terms (signs) • Term is a name of a concept in some language • Definition is a statement which describes the structure, meaning and borders of a concept • A business glossary is a structured environment for managing definitions of concepts 20

Business terms and concepts • • • Things, Parties, Events in Real World Concept are “pictures” in “our” mind Term is a name of a concept in a language Concept Term World 21

Simplified relationships - from real world to data stores Real world Our Mind Business glossary & Rule repository BIM (business information requirements) IT logical data model (IT design decisions) IT physical data model (structure of a data store) Things Concepts Terms & definitions Business information entity Entity Table / record Properties of things Properties of Terms & concepts definitions Business information attribute Attribute Column / field relationship between things relationship between concepts relationship between business entities Logical primary and foreign keys Physical primary and foreign key constraints Business rules how terms are related 22

A preferred structure of definition • Main components of definitions – A: IS A – more generic concept / super type – B: HAS A – what is different from more generic concept – C: USED FOR – main purpose / usage – D: examples • A good, sound definition must make explicit at least two out of three of these components • For example: Customer of a company is – A: a party – B: which has a signed a valid agreement with our company to buy our products / services – C: which uses our services (products) and pays for it – D: Statoil, Alar Krist 23

Why we need definitions of business concepts • • • For common business language For clear understanding the business concepts For better communication between business and IT • For a basis for business information models and business rules 24

Short guide - How to define business concepts • Find out important nouns from business documents / description – • nouns are candidates for terms on things and persons Find out important verbs from business documents / description – verbs are candidates for terms on events • • Put candidate terms into glossary Decide and separate (mark) candidates for main business concepts (business entities) and properties (attributes) of main business concepts • First define main concepts by using preferred structure of a definition – – • • A: reference to more generic cocept / super type B: define what differs this concept from the more generic cocept C: define main purpose of this concept D: examples Define all additional concept used in definition Define all properties (attributes) of main concepts 25

Short checklist - which is a good definition of business terms / concepts • • must open the meaning of a term should be understandable, clear, exact and complete must define boundaries of a concept, must say what it out and what is in all terms used in the definition should be either defined in the glossary or be considered atomic/basic terms • should never be a tautology, for example – Customer ID is defined as “The identifier of the Customer. ” do Not Include Definitions within Definitions do Not Make Definitions Circular – Day: Twenty-four hours, Hour: One twenty-fourth part of a day • • 26

Examples of definition of business terms • Party is any individual or legal entity having any relation with our company – Examples: Coca Cola, Kalev, • Party role Identifies Party's relations with our company – Examples: Customer, Employee, Prospect, Partner, • Customer is a Party role of a party who is holder of agreement for product with our company • Party name is the name written on acceptable document or in official registry • Party identification number is an Unique identifier of Party issued by an approved authority – Examples: personal identification code, business registry number, VAT number, 27

2. Define structural business rules (how concepts are related) 28

What is a structural business rule • A structural business rule is a rule about how the business chooses to organize (i. e. ‘structure’) the concepts, how business concepts are related. Structural Rules supplement definitions of the concepts • • A Rule is an explicit regulation describing what is possible or allowable A Business rule is a business requirement expressed in non-procedural and non-technical form which represents a statement about business behavior. Business rules are subset of business requirements A Business rule is a rule that is under business jurisdiction. Laws of physics should be relevant to a company; legislation and regulations may be imposed on it; external standards and best practices may be adopted. • 29

Motivation - Why we need structural business rules • For clear understanding in natural business language – how concepts are related, what is possible or allowed and what is not • For supplementing and explaining definitions of the concepts, the meaning of concept is more clear when we know how concepts are related • A main basis for building business information model • For communication and verification of main business rules between business lines, between business and IT • For verification of business information model and IT data models 30

Short guide - How to define structural business rules • • • Find out main concepts in glossary Identify candidates of related concepts from description of business (business processes, legal documents, . . . ) Analyse and identify the multiplicity of relationship – – – • • Use general relationship patterns (Thing-Thing, Thing-Event-Person, Person-Person, Thing-Event, Person–Event, Event–Event) as supporting guide for finding out relationships between main concepts Write down simple statements how concepts are related from both side – • 1: m (concept A is related to 0, 1 or many concept B) 1: 1 (concept A is related exactly to 1 concept B) m: n (concept A is related to many concept B and concept B is related to many concept A) for example one individual person has 1 or many identification documents; one identification document is owned by exactly one individual person Group structural business rules by main concepts 31

Which is a good structural business rule • Understandable by all stakeholders that may use it: – Use business not IT terminology and simple language (e. g. English) • Clear: – Each party who may use a rule statement must interpret the rule in the same way • Set of Structural rules should be Complete – All necessary rules are included • Set of Structural rules should be Consistent – No 2 rule statements conflict with, overlap with or duplicate each other • Must be defined, managed, accepted directly by business 32

Examples of structural business rules • One Party has 1 or many identification documents; an identification document is owned by exactly one party • One Party has 0 or many e-mail addresses; one e-mail address is assigned for exactly one party? • One Party has 1 or many communication language; one language is communication languaga for many parties • Customer has exactly 1 preferred communication language • Customer may have 0 or exactly one main manager; one manager is a main manager for many customers • One Individual party may have 0 or many citizenship (in different countries) 33

3. Create Overall Business Information Model 34

What is a Overall Business Information Model (O-BIM) • O-BIM is a higl level visualized description of business information requirements (what data business needs on business concepts) • O-BIM consists of main business concepts (business information entities) and main relationships between concepts. • O-BIM is created and managed by business • A Conceptual data model is a data model that contains objects such as entities, main essential attributes, main relationships between entities. Usually created by IT architects having data modeling skills. A conceptual data model is not a business model. 35

Main method – how to create overal O-BIM • Decide and model main business information entities – inputs: Main concepts in business glossary, existing similar Business Information Models • Define and model subtypes of main concepts – Inputs: Definitions of concepts (which are defined by using super types) • Define and model multiplicity relationships – inputs: structural business rules in business rule repository 36

Short guide – how to create overal O-BIM • Find definitions of main concepts from business glossary – • Put a main concept on a diagram – • Address, identification document, party role, . . . Find structural business rules (how concepts are related) about main and related concepts – • A) Individual party, legal entity B) customer, partner, prospect, . . . Find from glossary definitions of related concepts of main concept – • Party Model (visualize) subtypes based on super types and subtypes used in definitions – • For example: party is. . . Party has 0 to many addresses, Customer has exactly 1 main address, . . . Model (visualize) multiplicity relationships (1: m, 1: 1, m: n) between concepts based on structural business rules – Party 1: m Address, Party 1: m Identification document, Party m: 1 Party role 37

Why we need Overall Business Information models • Understand validate business concepts and structural business rules by visualizing them • Describe and communicate business concepts and structural business rules in common formal visual language • Define and Communicate general business information requirements for IT 38

Which is a good overal BIM • should be understandable and clear • all concepts used in the model should be defined in the glossary • All relationships visualised on the model should be based on structural business rules described in rule repository • Readable: – Set of A 4 diagrams, • Main concept in the middle of a diagram • Separate diagram for complete suptyping • Sepatare diagram for 1: m, 1: 1, m: n relationships between concepts – 7 +/- 2 visual objects (contcepts) on one A 4 – Text size minimum 12 39

Example of a diagram of Overall Party BIM 40

Additional material on Business Information Model • See Business Information Model – http: //www. tdan. com/view-articles/12655 41

4. Create Detail Business Information Model 42

What is a Detail Business Information model (D-BIM) • D-BIM is an extension of overall BIM. Describes more detail business information requirements (what data business needs) • D-BIM consists of business information entities (concepts), all needed detail business information attributes of main business entities (concepts) and main relationships between business information entities (concepts). • D-BIM is created and managed by business. 43

Why we need a Detail Business Information Model • For understanding detail level business information requirements in a simple visual format • Main purpose is communication between business and IT • An important input for next detail level IT data models 44

How Create Detail Business Information model • Extend overall Business Information model: – Add all detail information attributes of main information entities – Add additional business information entities if needed – Add additional relationships between concepts if needed • No IT design decisions – just defining and visualization of information business requirements 45

Which should be a Detail Business Information model • All business information attributes what are visualised on D-BIM should be defined in business glossary • Should be understandable, clear and complete • Should define boundaries of an information subject area (e. g. Party, Agreement, Internal organisation), what data elements are in and what are not • Readable layout of diagrams: – 1. . . 2 A 4 pictures, – 7 +/- 2 visual objects (information group) on one A 4 – Text size minimum 12 46

Example of detail Party BIM diagram 47

Example of detail Party BIM diagram 48

4. Define business data quality rules 49

What is a data quality rules • A data quality rule is a structural business rule describing business requirements about data entities and attributes • • Quality is Compliance to requirements Data quality is Compliance to data quality business rules (requirements) • Data quality dimensions are a complete set of agreed and best practice based generic data quality requirement types. 50

How to define business data quality rules • Define business Data Quality rules for each important attribute and attribute combination – • inputs: business requirements, general data quality requirements Use general data quality requirements as guide to identify rules: – COMPLETENESS • required mandatory attributes – FORMAT COMPLIANCE • Required data type, lenght, min max value, . . . – Unique IDENTIFIABILITY • Every record represents one unique real world event or person or thing, no duplicates – REFERENTIAL INTEGRITY • All important relationships exist between related data records – CONSISTENCY • attribute values are not conflict with each other 51

Why we need data quality rules • • • For simple and exact understanding detail business data quality requirements for each data element (written in natural business language) A main basis and input of building IT logical and physical data model which defines a subset of data quality rules (e. g. mandatory attributes, data type, maximum lenght of attributes, referential integrity constraints between entities) A good and simple method to communicate and verify data quality rules between business lines A good method to verify IT logical and physical data models A basis of data quality measurement And most important, data quality rules are a main basis to improve data quality – data quality is compliance to data quality rules, – we can not speak about data quality without having clear data quality rules 52

Examples of data quality rules • “Birth date exists for all individual customers”, • “Birth country code is a valid country from ISO standard list of countries”, • “Personal identification number exists for all individual customers”, • “Birth date matches Personal identification number of EE, LT or LV individual customers”, • “at least one identification document exists for all individual customers”. 53

Summary - Main Simplified Relationships Real world Our Mind Business glossary & Rule repository BIM (business information requirements) IT logical data model (IT design decisions) IT physical data model (structure of a data store) Things Concepts Terms & definitions Business information entity Entity Table / record Properties of things Properties of Terms & concepts definitions Business information attribute Attribute Column / field relationship between things relationship between concepts relationship between business entities Logical primary and foreign keys Physical primary and foreign key constraints Business rules how terms are related 54

Summary - Why (data) models • Understand an original – business information requirements, IT data structure • Describe a part of reality in common (visual) language • Communicate between different stakeholders • Assist people to create new reality – • Create new reality – • DB, IT system components forward engineering of DB, other IT system components Mirror existing reality – reverse engineering of DB, and other IT components 55

Some important definitions 56

The essence of Business Information Model BIM = Definitions of business concepts + Business rules how concepts are related + Visual model based on concepts and rules Visual Business Information Model (set of diagrams) Based on Definitions of business concepts (in business glossary) Based on Definitions of structural business rules (in business rule repository) 57

Selected definitions • Business glossary is an environment where to manage, publish, search and view collection of business terms and definitions, organized as groups of terms. Usually a glossary contains also some additional information, e. g. : – – – Relationships between terms (e. g. synonym, sub type) Categories of terms, domains, groupings Statuses of terms Data stewards of owners (set of) terms Data quality rules for terms (and other related business rules) • Business Information Model is a visualized description of business information requirement (what information we need on a domain), organized as entities, attributes and relations between entities. • Business ontology is a description of business objects and relationships between objects that can exist in a domain (what we know about a domain), organized as set of objects and relationships between objects. 58

Differences between BIM and Ontology BIM (Business Information Model) Ontology Definition / essence Description of business information requirements (what information we need about a domain of real world) Description of business objects and relationships between objects that can exist in a domain (what we know about a domain) Main purpose Describe and communicate business information requirements Describe and communicate explicit knowledge of a domain Method Concept modeling, BIM method Fact modeling, Object Role Model Notation UML OWL or RDF or UML - Class /entity business decisions to see information on a business concepts as a separate entity, such as Individual person Business decision to see information on a business concepts as a separate object - Attribute business decisions to see information on a business concept as an attribute of another entity (such as Birth date of an Individual person) Business decision to see information on a business concepts as a separate object NB! No separation between entities and attributes - Association Business rules (multiplicity or sub type) Business statement how two objects how information on business concepts (nouns) are related by a role (verb) plus is related multiplicity constraints 59

Thank you! 60