A person, organization, or system that has one or more roles that initiates or interacts with activities; for example, a sales representative who travels to visit customers. Actors may be internal or external to an organization.

Note:

In the automotive industry, an original equipment manufacturer would be considered an actor by an automotive dealership that interacts with its supply chain activities.

An  Organizational Position is a type of position held by people when part of a Department Type.

Examples:

- Sales representative

- Developer

- Storekeeper

- Architect

An  Application Interface is a Business Service Interface that occurs between Business Software Systems.

The interface is described by messages exchanged between endpoints (provider, consumer..).

A  Business Capability is a conceptual Capability that benefits to Customers (internal or external) of the enterprise. It expresses an ability to produce Conceptual Outcome Events.

A  Business Capability is defined by its intended Enterprise Outcome Events and the conditions (Condition Property) under which the production of the Enterprise Outcome Events shall be proceeded.

The actual Condition Scale Values for a given Business Capability at different stages of Enterprise Initiatives is given by their exhibition (Exhibited Capability).

A  Concept is the representation of any tangible or intanglible entity that is of interest to understand the enterprise, its data, resources and activities.

A  Concept is defined through its essential characteristics which can be:

1) A  Concept Property that represents some an immutable factual characteristic such as "name", "amount".

2) A Concept Relationship that represents relationships to other  Concepts.

An ability that an organization, person, or system possesses.

Note:

For example, Enterprise Architecture, marketing, customer contact, or outbound telemarketing.

A  Capability is a functional  Asset Property which refers to the ability to produce an Outcome Event.

Capabilitys are fulfilled by Agents performing Processes and interacting with other Agents to produce the desired Outcome Event.

A  Policy is a Directive that is not directly enforceable whose purpose is to govern, guide or constrain the structure and Behavior of Agents in the enterprise.

Policies provide the basis for rules and govern Behaviors carried out by Agents.

Example of Policys are Regulation Articles, Business Policys or Architecture principles.

An  Enterprise Initiative is a past, current or future state of the enterprise.

Each stage represents an initiative comprising a purposeful set of activities whose primary purpose is focused on achieving a set of clearly defined objectives that may transcend organisational boundaries and consequently require integrated team working under the direction of an Architecture Governance Committee.

A  Business Function is a Mezzo unit within the enterprise's functional division of labor. It is used to shape the enterprise management structure in regard to how it produces, consumes or processes Business Outcome Events: information, energy, materiel.

A  Business Function specifies Skills and  Functionality(ies) required to perform their activities effectively.

A  Location is a geopolitical location anywhere on the earth.

Examples:

- France

- Paris

- Washington DC

- Cairo

- Buenos-Aires

- Asia

A  Logical Data Entity is a logical structure of a Data Entity. As any Data Entity, it has an independent existence and can be uniquely identified.

A  Logical Data Entity is characterized by Logical Relationships it has with other  Logical Data Entity(ies) and by its Attributes.

A  Condition Property Type expresses a type of constraint that can be applied to Asset Types.

These constraints can be either Measure Property Type (Time, Mass, Cost, ..), Environmental Property Types (Terrain Type, Light conditions, Weather conditions) or a grouping of these (Set of Environmental Condition Type).

 Condition Property Types are used to constrain Asset Blocks in the context of non-functional requirement analysis and Value Proposition analysis.

A  Department Type is a Mezzo Org-Unit which serves as an administrative unit template in both government and business Organizations.

Examples:

- Sales department;

- Finance department;

- Logistics department..

An  Application is a Business Software System that provides a set of  Functionality(ies) that End Users see as a single unit.

Essentially  Applications are architectural constructions resulting from the combinaison of the following four criteria:

1) A group of  Functionality that End Users see as a single unit.

2) A managed asset (Managed Application) associated with a budget line in the context of an Application Portfolio.

3) A body of code that is seen by developers as a single unit.

4) A group of deployable software units (Deployable Application Packages) that must be installed together on one or multiple execution nodes (Computing System).

 Application is a Mezzo enterprise asset  that sits between Application System and Application Component in the decomposition of Business Software Systems.

Example: " Payroll" is an  Application that is part an " HR System" which is an Application System.

The "Payroll"  Application includes, among other things, the "Salary and Wage Calculation" Application Component.

A  Physical Data Entity is a representation the physical structure of a Data Entity as it will be stored in a DBMS.

A  Physical Data Entity has an independent existence and can be uniquely identified.

A  Physical Data Entity is characterized by Physical Relationships it has with other  Physical Data Entity(ies) and by Physical Data Property(ies).

 Architecture principles are general guidelines (Policy) that serve as constraints that guide design decisions and shape the overall structure of a system. They:

- Establish boundaries for design choices.

- Ensure consistency across the system

- Promote desired qualities (Condition Property: e.g., scalability, maintainability)

- Align architecture with business goals and requirements

 Architecture principles act as guardrails, helping architects make informed decisions while limiting options to those that best serve systems' efficiency and robustness.

A  Business Process is a set of Business-Process Steps performed by Org-Units and/or by automated systems (Business Systems) to produce a Business Outcome Event. It is depicted as a series of Business-Process Steps, controlled by Business Events and conditions.

Business-Process Steps are carried out by the involvment of Org-Units and system resources (often Applications) as participants in the process (Participant Business Agents).

During its course of action, a  Business Process consumes or produces  Business Objects.

1) It may memorize or access  Business Objects from its Process Store.

2) It may receive  Business Objects at its boundary: Business Outcome Consumption.

3) It may signal the production of  Business Objects at its boundary: Business Outcome Production.

The course of actions of a  Business Process is constrained by the application of rules ( Business Rule Enforcement) that define how to react to what is allowed and not allowed to do,

A  Functionality is a Business Resource Capability offered by Business System Assets (software or hardware) and aimed at delivering Information Outcomes.

A  Functionality describes WHAT a software or hardware system can provide.

 Functionality(ies) are used to express the Business System features required by people when performing their job (see Job-to-be-done).

For internal customers, these jobs correspond to Business-Process Steps described in Business Process (see Instrument)

For enterprise Customers, these jobs correspond to Job-to-be-done in the context of Customer Journeys.

The usual or expected behavior of an actor, or the part somebody or something plays in a particular process or event. An actor may have a number of roles.

See also Actor.

An  Organizational Position is a type of position held by people when part of a Department Type.

Examples:

- Sales representative

- Developer

- Storekeeper

- Architect

A  Software Technology is an elementary Software Technology System  used as an enabler by Software Modules.

Examples :

- Application server,

- Message server,

- Storage,

- Business information sharing,

- Operating systems,

- Navigators, etc

 Value Streams are used to frame the Conceptual Operating Model of the enterprise: they describe how the enterprise shall operate, at the conceptual level, and helps chunking responsibilities between Conceptual Agents (Operating Domain or Business Function) .

In the EA context, a  Value Stream is a conceptual Action Process that represents an overarching perspective of the organization's processes aiming at producing Conceptual Outcome Events. The focus is on shaping and understanding the functional relationships and roles within the enterprise : its functional division of labor.

This is not to be confused with Value Stream Mapping (VSM) which is focused on Lean optimization and is addressed with the concept of  Business Process (see the Organization & Processes domain).

A  Value Stream is performed by Conceptual Agents who produce Conceptual Outcome Events. It is depicted as a sequence of Value Stream Stages, controlled by events and conditions.

 Value Stream Activitys are carried out by the involvment of Conceptual Agents as participants in the  Value Stream.

During its course of action, a  Value Stream consumes, produces or stores  Business Objects.

1) It may read or write Domain Assets in its Business Object Store.

2) It may receive Domain Assets at its boundary:  reacted to Business Outcome Events.

3) It may produce Domain Assets at its boundary:  produced Business Outcome Events.

The course of actions of a  Value Stream is constrained by the application of rules ( Conceptual Rule Enforcement) that define what is allowed and not allowed to do.

There are traditionnaly two kinds of  Value Streams:

1) Development development  Value Streams define all of the actions, both value-creating and nonvalue-creating, required to bring a Product from concept to launch.
2)  Operational  Value Streams define define all of the actions, both value-creating and nonvalue-creating, required from order to delivery. These include actions to process information from the  Customer and actions to transform the product on its way to the Customer.