Defining a Business Dictionary
A business dictionary collects and structures a set of concepts that expresses the knowledge of a particular area.
A business information area is a sub-set of elements of a business dictionary that reduces the scope of a field.
The business dictionary is the essential element in creating your information architecture.
Business dictionaries can be created with the Business Information Architect profile.
The Elements of a Business Dictionary
A business dictionary is used to describe all the elements defining your information architecture:
• Concepts
An event concept represents an event occurring during concept life, for example a change of season. An event concept marks the impact on a concept of a phenomenon internal or external to the concept. Concept events can be distinguished as concept start events, end events and intermediate events.
For more details, see Describing Concepts.• Concept variations
A variation describes how a concept can be varied under another form. The variant is an object similar to the varied object, but with properties or relationships that may differ.For more details, see Describing Concept Components.• Concept types
A concept type enables classification of concepts. Relationships between concept types are represented by concept type components.For more details, see Describing Concept Types.• State concepts
A state concept is a situation in a concept life cycle during which it satisfies certain conditions, executes a certain activity or waits for a concept event. A state concept represents a time interval of which limits are two concept events. A state concept is a phase through which the concept passes during its life cycle.For more details, see Describing Concept or Individual States.• Event concepts
An event concept represents an event occurring during concept life, for example a change of season. An event concept marks the impact on a concept of a phenomenon internal or external to the concept. Concept events can be distinguished as concept start events, end events and intermediate events.For more details, see Describing Event Concepts.• Individuals
An individual represents the occurrence of a concept.For more details, see Describing individuals.• Individual states
An individual state is an instance of a concept state to which the dictionary state is connected. It represents an individual state during its life cycle.For more details, see Describing Concept or Individual States.A business dictionary can be completely or partially described by a concept diagram.
For more details on environment components, see Defining a Business Information Area.Accessing the elements of a business dictionary
To access the elements of a business dictionary HOPEX Web Front-End :
1. Click the navigation menu then Business Information.
2. In the navigation pane, select Overview.
3. In the edit area, click Business Information Hierarchy.
4. Expand the business dictionary that interests you.
The list of concepts and terms appear in the dedicated folders.
Concepts carry the name of the term associated with the concept in the data language. For more details, see Using the Glossary in a Multilingual Context.If you expand the folder associated with a concept, the terms and synonyms are accessible in all languages available in your environment HOPEX.
The number of languages proposed from folders depends on your HOPEX environment. To configure the list of languages, see the HOPEX Power Supervisor guide, chapter "Managing Options", "Managing Languages", "Installing Additional Languages".
The list of elements of a business dictionary is also accessible in the dictionary properties window, in the Characteristics page, Business information section.Creating a Business Dictionary
To create a business dictionary with HOPEX Web Front-End :
1. Click the navigation menu then Business Information.
2. In the edit area, click All Business Dictionaries.
3. Click New.
The new business dictionary appears in the list.
To create a business dictionary with HOPEX Windows Front-End, in the Information Architecture desktop, click on the IA Library tab, then on the Information Architecture navigation pane and expand the Business Dictionaries folder to obtain the list of existing business dictionaries in the repository.