Business Information
What Is Business Information in ArchRepo?
Business Information is any information that the business uses, produces, or relies on — in any form. It is a deliberately broad and business-facing concept that does not presuppose how the information is stored or structured.
Business Information can take many forms:
- A customer record held in a database
- An order confirmation sent by email
- A price list maintained in a spreadsheet
- A site inspection report produced as a PDF
- A verbal briefing given by a manager to their team
- A contract held in a document management system
- An inventory count recorded on a clipboard
What makes something Business Information is that it matters to the business and supports how the business operates — not how it is stored or whether it is structured.
Information vs Data
Business Information and Data Sets are distinct concepts in ArchRepo and serve different purposes.
- Business Information describes what the business knows and uses — it is conceptual and business-facing. It captures the information landscape from the perspective of business analysts and domain experts, before any decisions about technical implementation.
- Data Sets describe how the solution stores and structures information — they are technical and solution-facing.
Business Information does not need to be a formal data specification. The goal is to understand the information model: what information exists, who uses it, and what it supports. The technical detail belongs in the Data Sets.
Linking Business Information to Data Sets and building blocks provides traceability from business language to technical implementation — showing how a concept like “Customer Record” maps to the database tables, APIs, and applications that manage it in the solution.
Why Capture Business Information?
Capturing Business Information during business analysis provides a foundation for understanding how the solution needs to support the business:
- Information model — a structured view of the information landscape, separate from the technical data model; shows what the business needs, not how it is stored
- Process support — links information to the business processes and roles that use it, making it clear what information each part of the business depends on
- Volume sizing — the Quantity field captures how many items of this information exist, which informs data storage and performance planning
- Format identification — recording the current format (Excel, email, PDF) surfaces migration and transformation work that may need to be planned
- Traceability to the solution — linking Business Information to Data Sets and building blocks closes the loop between business requirements and technical design, making it possible to trace any piece of business information to the data structures and systems that support it
Hierarchy
Business Information can contain other Business Information, enabling a structured decomposition of complex information entities:
- Customer Record → contains → Customer Contact Details, Customer Address, Customer Order History
- Product Catalogue → contains → Product Description, Product Pricing, Product Availability
This hierarchy is optional. Use it when it helps clarify the scope and structure of complex information entities.
Collection Views
The Business Information collection includes two cross-reference matrix views:
- Business Information v Systems — maps each item of Business Information to the Systems that manage or consume it; useful for understanding which systems are responsible for which information
- Business Information v Data Sets — the key traceability view; maps Business Information to the Data Sets that store or represent it; verifies that every item of business information has been accounted for in the technical data model
Fields Reference
See Business Information Fields for a description of each field and guidance on what to record.