Glossary

A group of model items that share some characteristics, such as the customer, owner, and effective date.

A model item that defines relevant business issues.

A business function is used in business control diagrams to show how the primary process of an organization is controlled. In addition, a business function is the primary part of a business function model, which is a multilevel structure of the functions used in the business control model. A business function model provides a hierarchical breakdown of the business function.

You can also use a business function to transform a function model to a process model.

A model that represents the organization.

There are two types of business models:

• Reference models apply to specific industries or business typologies.
• Project models apply to a specific organization.

Part of an ERP database in which you can store data concerning logistic transactions.

A variable for use in that transfers a value along activities in a business process.

A complete list of work items for a specific user in the Worklist Handler.

A graphic design that shows the geographic location of enterprise units and the relationships between these enterprise units in a multisite organization.

You can model various kinds of relationships between enterprise units; this includes goods flows, financial flows, and information flows.

Part of a business process that depending on the type of activity requires a certain action by LN or an LN user:

• Manual activity

  A task that cannot be automated

• Business process

  A hierarchical expansion of the business process

• Application

  A program that can run on the client or server and is defined within a component release

• File-based (client)

  A file for which, based on the file extension, the associated application on the client is started

• Sending trigger

  An attached business process that is started without user interaction

Part of a business process that is used internally to control the path through the business process.

A condition that can be linked to an outgoing transition of a control activity. During the implementation of LN, the static condition values are evaluated by static condition-setting rules and can result in activating/deactivating parts of business processes.

An expression.

A rule is used to:

• Check the consistency of a business function model (consistency rules).
• Transform a business function model to a business process model (transformation rules).
• Assign a value to the application parameters (parameter setting rules).
• Assign a value to static conditions (static condition setting rules).

An expression containing business functions and/or business processes whose presence or absence determine the value of one or more parameters in a business model.

An expression imposing a unilateral dependency of business processes in relation to business functions. By carrying out the rules, business processes are imported into the business model based on the business functions that are already present.

An expression containing business functions and/or business processes whose presence or absence determine the values of static conditions in a business model.

A document that is part of the administrative organization in a company and which you can link to an activity.

In LN Enterprise Modeler a role is a set of specific qualifications and/or skills that an employee must have to be authorized to carry out a business process, activity, or subapplication.

A task that can be linked to a role, and which is used for authorization purposes. If a responsibility code is linked to a role, at least on of the responsibility codes must have the value Yes to authorize the role.

A variable that directs the software to meet the specific requirements of an organization.

A single representation of a process definition, which consists of a sequence of activity instances and state instances (connected by transitions). Their relation is defined in the process definition.

Represents an (executable) activity within a single enactment of a process instance.

A user of the Worklist Handler. users can be employees and system-internal users.

A part of a reference model or project model built from a selection of business process diagrams that are initially created in the repository (library of business processes).

A system that uses software to define, create, and manage the execution of business processes. The WMS runs on one or more Servers. The WMS can interpret process definitions, interact with users, and, if required, use IT tools and applications.

A software part of the Server. The Engine uses the API to provide data and services to the Processing Clients. The Engine consists of several workers, the Job Manager and the Operator Manager.

The date and time when a process instance must be finished.

See also: target date mode

An indication of how urgently work items must be processed. The activity instance priority can be the decisive factor for sorting work items in the Worklist Handler.

A building block within LN Enterprise Modeler.

The stage in the development of a model item.

The development stage of a business process.

The stage determines whether:

• You can modify the business process
• can use it

A person who is authorized to log on to the LN applications, and for whom data such as a startup menu, an operational language, and roles (authorizations) is defined.

A complete design that visualizes a multisite organization. An enterprise model consists of an enterprise structure model and related business models.

A set of one or more activities and states that collectively realize a business objective.

A part of a reference model or project model that is built from a selection of business control diagrams that are initially created in the repository (library of model items).

An enterprise structure diagram that shows the geographic location of enterprise units and the relationships between these enterprise units in a multisite organization.

A special form of user assistance that automates a task by setting the parameter values within a business model and which directs the software to meet the specific requirements of an organization.

Part of an LN database in which you can store all data concerning financial transactions.

A financially independent part of your organization that consists of entities such as departments, work centers, warehouses, and projects. The enterprise unit's entities must all belong to the same logistic company, but a logistic company can contain multiple enterprise units. An enterprise unit is linked to a single financial company.

When you carry out logistic transactions between enterprise units, these are posted in the financial companies to which each enterprise unit is linked. The enterprise-structure models define the relationships between the enterprise units, and the goods transfer that can take place between the enterprise units. To use invoicing and pricing between enterprise units, you must link the enterprise units to internal business partners.

You can use enterprise units to perform separate financial accounting for parts of your business. For example, you can define enterprise units for separate parts of your organization that belong to one logistic company but which are located in different countries. The accounting of each enterprise unit is performed in each country's national currency and in the financial company linked to the enterprise unit.

A separate and independent building block for a cluster and/or an enterprise unit. For example, warehouse, work center, employee, sales department, purchase department, project, customer, supplier, financial company.

An ERP user who has created a model item or version, or the ERP user who is responsible for the model or version.

A model that represents a specific organization.

A project model is built from a library (repository) of the following model items:

• business-control model
• business-function model
• business-process model

A phase in the business-improvement cycle in which new business functions and business processes are implemented in an organization.

A graphic design that is used to visualize geographical locations of the enterprise units in an enterprise structure diagram.

A description of the relation between two enterprise units.

Identifies the kind of flow between two enterprise units.

LN distinguishes the following category types:

• A document flow
• A goods flow
• A money flow
• An order flow

A model that represents a line of business or business typology.

A reference model is built from a library (repository) of the following model items:

• business-control model
• business-function model
• business-process model

The act or process of extracting data from a database to present it for use.

An object (person, place, thing, or concept) for which you must record information.

LN provides the following entity types:

• Logical entity type: a meaning to the real world and is comprised of one or more physical entity types.
• Physical entity type: database tables in the LN application packages.
• Associative entity type: an entity type that is used to link other entity types.

A reason of relevance for associating entities of one or two entity types.

A value that indicates the achievements of company units. The value varies by time unit (such as week and day) and is calculated by means of a script. If the value is a figure, it is displayed as a chart. If the value relates to a collection of data, it is stored in an ASCII file.

You can link performance indicators to business functions to monitor and improve the performance of these business functions.

A working environment in which you can carry out logistic or financial transactions. All the data concerning the transactions is stored in the company's database. Each company has its own database tables and its own data. The company number identifies the data. Depending on the type of data that the company controls, the company is:

• A logistic company.
• A financial company.
• Both a logistic and a financial company. In a multisite structure, the company database can partially exist uniquely for the company, and partially consist of database tables that the company shares with other companies.

An activity in the business process that represents a decision moment. The designer of the business process defines with the help of static and dynamic conditions for the outgoing transitions the route through the process (which of the succeeding activities will be carried out and in which order). The different types of control activities are, for example, XOR, OR, and AND.

A library of model items.

LN distinguishes the following repositories:

• Business functions
• Business processes
• Business-control diagrams

In coherence with each other the repository model items can form a business model.

A part of a business model that is built from a selection of business functions that are initially created in the repository.

Average time needed to finish a business process or an activity.

A user-related activity instance that is entered in the user's Worklist. The Workflow Management System schedules an activity instance to all authorized users, so that one activity instance can have more than one work item.

A user-definable code that indicates the position of a model item relative to other model items.

A human member of an organization model. Typically, employees are users who carry out activities with the Worklist Handler.

A formal representation of an organization, which distinguishes employee groups, employees, and roles.

A graphic design that visualizes the primary process that takes place within an organization and shows the business functions that are used to control that process.

An enterprise structure model of a specific version that reflects the transactions in the current organization (enterprise).

An expression that contains business processes and/or business functions and determines which of the following model items are included, or assigned a value in a business model.

The assigned value can be:

• Business function
• Business process
• Parameter
• Static condition

A graphic design of the relational data model structure. The diagram shows a (multilevel) structure that consists of entity types and entity type relationships.

An entity type that is used to link two other entity types that have a many-to-many relationship between them.

Database table definitions of the LN application, for example the general item (tcibd001) data table.

The entity type code is usually equal to the table code.

A number that determines the sequence in which records are displayed in an overview session or list box.

An entity type that has a meaning to the real world and that contains several physical entity types. For example, an item or a warehouse.

The opposite of the (normal) engineering process. Instead of creating new data for a software product, you extract information from an existing database.

The data structure information is generated and can be used to design a new interface or to describe the current software.

The definition of a table and its fields/columns and so on, in the LN data dictionary.

A relationship between two entity types that is not mandatory. To identify the optionality of the relationship, the N side of the relationship is equal to zero.

An entity relationship between two entity types (a subtype and a supertype) that is used to indicate that the supertype's attributes also apply to (are inherited by) the subtype.

External parties (such as customers, suppliers, and governments) that affect the business functions in a business-control diagram.

The representation of an organization's basic activity, situated on the primary flow. Examples are: receipt of raw materials, production of sub-assemblies, final assembly, and delivery of the final products.

A stock point that is located on the primary flow in a business control diagram.

The primary process that is controlled in the business control diagram. Per diagram, only one flow can be inserted. This flow can represent a goods flow, an information flow, or a financial flow. On the primary flow, primary activities, buffers, and one customer order decoupling point can be inserted.

A business control diagram that is linked to another business control diagram. One or more child diagrams can be linked to a parent diagram. A child diagram can also be linked to several parent diagrams.

An internal number that indicates the place of the activity, state, or control activity in the business process diagram.

An expression containing one or more business functions on the basis of which one or more business functions must be present in the business model.

The section of a wizard that accomplishes the dialog with the ERP user.

The answer to a wizard step which the user can select from a range of possible answers. Usually, LN automatically creates answers based on the domain linked to the parameter that can be set in the wizard.

Determines what you must do when a wizard step is carried out. You must only apply a wizard constraint if the actions involve more than simply setting a parameter; for example, starting a nested wizard.

Determines the setting of parameters in the LN database based on wizard-step answers.

Text that contains information for wizard-step answers based on common practice.

An accounting-oriented information system for identifying and planning the enterprise-wide resources needed to take, make, ship, and account for customer orders.

An ERP system differs from the typical MRP II system in technical requirements, such as graphical user interface, relational database, use of fourth-generation language, and computer-aided software engineering tools."

Text that contains background information or a detailed description of the wizard-step question.

A graphic design that visualizes the multilevel relationships between business functions.

A DLL contains one or more functions to accomplish a certain task. Among other things, these functions can be used in constraints to check the answer given by the user against certain conditions, to check on the presence of a business function in the business function model, to read parameters, or to read wizard step answers.

The question that a user is asked in a wizard. The question is displayed in the wizard step dialog box.

Identification of a calendar year that is subdivided into year parts and periods. The start date and end date of the year can fall in another year than the calendar year.

In the calendar, the different periods are defined by their start and end dates.

The relative ratio for the norm values for the periods within a calendar.

The code to identify a seasonal pattern. A seasonal pattern describes the relative ratios for norm values for one or more periods in a year. These values can be linked to performance indicators.

A set of data indicating the various child companies that make up a parent company and that are used to aggregate the value of the parent company's performance indicator. The child companies must have the same package combination as the parent company.

The results of the calculation process, stored for the particular periods of the year. It concerns calculated results, norm, minimum, and maximum values (both periodic and cumulative), but also the owner of the performance indicator and, if applicable, the reports of output files.

A text that explains the function of the wizard.

A text that explains the result of the wizard after the ERP user has completed all wizard steps.

For each calendar the EIS period table contains the data that defines the periods within a year and year part. The maximum number of year parts within a year is 99. The maximum number of periods within a year part is 13.

The physical quantity in which goods are managed. For example, wood can be expressed by length in meters, or by volume in cubic meters.

The logon name (logon code) an employee uses to log on to the server (UNIX, Windows) on which the LN applications run.

A regular role that is linked to another role at one level below the latter.

A relationship, graphically represented by a curved arrow, connecting two business functions.

The functionality can either represent:

• A variant (replaces the business function).
• An option (additional business function).

A graphical representation of the hierarchy of used performance indicators. The Ishikawa diagram is represented as a fish bone chart.

A specification of the number of possible entities per entity type of a pairing.

The data required for the Workflow Management System is stored in this database (except of data host and configuration files). All programs of can access it. The Workflow Administration System serves the database administration.

A parameter of an LN session that indicates the session can be started through .

Comprises all actions to realize current business processes. The process instances are subdivided into single steps and are given to the appropriate users. Responsibilities and access rights are checked. Workflow processing provides the right people with the right tools and the right data at the right time.

A software component for the user to carry out work items, for example, the Worklist Handler. The client is connected to the server by means of a network.

Variables and constants containing workflow system data.

Workflow data managed by the Workflow Management System and/or the Engine. Such data is internal to the WMS and is usually not accessible for applications.

A software component that manages the interaction between the user and the Engine to carry out work items.

A client application that graphically displays a business process. If you have the appropriate authorizations, you can use the Process Viewer to start activities.

The company in which all LN Enterprise Modeler model item data is stored. Central storage facilitates the retrieval of enterprise modeler data.

The name that is given to a business process, workflow attribute, or external state during the modeling process.

Additional information that is delivered to a component, as a result of which predefined actions are carried out.

A division within a system of classification. Most model items can be categorized.

A set of applications and their related data.

An application that is defined within a component definition.

The identification of the issue of a component.

Consists of one or more entity relationship diagrams that together represent the way the information is stored in a database.

Determines how the deadline date must be interpreted by the Workflow Management System.

Defines from which version the model item is derived.

Putting a work item in resubmission mode, so that it does not appear in the worklist. If the work item must be carried out, the user must resubmit it. Diarising can be done individually per work item, or collectively per process instance or per folder.

Distributes activity instances to users according to a mechanism of free definition. The distribution algorithm is defined by a special script language and is saved in the Database.

A place holder. Nothing happens in dummy activities but they are needed to avoid deadlocks in Petri nets.

A tool that enables you to create a multilevel structure that represents an organization using ERP software.

The multilevel structure consists of these model items:

• Enterprise-structure model
• Business models
• Data models

A personal menu structure that shows the business processes and activities for which an employee is authorized.

An organizational unit of employees. For example, sales department or purchase department.

A browser that graphically presents (parts of) the enterprise model.

A formula to calculate the target date and time that can be linked to a business process or activity to determine the time frame in which the business process or activity must be accomplished.

In LN Enterprise Modeler, a collection of process instances. These process instances can be derived from different process definitions. A folder can represent a logical group of process instances. For example, a folder for customer Jones.

A version-specific reference to the actual business process, states, and attributes to be used in program scripts and during activity modeling.

The user ID and password that the Worklist Handler user must enter to log on to the Server.

A run-time project model that functions as default for the company to which the project model is linked. There can only be one main project model per company.

Help that is linked to a model item and provides information about the function of that model item in a business model.

The version you currently use to create and modify model items.

The Process Browser is a menu tree in Worktop or Web UI. It is the LN Enterprise Modeler runtime user interface and consists of a window from which employees can start the activities for which they are authorized. In the Process Browser you see roles by employees. To these roles Business Processes with activities are linked.

Help that provides general information about a model item. Repository help can also be viewed from a business model.

An authorized user can reroute work items to another user, a group, or a role. Rerouting can be done individually per work item, collectively per process instance, or per folder.

The optimization phase that is used at run time. Combined with the run-time version and run-time project model, the run-time optimization phase determines which processes are displayed and how to displayed these processes in the dynamic menu browser.

A project model (within a company) that is used at run-time. Combined with the run-time version and run-time optimization phase, the run-time project model determines the processes that are displayed in the dynamic menu browser.

The version that contains the run-time project model. Combined with the run-time project model and run-time optimization phase, the run-time version determines the processes that are displayed in the dynamic menu browser.

One or more applications that can be linked to a business process or an activity to help the employee carry out the process/activity. Note that a support application can contain both applications and other support applications.

A date on which the process instance should have reached a specific state. If the state is not reached, the Workflow Management System initializes a predefined action. A deadline is a special target date.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL). An address for a resource on the Internet. URLs are used by Web browsers to locate Internet resources.

A URL specifies:

• The protocol to be used in accessing the resource (such as http: for a World Wide Web page, or ftp: for an FTP site).
• The name of the server on which the resource resides (such as www.whitehouse.gov).
• The path to a resource (such as an HTML document or a file on that server).

The level of authorization that is given to a user to work with a component activity.

The following levels of authorization exist:

• Display
• Print/Display
• Modify/Print/Display
• Insert/Modify/Print/Display
• Full Authorization

Shows the derived-from structure of versions.

The ERP component that is currently active.

The ERP component release that is currently active.

A graphic design that visualizes the business objective via a process structure in the Petri Net format.

A label that can be used to categorize employee groups.

The employee that manages one or more employee groups, as a result of which he gets distributed all business processes that belong to the employee group(s) he/she supervises.

An employee group that is linked to another employee group at one level below the latter.

An arrow in a business-control diagram that can be drawn between business functions, external agents, primary activities, and buffers. An incoming trigger (request loop) represents the cause/origin of a business function; the returning trigger (feedback loop) reports the confirmation/result of the action to the invoking function/agent. Note: an incoming and outgoing trigger must be present between each type of model item.

An application that is defined within a component definition.

An application defined as accessible from a defined component application. If the component application is an LN session, the subapplications are equivalent to LN subsessions.

The ERP component that is currently active.