Find Fact Sheets in the Inventory

The Inventory is LeanIX's central repository where all your Enterprise Architecture data is stored and managed. In this section, you will learn how to find certain information in the inventory using filters and how to add or edit data.

Inventory Overview

Fact Sheets are available in the Inventory. By default, only Fact Sheet with "Active" status will be listed here. Archived ones can be accessed via the "Archived" status in the trash bin.
All categories of architectural objects (Application, Business Capability, Project, etc.) are stored in individual Fact Sheet that represents available information. Each architectural object possess its own Fact Sheet template. For example the Fact Sheet for Data Objects has a Data Management section, while a Fact Sheet for a Project Setup has a Project Environment and Project Setup section.

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For every Factsheet the most important information are displayed, incl.

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Qualitative Information: Brief description, your role in regards to this Fact Sheet, completeness, last update, and if the quality seal is broken

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Classifying Information: Fact Sheet Type and Tags

For more detailed information just click on the Fact Sheet. You can learn more about the detailed structure of in our sections What is a Fact Sheet? or Working with Factsheets

The Table View

An alternative view on the inventory is the Table View. It illustrates the inventory in a classic table style. Just click "As Table" in the upper right corner of the inventory.
As a default, it will only show the name and the type of the factsheet. To see additional information you need to filter the desired information explicitly.

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Fact Sheet Type: Choose Application to reduce the Fact Sheet Types you will see in the table.

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Select Table view: Click the icon "As Table" to show the Fact Sheet as list in the table.

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Select Columns: Click the icon "Select columns" to enter the dropdown menu that shows you all information, which is available on the respective Fact Sheet Type.

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Make columns visible: As you click on the eye-icon next to every category of the dropdown, the category will appear in the table. You can drag the categories within the menu to define the sequence of its appearance in the table.

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Close column panel: Once you finish adjust your column, you can scroll up and click the close button.

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Information

You can immediately export this table view as Excel file using the Export feature.
See, Exporting Data Via Excel.

Search, Filter and Find

Since there can be thousands of objects within ones’ repository, it is important to find the right piece of information within a short time. LeanIX has several options how to get to the right information in a very easy way.

The most comprehensive way to find factsheets is by using the smart search feature. You activate it by pressing the magnifier right next to the filters in the inventory.
The smartsearch not only shows you the factsheet but searches for tags, categories, or relations.

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If the name of the object is known to the user, you can search for the object via the Jump to a Fact Sheet menu on the top of the page. Matching strings within an object’s name are underlined, all other objects, which are listed, contain the search term within a text field (e.g. description) of the Fact Sheet.

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If the name of the object is not known, you can narrow the total amount of Fact Sheets down by using the Filter options (cp. Dual Axis Filtering) right above the Fact Sheet List.

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Here you can select any available filter to search for a specific object. Once selected, the filter settings can be saved or, if already saved and changed, later cleared. Please note that the available filter options depend on the object to search for. We recommend selecting the type of the object which is searched before the filter options are adjusted. This is, for example, helpful when a list of all objects of a certain type is requested (e.g. a list of all applications).

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Information:

There are certain fields in every Fact Sheet which create a relation to another Fact Sheets e.g. usage field of an application inside the Data Object Fact Sheet type.
Those fields make reference to both Fact Sheets and they work as additional information. Nevertheless, those fields are not possible to filter, search and export in the inventory and reporting.

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Information:

If you want to learn how to filter even more precisely than check our Additional Filter Options section. Here you can get some helpful information about the lifecycle and advanced filter.

Edit & Update

To edit data within the Fact Sheet, double click on the section to edit (e.g. Name & Description) or use the Edit button on the right hand side, then Save.

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Once saved, added or changed information appears in the updated Fact Sheet:

Another option to edit data is to use the add function. It appears in sections in the Fact Sheet body when other inventory objects shall be added (thus they are linked). The editable view can be alternatively opened via double clicking into the highlighted field. Please note that once an object was linked (i.e. added in the section), the Edit button replaces the Add button.

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If (edited) content shall be deleted (e.g. it got outdated), the content (linked object, text field) can be deleted by selecting Delete entry. Please note that the deletion de-links objects but does not delete them. To do so, please refer to the next section.
The editing of content is limited by default to the user roles admin and member. The viewer can view Fact Sheets and leaves a comment. The audit trail (Last Update) shows in detail all changes with a reference to the user. This transparency should prevent misuse of the system.

Create a Fact Sheet

To create a Fact Sheet, follow these steps:

  1. In your workspace, navigate to Inventory.
  2. In the sidebar on the right, under Actions, click New Fact Sheet.
  3. In the overlay that appears, do the following:
    1. Select a Fact Sheet type and, if relevant, subtype.
    2. Enter a Fact Sheet name. You may see a list of Fact Sheets with similar names that already exist in the Inventory.
    3. Click Create.

A Fact Sheet is added to the Inventory.

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Clone a Fact Sheet

In LeanIX you can clone Fact Sheets in one click. This is very helpful when a Fact Sheet for a successor application shall be created or when you initially create multiple similar Fact Sheets, e.g. for IT components.
You find the Clone feature in each Fact Sheet in the right side menu. During cloning, you can already insert the new version and link the new Fact Sheet as a successor of the existing one.

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Once the clone button has been selected a new box will appear prompting the user to enter additional information (optional) and to state a new name (compulsory)

A cloned Fact Sheet will include the following Data of the cloned Fact Sheet:

  • All Attributes
  • All Relations
  • All Documents

Comments, Surveys, and Metrics will not be adopted.

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Be careful after cloning with immediate changes

To avoid error messages, you should refresh the browser tab after cloning first. Then you can edit the Fact Sheet.

After editing, it is generally always helpful to refresh.