Subscription Roles

Delegate responsibility and accountability to ensure data quality through Fact Sheet subscription.

Collecting and maintaining accurate data is crucial for Enterprise Architecture Management. To address the challenge of managing large amounts of data and ensuring its accuracy over time, it's important to assign responsibility and accountability to contributors. Assigning subscriptions to Fact Sheets is one of the mechanisms for achieving this goal in LeanIX. It ensures subscribers of Fact Sheets are notified and have a clear call-to-action to maintain and administer the Fact Sheet data. It can also act as a primary driver to involve key stakeholders and promote LeanIX adoption across the entire organization.

Subscription Type

Subscription Type categorizes subscriptions based on predefined and nonconfigurable sets of responsibilities and permissions. In simple terms, Subscription Type determines the responsibilities of a subscriber with respect to Fact Sheets. Subscription Type can be one of the following types:

  • Responsible: Users with this Subscription Type are in charge of keeping the Fact Sheet up to-date and correct. The subscribed user actively participates in the content creation and updates of the Fact Sheet.
  • Accountable: Users with this Subscription Type carry overall accountability and often handle business responsibilities associated with Fact Sheets. Only one user can have the ‘Accountable’ Subscription Type per Fact Sheet. This ensures accountability, even as there may be multiple individuals subscribed to a Fact Sheet as Responsible. Subscription Type ‘Accountable’ is not visible by default and needs to be custom-activated in Admin settings. To learn more, see the section Add Subscription Type Accountable.
  • Observer: Users of this Subscription Type are notified and kept up-to-date regarding changes to Fact Sheets. They can also participate in Surveys but are not responsible for maintaining the information in the Fact Sheets.

Subscription Role

Subscription Role in LeanIX Enterprise Architecture provides a way to create roles that mirror the governance structure of your organization on a one-to-one basis, allowing you to subscribe individuals with specific roles that closely align with your organizational hierarchy. For example, Application Owner, Project Manager, Data Architect, etc. Creating a Subscription Role involves specifying the Subscription Type for that role, specifying the relevant Fact Sheet types it applies to, and providing a clear name and description.

Subscription Roles help ensure that the right person can be found by the entire organization for specific needs, such as getting a license assigned for an application from the Application Owner or identifying relevant contacts for a Procurement Process, etc.

Once defined, you can assign users, or users themselves can subscribe to relevant Fact Sheets. When there are changes in a Fact Sheet, subscribers receive notifications, enabling them to take necessary actions, such as updating Fact Sheet info or approving the quality seal, and so on.

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Notifications

While the default standard is to receive notifications when there are changes in a Fact Sheet, you have the option to modify this in the settings. For further details, refer to Notifications.

Difference Between Subscription Roles and User Roles

Subscription Roles are not to be confused with User Roles. User Roles establish the general permissions for the overall workspace, while Subscription Role defines the role of users for Fact Sheets. The Subscription Type of a Subscription Role, meanwhile establishes the responsibilities of that role in relation to Fact Sheets.

Examples of User Roles include Admin, Member, Viewer, and so on. On the other hand, Subscription Roles include roles like Application Owner, Business Owner, Project Manager, etc. For commonly used Subscription Roles, refer to the table in the section Example Subscription Roles and Types. To learn more about User Roles, see User Roles.

Adding and Managing Subscription Roles

Add/Edit Subscription Roles

Only users with Admin rights can define and add a Subscription Role. To add a Subscription Role, do the following:

  1. From the settings, navigate to Administration > Subscription Roles.
  2. Click on New Subscription Role.
  3. Give a name to the role, select the Subscription Type, and select the Fact Sheet types to which the roles are applicable. You can select multiple Fact Sheets for a role simultaneously.
  4. Click Save to finish adding the role.

In the same manner, you can edit a Subscription role by selecting the existing Subscription Roles.

Adding Subscription Role

Adding Subscription Role

The Subscription Type can be selected from the available options, or you can choose All. Choosing All adds the flexibility to choose any of the three Subscription Types when assigning a Subscription Role to a user. Note that the Subscription Type ‘Accountable’ is not visible by default and needs custom activation in the Admin settings. To learn how to do it, see the section Add Subscription Type Accountable.

When you edit a Subscription Role to change the Subscription type, LeanIX tries to migrate existing subscriptions in the best way possible. For example, changing the Subscription Type of a Subscription Role from ‘Responsible’ to 'Observer' will change all subscriptions under that role to Observers.

The applicability of a Subscription Role can be tailored to a specific Fact Sheet type to suit your needs. For example, the role of Application Owner makes more sense if it is applicable only to Application Fact Sheets, so while creating the Application Owner role, you could choose just the Application Fact Sheet from the Fact Sheet Type drop-down list. To know about commonly used Subscription Roles, refer to the table in the section Example Subscription Roles and Types.

Subscription Roles are not limited; you can define and add different roles at any time to meet your organization’s needs.

Deleting Subscription Roles

Only users with Admin rights can delete the Subscription Role. To delete a Subscription Role, do the following:

  1. From the settings, navigate to Administration > Subscription Roles.
  2. Select the Subscription Role you need to delete by clicking on it.
  3. Click Delete.

Deleting Subscription Roles does not automatically unsubscribe users from the Fact Sheets to which they were subscribed under those roles. They will still be subscribed either as Responsible, Accountable or Observer. For example, even if a Subscription Role like "Application Owner" with the Subscription Type "Responsible" is deleted, the subscribers who initially subscribed as Application Owners will still remain subscribed. They will retain their subscription as Responsibles without the role of Application Owner.

Managing Subscription to Fact Sheets

Subscribing to Fact Sheets

Your defined set of Subscription Roles will be available as a drop-down list of options when subscribing new users to a Fact Sheet. To subscribe to a Fact Sheet, do the following:

  1. In the Fact Sheet, navigate to the Subscriptions tab.
  2. Click on the + Add a person button in the tab. This will open a modal where you provide the subscriber’s details.
  3. Search and provide the email of the subscriber, and choose the Subscription Type and Role. Providing a Subscription Role is optional by default, but can be made mandatory by changing the settings. Read more about it in the section Add Subscription Type Accountable.
  4. Click Save to finish subscribing.
Subscribing to Fact Sheets

Subscribing to Fact Sheets

You can also assign multiple roles to the same user. For instance, a Responsible person for an application can hold both the roles of a Business Owner and an Application Owner concurrently. To assign multiple roles for the same user, click the Add Role button and include the respective roles.

You can also bulk subscribe users to multiple Fact Sheets at once. To learn how to do it, see the section Managing Subscription of Multiple Fact Sheets in Bulk.

Editing Subscription

To edit a Subscription, do the following:

  1. In the Fact Sheet, navigate to the Subscriptions tab.

  2. Click on the edit icon (depicted as a pencil) located at the right end of the subscriber list. This action will open the Edit Subscription modal, allowing you to modify the Subscription Type or Roles.

    Edit Subscription

    Edit Subscription

  3. After making the changes, click Save.

Unsubscribing from Fact Sheets

To unsubscribe from a Fact Sheet, do the following:

  1. In the Fact Sheet, navigate to the Subscriptions tab.
  2. Click on the edit icon (depicted as a pencil) located at the right end of the subscriber list. This action will open the Edit Subscription modal, allowing you to modify the subscription.
  3. Click Delete Subscription to finish unsubscribing.

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Subscriptions Management Report

The Subscription Management Report provides a summary of all subscriptions, and enables you to easily manage subscriptions by allowing you to delete or transfer subscriptions seamlessly.
To learn more, see the section Subscriptions Management Report.

Managing Subscription to Multiple Fact Sheets

Subscribing Users to Multiple Fact Sheets

You can bulk subscribe users to multiple Fact Sheets in the table view mode of Inventory. To subscribe in bulk, follow these steps:

  1. In the Inventory, apply filter to narrow down to a particular Fact Sheet type.

  2. Switch to table view mode by clicking on the As Table icon located at the top right.

    Table view mode icon

    Table view mode icon

  3. Click on the Select columns icon (Eye) and choose the subscription columns that need to be edited.

    Selecting columns in the table view mode of Inventory

    Selecting columns in the table view mode of Inventory

  4. Click Edit at the top of the table.

  5. In the relevant subscription columns, provide emails of users against the concerned Fact Sheets.

  6. Click Save.

You also have the option to export the table as an Excel file, update the required information, and then import it back for bulk subscriptions.

Unsubscribing Users From Multiple Fact Sheets

Similar to subscribing users to multiple Fact Sheets in bulk, you can also unsubscribe users from multiple Fact Sheets simultaneously. Follow the same steps as you would for the bulk subscription. Instead of adding the emails of users, remove the emails of those who need to be unsubscribed.

Updating Subscriptions in Bulk

Editing Fact Sheets in table view mode allows you to update subscriptions in bulk. For instance, there could be a need to change the Subscription Type of certain subscriptions. Consider a scenario where a Subscription Role named "Data Architect" has been established with a Subscription type of ‘All'. Various users have subscribed to Fact Sheets with different Subscription types. However, there might be instances where some users were mistakenly designated as ‘Responsible’ when they should only be 'Observer’. In such cases, updating subscriptions in bulk through the table view mode proves to be very useful.

To update the subscriptions in bulk, follow the same steps as you would for the bulk subscription and move the emails of users from one column to the other as needed.

Subscription Settings

Users with Admin rights have the ability to customize and manage specific settings related to Subscription Roles, allowing them to tailor the system to their requirements. These settings include enabling the Subscription Type ‘Accountable’, controlling whether users are allowed to have multiple subscriptions for a single Fact Sheet, enforcing the selection of a Subscription Role while subscribing to a Fact Sheet and altering data privacy level with respect to subscriptions.

Managing Subscription Types in Settings

Managing Subscription Types in Settings

Adding Subscription Type Accountable

While creating a Subscription Role, the Subscription Type ‘Accountable’ is not visible by default. It can be custom-activated in the Admin settings.

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Note

Subscription Type themselves are predefined and hence are non-configurable.

To enable the Subscription Type ‘Accountable’, do the following:

  1. From the settings, navigate to Administration > General.
  2. Check the Accountable checkbox under Subscription Type.
  3. Click Save to apply the change.

Limiting Multiple Subscriptions of a User per Fact Sheet

Admins can also control whether users are allowed to have multiple subscriptions for a single Fact Sheet. By default, a user can subscribe to a Fact Sheet multiple times under different Subscription Roles. It can be limited to one subscription per user in the settings. To implement that, do the following:

  1. From the settings, navigate to Administration > General.
  2. Under Multiple Subscriptions, select Disabled from the drop-down menu.
  3. Click Save to apply the change.

Enforcing Mandatory Selection of a Subscription Role

Admins can enforce mandatory selection of a Subscription Role while subscribing to a Fact Sheet. To implement that, do the following:

  1. From the settings, navigate to Administration > General.
  2. Under Subscription Mode, select Required from the drop-down menu.
  3. Click Save to apply the change.

Managing Data Privacy

In the settings admins have the option to adjust the data privacy level for subscriptions by choosing between 'Normal' and 'Relaxed'. In 'Relaxed' mode, users can view other subscribers in the subscription filter of the Inventory and use it to filter the Fact Sheets. However, in 'Normal' mode, users will not see other subscribers in the filter. This setting does not impact users' ability to view subscribers of a particular Fact Sheet in the Subscriptions tab.

By default, it is set to 'Relaxed'. To change it, do the following:

  1. From the settings, navigate to Administration > General.
  2. Under Data Privacy, select Normal from the drop-down menu.
  3. Click Save to apply the change.

Subscriptions Management Report

The Subscription Management Report provides a summary of all subscriptions, showing the total number of subscriptions for all users. It enables you to easily manage subscriptions by allowing you to delete or transfer subscriptions seamlessly.

Subscription Management Report can be downloaded to your workspace from the LeanIX Store. Once added to your workspace, it can be accessed by Admins under the Reports section of Advanced Settings. Clicking on the Show Report (represented by the eye icon) will make the report accessible to all users in the Reports tab of the workspace.

Accessing Subscriptions Management Report

Accessing Subscriptions Management Report

In the report you can sort and filter the list of users by their status and user role, distinguish between active and inactive users, and make necessary transfers of subscriptions as needed.

Subscriptions Management Report

Subscriptions Management Report

To get detailed information about a user's subscriptions, click on the number of subscriptions associated with that user. This will display a breakdown of all Fact Sheets to which the user is subscribed, providing details on Subscription Type and the specific Subscription Roles to which they are assigned.

Subscription details of a user

Subscription details of a user

Example Subscription Roles and Types

In order to help you get started with different subscription roles and types, LeanIX shares this example of possible Subscription Roles and Types. Use the information as a starting point to define roles that align with your organization's needs. Keep in mind that these are just examples, and your organization may use different terms for positions.

Company PositionsSubscription RolesSubscription TypesFact Sheet TypePermissions
Enterprise ArchitectEnterprise ArchitectAccountableAll- Approve quality seal
- Edit fields
- Subscribe roles
Application Owner- Application Owner
- Service Owner
- Product Owner
AccountableApplication- Approve quality seal
- Edit fields
- Subscribe roles
Solution Architect- Solution Architect
- Application Manager
ResponsibleApplication- Approve quality seal
- Edit fields
- Subscribe roles
Domain Architect- Domain Architect
- Business Architect
- IT Business Analyst
Responsible- Business Capability
- IT Components
- Tech Category
- Approve quality seal
- Edit fields
- Subscribe roles
Data ArchitectData ArchitectResponsible- Interface
- Data Object
- Approve quality seal
- Edit fields
- Subscribe roles
Technology ArchitectTechnology ArchitectResponsible- IT Components

- Tech Category
- Approve quality seal
- Edit fields
- Subscribe roles
Integration ArchitectIntegration ArchitectResponsibleInterface- Approve quality seal
- Edit fields
- Subscribe roles
Project ManagerProject ManagerResponsibleInitiative- Approve quality seal
- Edit fields
- Subscribe roles
ManagementExecutive StakeholderAccountableAll- Approve quality seal
- Edit fields
- Subscribe roles
Security / Legal / Compliance Officers- Security Officer
- Data Protection Officer
- Information Security Officer
ObserverAll- Edit fields
- Subscribe roles
Business UserObserverObserverAll- Edit fields
- Subscribe roles
SupportObserverObserverAll- Edit fields
- Subscribe roles

Additional Resource

To learn about Subscription Role through a video tutorial, check out the following video: