Designing a Business Model

In this section, we will learn how to design a business model in Talend Open Studio for data integration.

Before going further on this topic, we will understand what business model is?

Business Model

It is a graphical representation of data integration projects, which helps the IT operation members to learn these expressed needs and change them into the technical process (jobs).

It is a non-technical view of a business workflow need. The business model has both the systems and the methods, which are already operating in the company and the ones that will be needed in the future.

Designing a business model is known as one of the best exercises that the company can adopt at the starting point of the data integration project because it helps to lower the cost, search, and resolve the project's flaws.

We can change the business model during and after the implementation of the project if needed.

The business model will have the strategic system or processes which are already running in our organization.

We can also symbolize these systems, processes, and needs with the help of multiple shapes, creating the connections among them and can be described with the help of repository attributes, and the formatting tools.

We can use the multiple tools in the design workspace window of the Talend studio's product data integration.

Follow the below process to use the multiple tools:

• Draw the business needs.
• Create and assign various repository items into the model object.
• Define the business model properties of the model objects.

Create and Open a Business Model

For creating and designing a business model, Talend open Studio provides multiple shapes and connectors.

Open a Business Model

To open the business model, we will double-click the name of the business model, then select the business model, which opens on the design workspace window.

Create a Business Model

Follow the below process to create a business model:

• Open the Talend studio for the data integration platform.
• After that, go to the Repository panel, right-click on the Business Model node.
• And select Create business Model, as we can see in the below screenshot:

• The Create a business model window will open where we will fill all the necessary details like Name, Purpose, and Description, and click on the Finish button as we can see in the below image:

To display all the existing business models, we can expand/collapse the business model section.

The business model properties are as follows:

Name: This field is used to display the business model name; if we enter any prohibited character, one message will come up.

Purpose: This field is used to have useful information related to the business model.

Description: We can write the business model details in the description field.

Author: This field is a read-only field, which shows the current user login by default.

Locker: It is used to display the login of the user by default, who owns the lock on the current job.

It becomes empty when we are creating a Business Model, and has the data, only when we are editing the properties of an existing Business Model.

Version: Version is a read-only field, where we can manually increment the version with the help of M and m buttons.

Status: A list from where we select the status of the business model, we are creating.

Path: It displays the list of the folder where we created our business model.

After filling all the necessary fields, the Modeler will open on the empty design workspace window where we can create as many models as we want, and open them all.

The following panels are used to make the Modeler as we can see in the below image:

• The design workspace window of data integration Talend studio.
• The Palette Panel has the shapes and lines for the business model.
• And, the business model panel displays the specific information about all or part of the model.

Modeling a Business Model

The Palette panel allows the graphical representation of objects, which interact within the business model.

The objects are displayed in the palette panel as a shape that can be used in the model.

We can use the palette to drop the selected shapes on the design workspace and connect them.

Note: We must click the business model folder to show the library of the shapes on the Palette.

Shapes

We can select the shapes by double-clicking it, or drag it from the Palette panel and drop it in the modeling area of the design workspace window.

For the appearance of the quick access toolbar, keep your mouse cursor still on the modeling area for some seconds as we can see in the below image:

The above shapes include the following:

Action: The action can be symbolized with the square shape, which is used to display any transformation, translation, or formatting.

Terminal: The terminal shape denoted by the rounded corner square space, which is used to display the output terminal type.

Document: This is used to insert a document object that can be any document and used as the input or output for processing the data.

Database: This is used to insert the database object that can hold the input/output data to be processed.

List: It is used to form a list with the extracted data, and it can be defined to hold a particular type of data.

Data: It can be symbolized with a parallelogram shape, which is used to display the data type.

Input: It is used to insert an input object where data could be passed manually by the user.

Decision: It is denoted by the diamond shape, and used to display the If conditions.

Actor: It is used for the individuals in decision making and technical processes.

Ellipse: It is used to insert an ellipse shape.

Gear: It is used to display the manual program, which is replaced by the Talend jobs.

The below shape has a blue-edged input box, which allows us to add a label to the shape; we can also give the name, which helps us to identify the role of the shape in the model.

The two arrows used to create a connection with the other shapes.

Connecting Shapes

If we want to show the relationship between a source shape and a target shape.

To join the shapes in our design workspace, there are two possible ways which are as follows:

• Select the appropriate Relationship tool in the Palette panel, as we can see in the below image:

Then pull a link from one shape to other shapes to draw a connection between them in the design workspace window.

• For this, move your mouse pointer over a shape that we already dropped on our design workspace to show the double connections arrows.
• Select the appropriate arrow to implement the correct directional connection if needed.
• Drag a link towards an empty area of the design workspace and release it to display the connections popup menu.
• Select the appropriate connection from the list. We can choose among Create Relationship To, Create Directional Relationship To, or Create Bidirectional Relationship To as we can see in the below screenshot:

Editing a business model

We can rename, copy, paste, moving, and delete a business model.

Let see how we can edit a business model.

Rename a Business Model

To rename a business model, follow the below process:

• Go to the Repository panel, then right-click on the Business Model tree view.
• Then, select Edit Properties in the popup menu to show the related Main properties information as we can see in the below screenshot:

• In the Edit properties window, we can rename our business model and click on the Finish button.

• The model name was changed automatically in the Repository panel, and it will be reflected on the model tab present in the design workspace window, as we can see in the below image:

Note: If the business model is open, it will be the read-only mode in the Edit Properties dialog box, so we will not be able to edit them.

Copy and Paste a Business Model

Follow the below process to copy and paste a business model:

• Go to the Repository panel, then move to Business Model.
• Then, right-click on the business model name, which has to be copied.
• And, select the Copy option in the popup menu, or we can directly press Ctrl+C as we can see in the below screenshot:

• After that, select the Paste option by right-clicking on the bussiness_demo model as we can observe in the below image:

Move a Business Model

Follow the below process to move a business model.

• We are moving a Business model from one location to another in our business models project folder.
• Select a Business Model in the Repository panel.
• Then, drop it to the new location.

Delete a business Model

To delete a business Model, follow the below steps.

• Right-click on the model name, which we want to delete, and select Delete option in the popup menu as we can see in the below image:

• Or, we can select the appropriate business model, and drop it into the Recycle bin, which is present in the Repository panel, as we can see in the below screenshot:

Save a Business Model

To save a business model, follow the below process:

• Click on the File menu then select the Save option to save the business model or simply press Ctrl+S.
• The model is saved with a name that we have given in the creating process.

• In the above image, an asterisk symbol is showing in front of the business model name on the tab, which indicates that some changes have been made in the model but not yet saved.