A  Business Capability is a conceptual Capability that benefits to Customers (internal or external) of the enterprise. It expresses an ability to produce Conceptual Outcome Events.

A  Business Capability is defined by its intended Enterprise Outcome Events and the conditions (Condition Property) under which the production of the Enterprise Outcome Events shall be proceeded.

The actual Condition Scale Values for a given Business Capability at different stages of Enterprise Initiatives is given by their exhibition (Exhibited Capability).

A  Business Function is a Mezzo unit within the enterprise's functional division of labor. It is used to shape the enterprise management structure in regard to how it produces, consumes or processes Business Outcome Events: information, energy, materiel.

A  Business Function specifies Skills and  Functionality(ies) required to perform their activities effectively.

A  Concept is the representation of any tangible or intanglible entity that is of interest to understand the enterprise, its data, resources and activities.

A  Concept is defined through its essential characteristics which can be:

1) A  Concept Property that represents some an immutable factual characteristic such as "name", "amount".

2) A Concept Relationship that represents relationships to other  Concepts.

A  Concept Domain is a subset of the Concepts of a  Business Dictionary that are relevant to an Operating Domain.

For instance, a "Sales Concept Domain" comprises at least the Concepts of "Customer" and "Order" while a standard "Marketing Concept Domain" comprises at least the Concepts of "Market Segment", "Product" and "Value Proposition".

A  Conceptual Agent is an abstract type of Agent that depicts a functional division of labor within an enterprise, influencing the formation of its business operating model.

The concrete specializations of  Conceptual Agent follow the systemic level pattern and come in the form of Operating Domain (a Macro  Conceptual Agent) and Business Function (a Mezzo  Conceptual Agent).

A  Conceptual Business Rule is a rule that is under business jurisdiction.

A rule’s being 'under business jurisdiction' means that it is under the jurisdiction of the semantic community that it governs or guides - that the semantic community can opt to change or discard the rule. Laws of physics may be relevant to a company (or other semantic community); legislation and regulations may be imposed on it; external standards and best Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules, v1.0 161 practices may be adopted. These things are not business rules from the company’s perspective, since it does not have the authority to change them. The company will decide how to react to laws and regulations, and will create business rules to ensure compliance with them. Similarly, it will create business rules to ensure that standards or best practices are implemented as intended.

A  Conceptual Ecosystem is an operating context in which a Conceptual Agent exists or lives for a specific purpose.

For instance, the operating context of a  Conceptual Ecosystem includes its Business Partners (customers and suppliers).

A  Conceptual Entity is the representation of any tangible or intanglible resource or state of such resource that is of interest to understand the enterprises, its data, resources and activities.

A  Conceptual Entity is either a Concept or a State Concept.

Example:

- "Person" is a  Conceptual Entity of type Concept, Its temporal boundaries are is birth and its death (see Event Concept).

- "Employee" is a  Conceptual Entity of type State Concept: it is a state of a "person". Its temporal boundaries are its hiring and its departure.

As part of the enterprise Conceptual Operating Model, a  Conceptual Environment Scenario is a story that describes how an Operating Domain interacts with its partners (Business Partner) to achieve Business Outcome Events in a specific Conceptual Environment..

This includes:

1) A course of events represented by Resource Object Flows depicting the story towards the delivery of expected Business Outcome Events.

2) Interacting partners who participate to the story in the considered Conceptual Environment.

As part of the Conceptual Operating Model, a  Conceptual Interaction Scenario is a story that frames how the components of a Conceptual Agent interacts to achieve Conceptual Outcome Events.

This includes:

1) A course of events represented by Business Object Flows depicting the steps towards the delivery of expected Conceptual Outcome Events.

2) Conceptual Agents who participate to the story.

A  Conceptual Operating Asset is an Operating Asset  used to describe the Conceptual Operating Model of the enterprise.

It includes Value Streams, Operating Domains and Business Functions and the way they contribute to the delivery of Business Outcome Events.

A  Domain Asset is the representation of any type of tangible or intanglible resource, or its respective state, that is critical for comprehending an enterprise, including its data, resources, and activities.

Similar to any Information Asset, a  Domain Asset can be classified into three categories:

1)  Conceptual Entitys denote entities that can change over time.

2) Event Concepts embody the temporal boundaries associated with Conceptual Entitys.

3)  Concept Propertys represent immutable characteristics of Conceptual Entitys.

 An  Event Concept is a Domain Asset that represents a type of change used to draw the temporal boundaries of Conceptual Entitys.

Examples:

- order placing

- order delivery

- birth

- death

An  Individual Concept is an instance of a Concept.

For example, "John Doe" is an instance of the "Person" Concept.

An  Operating Domain is a Macro functional division of labor within an enterprise, acting as a Conceptual Agent.

It embodies a collection of interrelated  Business Functions which collaboratively provide one or more  Business Capability(ies).
Operating Domains serve as the highest hierarchical grouping of Business Functions within the enterprise's Conceptual Environment.

A  Period that is an arbitrary period of time.

Examples:

- 20 Minutes - the set of all 20 minute periods

- 3.345 Nanoseconds- the set of all 3.345 Nanosecond periods.

- Quater - the set all all quaters : 1 quater of 1492, 3rd quater of 2056, ....

- 7000 Years- the set of all 7000 Year period.

A  Period Type that is an arbitrary period of time.

 Period Type is used to define the period on which Time Events or Event Concepts can occur.

Examples:

- Year - the set of all years (..., -5000, ... 50, ..., 800, ..., 1000, ..., 1789, ..., 1946, ..., 2050, ...)

- 3.345 Nanoseconds- the set of all 3.345 Nanosecond periods.

- Quater - the set all all quaters : 1 quater of 1492, 3rd quater of 2056, ....

- 7000 Years- the set of all 7000 Year period.

 Value Streams are used to frame the Conceptual Operating Model of the enterprise: they describe how the enterprise shall operate, at the conceptual level, and helps chunking responsibilities between Conceptual Agents (Operating Domain or Business Function) .

In the EA context, a  Value Stream is a conceptual Action Process that represents an overarching perspective of the organization's processes aiming at producing Conceptual Outcome Events. The focus is on shaping and understanding the functional relationships and roles within the enterprise : its functional division of labor.

This is not to be confused with Value Stream Mapping (VSM) which is focused on Lean optimization and is addressed with the concept of  Business Process (see the Organization & Processes domain).

A  Value Stream is performed by Conceptual Agents who produce Conceptual Outcome Events. It is depicted as a sequence of Value Stream Stages, controlled by events and conditions.

 Value Stream Activitys are carried out by the involvment of Conceptual Agents as participants in the  Value Stream.

During its course of action, a  Value Stream consumes, produces or stores  Business Objects.

1) It may read or write Domain Assets in its Business Object Store.

2) It may receive Domain Assets at its boundary:  reacted to Business Outcome Events.

3) It may produce Domain Assets at its boundary:  produced Business Outcome Events.

The course of actions of a  Value Stream is constrained by the application of rules ( Conceptual Rule Enforcement) that define what is allowed and not allowed to do.

There are traditionnaly two kinds of  Value Streams:

1) Development development  Value Streams define all of the actions, both value-creating and nonvalue-creating, required to bring a Product from concept to launch.
2)  Operational  Value Streams define define all of the actions, both value-creating and nonvalue-creating, required from order to delivery. These include actions to process information from the  Customer and actions to transform the product on its way to the Customer.