Information model
– Describe information in your business

What is an information model?

An information model is used to organize and structure information that exists in a business. It can be seen as a blueprint of how the information is shaped and how it relates to other information within the business.

What do we mean by information?

In order to gain a better understanding of what an information model is, we first of all need to clarify the concept of information.

Organizations are made up of different types of information and in our daily operations this information is processed. When we talk about information within businesses, we usually talk about supporting information. It is information that affects the business in some way and can be, for example, our customers, our staff, IT systems or materials.

The information model is closely related to the conceptual model, and the two interact to create understanding.

Why should you use an information model?

Briefly, we can say that the information model is used to care for the information contained within our business.

• Increased understanding and clarity
  With the information model, we simplify the otherwise complex by visualizing it. We get a clear picture of how the information in our business relates to each other. This makes it easy for all employees, even those without a technical background, to understand the overall information structure.
• Inter-enterprise view
  With the information model in 2c8 Apps, you can make your information assets visible and connect them to your organization’s resources, goals, and processes.
• Improving the quality of information for decision-making
  The model type ultimately provides better data and information quality through the clear structure, relationships, and data types defined in the model. This provides a better basis for decision-making and reduces the risk of errors in your processes.
• Better integrations and cooperation
  The information model clarifies the concepts and descriptions an organization uses in its activities. We simply get a delimited and known set of concepts that the organization can use uniformly. We also see how concepts and information sets relate to each other.

How to create an Information Model

1. Gather the entities of the business
   An entity is characterized by something in the business that has independent existence and is uniquely identifiable. It can be a physical object, an event or a more abstract concept. For example, a building, a completed event, or an order. Start by compiling the entities you have in your business.
2. Finding relationships between entities
   A relationship shows how two entities are connected. The relationship can be of different types, such as one-to-one, one-to-many or many-to-many.
3. Produce keys and sample data
   Add keys and sample data to the objects you have placed in the model.