An application profile identifies the operational task a solution performs and who is responsible. Maintain it alongside the application. Within Grassroot IT, it supports further decisions, with detail scaled to importance and complexity.
Keep the key information together
Record purpose, expected benefit, users, business owner and deputy. Include data sources, outputs, storage and main dependencies. Briefly explain which work would be affected by an outage and whom users can contact.
An explicitly illustrative profile could begin:
- Application: monthly outstanding-items report in Microsoft Excel.
- Purpose: support review of overdue receivables.
- Owner: the employee assigned to receivables processing; deputy arrangements are defined by the organisation.
- Input and output: an approved data export and reconciled analysis.
- Dependency: timely delivery of the export and access to the approved workbook.
Use the profile in operation
These details raise the next questions: how is the report checked, where is the approved version and how is it restored? Update the profile when purpose or data source changes, keeping it useful for users, deputies and reviewers.
The profile is a practical aid developed for the Grassroot framework. It does not claim a universal statutory form requirement or certification of the application.