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The Simpl-Open project is at the heart of the operation of Simpl. For Simpl-Open 11 Business Processes have been identified. These processes structure the activities and tasks that are performed by people or machines concerning the operations expected within Simpl.

L0 Business Processes
Below are the L0 Business Processes identified in the Simpl-Open project. These high-level processes outline the core operations and activities within Simpl. We believe in collaborative development and invite you to review these processes. Your feedback is invaluable to us, and we encourage you to comment and provide input on these requirements. By sharing your insights, you help us refine and improve these processes to better meet the needs of all participants.

• 1 - Setup of Dataspace: Role of Governance Authority
• 2 - Setup of ID/Trust, Catalogues and Vocabulary
• 3a - Onboarding of a New Dataspace Participant - Providers (data - application - infrastructure) & Consumers
• 3b - Onboarding of a new Dataspace - Participant End-User
• 5 - A provider adds and updates a new Resource on data, application or infrastructure, on the Dataspace’s Catalogue
• 6 - Data Consumers search Resources on Dataspace’s Catalogues
• 7 - Data Consumers establish a Contract with the Provider for selected Catalogue items
• 8 - Consumers selects and uses an Infrastructure Catalogue Resource from the Infrastructure Provider
• 9 - Consumers selects and uses data/application Catalogue Resources from the Data or Application provider on the secure processing environment (established by 8)
• 12 - Management / operations of dataspace business
• 13 - IT - Administration

Actor Definitions
In the Simpl-Open project, various actors play crucial roles in ensuring the efficient operation of our data space. Each actor has specific responsibilities and interacts with the system in its own ways. Understanding these roles is key to grasping the overall functionality of Simpl-Open.
See below all the actors definitions that are included in the business processes.

(Dataspace) Applicant: An "applicant" refers to an entity that submits an application or request to join, partake in, or receive something from a data space. This term is typically used in contexts where a selection or approval process is in place. Applicants are at the initial stage of engagement with the data space, seeking approval or acceptance which is based on the criteria and procedures set by the Data Space Governance Authority  

(Dataspace) Consumer: This group includes consumers that can access data, application, and infrastructure from the data space. They can interact with the Simpl in various ways: they can search for data or for other resources, such as algorithms and AI models in the data spaces; use them online by utilizing the infrastructure and services provided by the Simpl Middleware or if policy allows, download them for local usage. 

(Dataspace) Governance Authority: The data space participant that is accountable for creating, developing, operating, maintaining, and enforcing the governance framework for a particular data space, without replacing the role of public enforcement authorities.  

(Dataspace) Participant: A party that has committed to the governance framework of a particular data space and may have one or more roles in it. 

Application Provider: The application providers can be the data spaces or other external systems offering applications via the application catalogue. The term “application” is used in a rather broad sense in this document, and it covers any sort of executables including applications, as well as algorithms, such as a trained AI model that users can leverage to analyse their data. Application providers can also define the access control policies regarding their resources and bill the users for their usage.  

Data Provider: This category covers all the data space actors offering data for the consumers. They can share one or more data sets and regulate the access and usage over the data with the help of access control policies and usage agreements. In order to compensate the data usage, the data providers can also bill the data space consumers. An example of a data provider can be an energy network operator sharing data on the energy grid load towards energy production facilities (who act as consumers) for production optimization application.  

End User: An end user is a real person (human actor) that interacts with the Simpl agent mostly through the UI. 

Infrastructure Provider: The infrastructure providers offer infrastructure resources and services to the to the consumers (or possibly to any other type of participant) to enable them to process the data provided by the data providers. They can, for example, launch virtual machines or containers and run applications, algorithms, or other executables on top of the underlying infrastructure. Similarly, to the data providers, the infrastructure providers can define access control policies for the infrastructure resources and bill the middleware users for their usage.  

Representative: A "representative" refers to the human "end user" that takes actions on behalf of an entity actor, such as the: consumer, provider, or governance authority. 

Legend
To better understand our business process diagrams, it's important to familiarize yourself with the symbols we use. Each symbol has a specific meaning and helps illustrate the flow and activities within a process. Here's a detailed explanation of each symbol:

• The "Start" symbol, represented by a green oval, indicating the beginning of a process. 
• The "Action" symbol, shown as a grey rectangle, representing an activity or task to be completed. 
• The "End" symbol, depicted as a red oval, marking the conclusion of a process. 
• Decision points are illustrated by a white diamond labelled "Decision," which signifies a point where a decision must be made, leading to different subsequent actions. 
• The other diamond with a solid cross in middle indicates a parallel process. 
• Additionally, there is a symbol for "Documents," represented by a white rectangle with a folded corner, indicating documentation or forms involved in the process.