A business actor is defined as an entity that performs behaviour in an organisation, in a Business Collaboration or in a constellation. The behaviour consists of the provisioning of business services or the performing of business processes or functions.

There is an illustration of the model element in the Work system pattern (Do).

Typically, a business actor performs the behaviour assigned to one or more business roles. It's important to separate the actor from the role because a business actor can perform more than one business role, and a business role can be performed by more than one business actor.

Business actors are humans, departments, and business units. They may be individuals or groups.

The name of a business actor should preferably be a noun.

Category: Business Layer and Active structure aspect

Examples: A Student, a Teacher, a Customer, Marketing & Communications department, Director of Finance, Secretary, Admissions department, Product Development, Students' Union.

Typical Relationships:

  • Assignment - business role
  • Flow - business actor

Source: Archi - The Free ArchiMate Modelling Tool - hint for the model element.