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Create business objects

In this lesson, you create custom business objects to organize your process-specific data for the Standard HR Open New Position business process definition (BPD).

About this task

Business objects represent the business data that is relevant to the BPD. For this lesson, you need the following custom business objects:
  • Person
  • Position
  • Requisition

For each business object, you define parameters to specify the data structure. A parameter is assigned a variable type that can be a simple type or a business object. In this lesson, you create the business objects that are required for this model. When you create the user interface, you bind elements of the user interface to these business objects.

When you create business objects, follow these guidelines:
  • Start business object names with an uppercase letter.
  • If the name of the business object consists of more than one word, capitalize the first letter of each word, for example NewPerson.
  • Remember that the names of business objects are case sensitive.
  • Add documentation details to business objects and parameters to clarify their use to other users. These details display in the context-sensitive help windows when someone selects the business objects for use with variables.
This lesson uses the following concepts:
Concept Description
business objects A variable that represents business data that is relevant in the context of a BPD.

Procedure

Create the business objects:

  1. Make sure that the My Hiring Sample (MHS) process application is open in the Process Designer desktop editor.
  2. Create a Person business object:
    1. In the Designer library, click the plus sign next to Data and select Business Object.
      This image shows how to add a business object.
    2. Type Person for the business object name and click Finish.
    3. In the Parameters section, click Add.
    4. Type lastName for the parameter name and keep the variable type as String. To change the variable type, click Select next to Variable Type to select one of the variable types in the system toolkit.
    5. Continue to add the following parameters:
      • firstName (String)
      • supervisor (String)
      • startDate (Date)
      • payLevel (String)
      • payType (String)
      • notes (String)
      This image shows the Person Business Object window.
  3. Save your work.
  4. Create a Position business object:
    1. In the Designer library, click the plus sign next to Data and select Business Object.
    2. Type Position for the business object name and click Finish.
    3. In the Parameters section, click Add.
    4. Type positionType for the parameter name and keep the variable type as String.
    5. Click Edit under Documentation and type New or existing position.
    6. Continue to add the following parameters:
      • replacement (Person), Documentation: Null if a new position
      • jobTitle (String)
      This image shows the Position Business Object window.
  5. Save your work.
  6. Create a Requisition business object:
    1. In the Designer library, click the plus sign next to Data and select Business Object.
    2. Type Requisition for the business object name and click Finish.
    3. In the Parameters section, click Add.
    4. Type reqNum for the parameter name and keep the variable type as String.
    5. Continue to add the following parameters:
      • requestor (String)
      • status (String)
      • approvalNeeded (Boolean)
      • date (Date)
      • department (String)
      • location (String)
      • empNum (Integer)
      • gmApproval (String), Documentation: Approved or rejected
      • gmComments (String)
      • instanceId (String)
      This image shows the Requisition business object window.
  7. Save your work.
  8. Click the back arrow until you return to the Standard HR Open New Position process. When you modeled the process, you created variables to model the decision gateway logic and associated the variables to a temporary type called placeholder. Now, change the type of these variables to the types of the business objects that you created.
  9. In the main canvas of the Standard HR Open New Position process, click the Variables tab.
  10. Change the variable type of the currentPosition private variable from Placeholder to Position by clicking Select and then Position.
  11. Change the variable type of the requisition private variable from Placeholder to Requisition by clicking Select and then Requisition.

    Your private variables match the following image:

    This image shows the Variables tab open.

  12. Save your work.
  13. Click the Diagram tab to return to the Standard HR Open New Position process diagram.

Lesson checkpoint

You created business objects and replaced the placeholder variables with the business objects.

In this lesson, you learned
  • How to add business objects
  • How to set a variable's type to a particular business object

In the next lesson, you implement the timer intermediate event.

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