Associations

Most records are of limited use all by themselves. Only when they are associated with other records is their full usefulness realized. For example, by itself, a record that describes a training course has some usefulness. Associating it with other records that represent such things as course materials needed for the course, scheduled sections of the course, and prerequisites for the course makes the record that describes the training course much more useful.

An association is a connection between records. An association between two records allows IBM® Maximo® Real Estate and Facilities to navigate from one of the records to the other. Each end of the association has a name that we use to identify the association from that end. There can be any number of records on each end of an association.

There are a number of ways that an association can be created between two records. Here are a few of the ways:

• A person can use the Association tab of a form to explicitly associate two records.
• A person can put a record in a smart section of another record. This implicitly creates an association between the records. Smart sections are described in Record organization.
• A person can put a record in a locator field, business object field, or classification field of another record. This implicitly creates an association between the records. Locator fields are described in Locator fields. Business object fields are described in Business object fields. Classification fields are described in Classification fields.
• A workflow is a sequence of automated tasks for the platform to perform automatically. A workflow can create an association between records. Workflows are discussed in Overview of workflows.

A person cannot explicitly create an association between records until it is defined in the IBM Maximo Real Estate and Facilities environment.