Business object fields

A Business Object field can contain a Geography, Location or Organization record, depending on how the field is specified. You may also see this type of field referred to as a Smart Object field. A Smart Object is an instance of a Business Object. If a triPeople Business Object is the definition of a person, a triPeople Smart Object is a specific instance of a person in the system.

A Business Object field uses all the usual field properties, which are described in "Field properties". There are some additional properties.

Module

The value of this property can be set to Geography, Location, or Organization. This setting determines which of these three types of records this field will refer to.

Full Path

Geography, Location, and Organization records are managed as hierarchies by the IBM TRIRIGA Application Platform's Geography Manager, Location Manager, and Organization Manager, respectively. If the Full Path check box is not checked, the Geography, Location, or Organization that is the value of this field is displayed using its own name. This might look like: Atlanta

If the Full Path check box is checked, the Geography, Location, or Organization that is the value of this field is displayed using its name and every other name between it and the root of its hierarchy. This might look like: \World\North America\USA\Georgia\Atlanta

Hierarchies are discussed in greater detail in "Hierarchies".

Association String

It is not necessary to define any associations to use a Business Object field, but it is a good thing to do. If any associations between this field's business object and a business object in the module specified by the Module property are defined, the association names will appear in this property's drop-down list. If you choose the name of an association in the drop-down list to be this property's value, the platform creates the named association between a record that contains this field and the record that this field references as well as the reverse association between these two records.

Tip: Business Object field names should end with BO for easy identification later, e.g., cstOrganizationBO.