When defining attributes for a generic business object, study
the attributes of the application-specific business objects to
which the generic business object will map. Consider these
guidelines:
- Note the similarities between entities in the
application-specific business objects's attributes. Define
attributes for the generic business object that most simply match
those in the application-specific business objects.
- Note the differences between entities in the
application-specific business objects' attributes. If one
application-specific business object splits data into multiple
fields while another combines the same data into one field,
determine which design best simplifies mapping between the two
application entities. For more information, see "Designing for an existing connector
or data handler".
- Consider requirements generated by the processing performed by
the collaboration object. For example, if the collaboration object
processes prerequisites as described in "Designing generic business objects
(InterChange Server only)", ensure that the generic business
object contains all attributes required to store the prerequisite
data.
- Develop the generic business object and interface to
accommodate the largest number of applications involved in the
interface. For instance, if there are four applications involved in
an interface and three of them encapsulate data in a child object
but the fourth contains that data at the parent-level object, then
design the generic business object so that it encapsulates the data
in a child object as well--this results in mapping and other
related tasks being that much easier.
- Take future development efforts into account; you may want to
design a generic business object to accommodate data structures
that will be required at a later point to minimize the effort and
change impact at that time. Do not, however, significantly increase
the scope of development for a future project that may never come
to be.
In general, a generic business object definition should include
attributes that capture all the data elements that are to be
transformed among all the application-specific business objects to
which the generic business object will map.
Names of the attributes should be as intuitive as possible. For
example, if several applications refer to an entity as a
Customer and one application refers to the same entity as
a Business Organization, use the more common terminology
to name the generic attributes.
- Note:
- The name of an attribute can contain only alphanumeric
characters and underscore (_).
