An ODA (Object Discovery Agent) enables you to generate application-specific business object definitions. A business object definition is a template for a business object. The ODA examines specified application objects, "discovers" the elements of those objects that correspond to business object attributes, and generates business object definitions to represent the information. Business Object Designer provides a graphical interface to access the Object Discovery Agent and to work with it interactively.
The Object Discovery Agent (ODA) for eMatrix supports both business object and relationship types. The ODA connects to the eMatrix database using the initialization properties that you provide in Business Object Designer.
It then retrieves all the business object type names from the eMatrix database and presents them in Business Object Designer. You can expand any of the business object types to see the relationships associated with them, and you can also expand these relationships. You can then select one or more of these business object types (parent or child) and relationship types and generate a business object definition for it.
The Business Object Designer wizard automates the process of creating these definitions, using the eMatrix business object attributes retrieved by the ODA. Business object definitions created for child business object and relationship types are associated with the parent business object definition. You can view or make modifications to a business object definition before you save it to the server.
You use the ODA to generate business object definitions at two different stages: