A business object is a self-describing unit that contains a type (its name), processing instructions (a verb), and data (attribute values).
Figure 7 is an example of a simple business object, showing its type, verb, and attribute values.
Figure 7. Business
object components.
The next sections describe these components.
Each business object has a type name that identifies it within the business integration system. For example, the type might be Customer, Employee, Item, or Contract.
A business object verb specifies an action in relation to the attribute values. The verb can indicate various types of actions, depending on the role of the business object. Table 1 lists the three business object roles and describes the meaning of the verb in a business object that has each role.
Table 1. Meanings of business object verbs.
Role of business object | Meaning of verb |
---|---|
Event | Describes what happened in an application. For example, in an event, the Create verb indicates that the source application created a new data entity. |
Request | Tells the connector how to interact with the application in order to process the business object. For example, the Update verb is a request to the connector to update the data entity. |
Response | Lists the verb specified in the associated request. For example, in a response, the Retrieve verb indicates that the connector obtained the attribute values from the application. |
A business object contains attribute values that represent data fields associated with the data entity, such as Last Name, First Name, Employee ID, or Invoice Status.
Some attributes, instead of containing data, contain child business objects or arrays of child business objects. Figure 8 illustrates the structure of a Contract business object. The Line Item information in the contract is in an array of child business objects.
Figure 8. Business
object with child business objects.
A business object that contains child business objects or arrays of child business objects is a hierarchical business object. One whose attributes contain only data is a flat business object.