A lookup relationship associates data that is equivalent across business objects but may be represented in different ways. In this case, given a value in one business object, the relationship can look up its equivalent in the relationship tables for another business object. The most common example of attributes that might require lookups are codes (EmployeeType, PayLevel, OrderStatus) and abbreviations (State, Country, Currency). For more background information, see "Lookup relationships"..
When you create a relationship definition for a lookup, you add a participant definition for each business object that contains the attributes you want to relate. However, you do not associate the actual business object definitions or attribute names with the participant definitions. Instead, you specify Data as the participant type for each participant definition.
To define a lookup relationship using Relationship Designer Express, perform the following steps:
Create a participant definition for each business object to be related.
In the relationship definition, the Data participant type represents all data types other than business object types. When you create the map and work with instances of the relationship using methods in the Relationship, IdentityRelationship, and Participant classes, you can use data of any of the supported Java data types, such as String, int, long, float, double, or boolean.
To retrieve the table names for each participant definition in the relationship definition, or to specify your own table names:
Result: The Advanced Setting dialog box appears showing the storage settings for that participant. See "Specifying advanced relationship settings" for more information on these settings.
Tip: To create the relationship tables, check the Create Schema box in the Deploy Project dialog in System Manager. For more information about when to create the run-time schema, see"Creating the relationship table schema".