IBM 4.6.x, User Manual

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Chapter 4. Understanding business objects
v
“Business object structure and relationships”
v
“Business object application-specific information” on page 39
This chapter describes how the connector processes business objects. To properly
create or modify business objects for Siebel, you must understand the object
relationships within the Siebel architecture.
Note:
This chapter includes references to Event and Archive business components,
business objects, and tables. These references are synonymous with
references to CW Event and CW Archive that appear in earlier versions, and
with references to IBM Event and IBM Archive that appear in Siebel 7.5
Business object structure and relationships
The connector supports Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete, Exists, Retrieve By
Content, and DetlaUpdate verbs for a Siebel application-specific business object
whose semantics are encapsulated in its business object definition. There is no
connector logic that processes a Siebel application-specific business object
according to hard-coded instructions in the connector. For example, the connector
does not expect a particular business object to consist of a certain type and number
of entities. What the connector expects is that any object may consist of one or
more entities.
Siebel business components can be associated in three ways. They can be linked in
one-to-one relationships through single-valued links, or they can have Multi-Value
Link (MVL) fields representing one-to-many relationships, or they can have a
simple link.
Business components can be associated in many-to-one relationships by means of
PickLists. Business component methods provide support for searching a PickList
business component for a specific value and placing that value in a field. Finally,
business components can be associated in many-to-many relationships through
intersection tables.
If there are two unrelated single cardinality business components under the same
business object in Siebel, a separate business object wrapper needs to be created.
In order to support the Siebel concept of a business object context encapsulating
numerous business components, a top-level business object should correspond to
the appropriate Siebel business object. The top-level business object
application-specific information should contain the name of the corresponding
Siebel business object. Each top-level attribute should then correspond to a Siebel
business component.
Within a business object definition that corresponds to a business component, each
attribute specifies either a simple field, or a Multi-Value Group (MVG) field. The
attribute data in simple attributes should have simple data types. Attributes that
correspond to MVG fields should be treated as child (container) business objects.
This business object structure is part of the meta-data that allows the connector to
handle all business objects in the same manner. The connector can support
additional Siebel objects if a business object definition is specified for the object.
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