Configuring Siebel eBusiness Applications > Configuring Multi-Value Group and Association Applets >

About Association Applets

Association applets are used with pairs of business components that have a many-to-many relationship. Association applets can be invoked from master-detail views or from MVG applets. They allow users to associate a parent record with one or more children through an intersection table.

NOTE:  You cannot modify records in an association applet.

Figure 88 shows a many-to-many relationship between two business components.

Figure 88.  Row Relationships in a Many-to-Many Relationship

"Adding" a record to the detail business component in a many-to-many relationship can in reality mean associating an existing detail record to a master record, rather than creating a new detail record from scratch. This is because master and detail are relative terms in a many-to-many relationship. For example, the Opportunity and Contacts business components in Figure 88 can be displayed as one opportunity to many contacts, or one contact to many opportunities, depending on the active view.

In this situation, the association applet presents the user with a selection list of available detail records. If users see the desired detail record in the selection list, they choose it. If not, they have the option to create a new detail record. In the context of a many-to-many relationship, creating a new association for an existing detail record is called association; creating a new detail record and an association is called addition. Both association and addition of detail records result in the creation of a new row in the intersection table. Addition also results in the creation of a new row in the detail table.

NOTE:  An association applet cannot be configured to be constrained or filtered through properties the way a pick applet can (using the Constrain property of a Pick List). To constrain an association applet, you must use Siebel VB or Siebel eScript to query using the Exists clause in the WebApplet_Load event on the association applet.