8 Managing Entities

Similar to rule generator adapters, entity adapters are also responsible for generating, modifying, or verifying the value of a form's field automatically, and saving this information to the Oracle Identity Manager database. However, the differences between rule generators and entity adapters are as follows:

1. Execution schedule. Entity adapters can be triggered by Oracle Identity Manager on preinsert, preupdate, predelete, postinsert, postupdate, and postdelete. A rule generator adapter can be executed only on preinsert and preupdate.

2. Manual field value modification. The adapter populates the form field to which an entity adapter is attached. An Oracle Identity Manager user should not edit this value because the entity adapter will overwrite this modification. As a result, the modification will not be saved to the database.

   Similarly, the adapter also populates the form field to which a rule generator adapter is attached. However, an Oracle Identity Manager user can edit this value because this modification will take precedence over the value that the rule generator adapter generates. Because of this, the modification will be saved to the database.

3. Background color of form field. If a rule generator is attached to a form field, then the field will appear in a particular background color (for example, pink). This is a visual indicator that the field has a rule generator attached to it. On the other hand, when an entity adapter is attached to a form field, the field will not have a distinct background color.

Note:

For more information about mapping the variables of an entity adapters with Oracle Identity Manager forms and/or provisioning processes, refer to the procedures in the Chapter 6, "Understanding Rule Generators".