Integration Platform Technologies: Siebel eBusiness Application Integration Volume ll > Integration Objects > About the Structure of Integration Objects >

About Multi-Value Groups Within Business Components

Multi-value groups (MVGs) are used within Siebel business components to represent database multivalued attributes. MVGs can be one of two types: regular MVGs or MVG Associations.

An integration object instance most often has multiple integration component instances. For example, an Account can have multiple Business Addresses but only one of these addresses is marked as the primary address. A business requirement may require that only the integration component instance that corresponds to the primary MVG be part of the integration object instance. In relation to Account and Business Addresses this means that only the primary address should be part of the Account integration object instance. The primary address can be obtained by one of the following steps:

• Creating a new MVG on the Account business component that uses a link with a search specification only returning the primary address record.
• Exposing the primary address information on the Account business component level using a join that has the primary ID as source field. Note that in this case the primary address information corresponds to fields on the Account integration component instance and not the fields on a separate Address component instance.

In Siebel Tools, if a Siebel business component contains an MVG, the MVG is represented in several screens as illustrated in the following sections.

Screen 1: Fields View for an MVG Field in a Business Component

For example, as illustrated in Figure 6, the Account business component contains a multi-value group field, the Address Id.

Figure 6.  Address Id MVG Field in the Account Business Component

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Screen 2: Multi-Value Links in a Business Component

As shown in Figure 7, the multi-value link property has the value Business Address. If you navigate to the Multi Value Link screen, you see that the Business Address multi-value link has the value Business Address as its Destination Business Component.

Figure 7.  Destination Business Component

Screen 3: Fields View After Adding Multi-Value Link

As shown in Figure 8, the Business Address multi-value link has Business Address as its Destination Business Component. This means that there is another business component named Business Address that contains the fields that are collectively represented by Address Id in the Account business component.

Figure 8.  Business Address Business Component

Graphical Representation of a Business Component and a Multi-Value Link

Figure 9 shows a graphical way to represent the relationship between Account business component and the Business Address multi-value link.

Figure 9.  Address Id Field and Business Address MVG

The more table-like representation above shows how the Business Address multi-value link connects the two business components. The child points to the Business Address business component, which contains the multiple fields that make up the MVG.

NOTE:  Two business components are used to represent an MVG.

Creating a Siebel Integration Component to Represent an MVG

To create a Siebel integration component to represent an MVG, it is necessary also to create two integration components:

• The first integration component represents the parent business component. In the example, this is the Account business component. This integration component contains only the fields that are defined in the parent business component, but which are not based on MVGs. The Multi-value Link property and the Multi-value property are empty for these fields.
• The second integration component represents the MVG business component. In the example, this is the Business Address business component. The second integration component has one integration field for each field based on the given MVG in the parent business component. An integration component user property will be set on this integration component to tell the EAI Siebel Adapter that it is based on an MVG business component. If the MVG is a regular MVG, the user property is named MVG. If the MVG is an Association MVG, then the user property is named MVGAssociation. In both cases, the value of the user property is Y.

Figure 10 shows an integration component based on an MVG and its user property value in Siebel Tools.

Figure 10.  Integration Component Based on MVG Business Component

The EAI Siebel Adapter needs to know the names of the MVG fields as they are defined in the parent business component—in this example, Account—and also the names of the MVG fields as they are known in the business component that represents the MVG—in this example, Account Business Address. As shown in Figure 11, the integration component fields represent the MVG.

Figure 11.  Integration Component Fields Representing MVG

To represent both names, each field is assigned an integration component field user property that contains the entry MVGFieldName or AssocFieldName if the user property is MVGAssoc. Its value is the name of the field shown in the parent business component—in this example, Business Address.