| Bookshelf Home | Contents | Index | Search | PDF | |
Siebel Tools Reference > Business Objects Layer >
Business Components
A business component is a logical entity that associates columns from one or more tables into a single structure. Business components provide a layer of wrapping over tables, so that applets reference business components rather than the underlying tables. This creates convenience (all associated columns are together in one bundle), developer-friendly naming, and the separation of the developer role from the database administrator role. A business component can also have a default sort or search specification, providing records to applets in a predetermined sort order and according to a selection criterion.
When instantiated in a Siebel application, a business component is comparable to a recordset. Its definition in Siebel Tools provides the foundation for controlling how data is selected from, inserted, and updated within the tables it references.
Figure 79 illustrates business component records displayed in a list applet.
A business component contains fields. Each column whose data is included in a business component is represented with a field. The Field object type is a child of the Business Component object type. The Column object type is a child of the Table object type. The set of field child object definitions of a business component maps a corresponding set of columns into the business component. These relationships are shown in Figure 80.
In addition to connecting a column to the business component, the Field object type also allows you to specify a meaningful name that refers to that column. Columns in tables are often cryptically named to match the names in the DBMS, whereas fields can have more meaningful and longer names than the columns they represent (75 characters long as opposed to, typically, 30 characters).
NOTE: Not all fields are representations of columns. Some fields are calculated fields, whose values are computed from the values in other fields. The data in calculated fields is not stored separately in the database.
| Bookshelf Home | Contents | Index | Search | PDF | |
Siebel Tools Reference Published: 20 October 2003 |
