Oracle^® Business Intelligence Data Warehouse Administration Console Guide > Overview of the DAC Interface >

About Object Ownership in the DAC

The source system container in which an object originates is the owner container. The tabs in the DAC Design view display the owner of the various repository objects. You can reuse an object among different source system containers by referencing the object. A reference works like a symbolic link or shortcut. You can use the referenced object just as you would an original object, but the object's ownership remains unchanged.

For example, W_INVOICE_F is a fact table whose owner is the Siebel 7.8 source system container. You can reuse W_INVOICE_F in any other container by referencing it.

You can reference an object from its owner container, and you can also reference an object that has already been referenced by another source system container.

If you modify a referenced object, the modified object becomes a clone and the ownership changes to the source system container in which you performed the modification.

When you make changes to an original object that has been referenced by other containers, any updates to the original object are immediately reflected in the referenced object. If you delete the original object, all referenced objects are also deleted.

Changes to an original object's child objects are not automatically reflected in the referenced object's child objects. You need to use the right-click command Ownership > Push to References to push the changes to the referenced object's child objects. And, conversely, you can import into a referenced object the changes made to an original object; this function is referred to as a re-reference.

For a description of the ownership functionality available in the Design view right-click menu, see Design View Right-Click Menu Commands.

Font Variations of Objects Displayed in the DAC

The different categories of objects are represented in the DAC with differing fonts.

Object Behaviors To Consider

• Changes made to parent objects in the owner container are automatically pushed to the parent referenced objects.
• When you add child objects to a parent object, you have to push the changes to the referenced objects. For example, if you add a column to a table registered in the DAC, the new column is not automatically added to the references.
• When you delete a referenced object, only the referenced object is deleted, not the original object.
• If you delete an object from the owner container, the object is deleted and all references are deleted. This is referred to as a deep delete. For example, if you delete a table from the owner container, the table and columns are deleted.
• If you delete a column from the owner table, the column is deleted in all the referenced objects.
• If you delete child objects from the owner object, the referenced child objects are automatically deleted.