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Multivalue Groups Within Business Components

Multivalue groups (MVGs) are used within Siebel business components to represent database multivalue 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 might 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 will 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, then the MVG is represented by several objects as illustrated in the following topics.

Multivalue Fields in a Business Component

For example, as illustrated in Figure 5, the Account business component contains a multivalue field, Address Id. The multivalue link property of Address Id has the value Business Address.

Figure 5. Address Id MVG Field in the Account Business Component

Multivalue Links in a Business Component

The Business Address multivalue link associated with the Address Id multivalue field in Figure 5 has the value Business Address as its Destination Business Component, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Destination Business Component

Fields in a Business Component After Adding a Multivalue Link

The fact that the Business Address multivalue link has Business Address as its Destination Business Component means that there is another business component named Business Address. The Business Address business component contains the fields that are collectively represented by Address Id in the Account business component, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Business Address Business Component

Graphical Representation of a Business Component and a Multivalue Link

Figure 8 shows a graphical way to represent the relationship between Account business component and the Business Address multivalue link.

Figure 8. Address Id Field and Business Address Multivalue Link

The more table-like representation in Figure 8 shows how the Business Address multivalue 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 Multivalue Link property and the Multivalue 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, then 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 9 shows an integration component based on an MVG and its user property value in Siebel Tools.

Figure 9. Integration Component Based on MVG Business Component

The EAI Siebel Adapter business service must know the names of the MVG fields as they are defined in the parent business component, which in this example is Account, and also the names of the MVG fields as they are known in the business component that represents the MVG, which in this example is Account Business Address. As shown in Figure 10, the integration component fields represent the MVG.

Figure 10. Integration Component Fields Representing MVG

To represent both names, each field is assigned an integration component field user property named MVGFieldName, or AssocFieldName if the integration component user property is MVGAssociation. The value of the integration component field user property is the name of the field shown in the parent business component, which in this example is Business Address.