Setting Up Foreign Key Reference Information

A Foreign Key Reference defines the necessary information needed to reference an entity in certain table.

You need to set up this control table if you need to validate a foreign key value against a corresponding table. For example, if a schema element is associated with an FK Reference the system validates the element's value against the corresponding table. Refer to Configuration Tools to learn more about schema-based objects. Another example is characteristics whose valid values are defined in another table (i.e., you use "foreign key reference" characteristic types). Refer to There Are Four Types Of Characteristics for a description of characteristics of this type.

A FK Reference is used not just for validation purposes. It also used to display the standard information description of the reference entity as well as provide navigation information to its maintenance transaction. Info descriptions appear throughout the UI, for example, whenever an account is displayed on a page, a description of the account appears.

The above is possible as a result of information you define when you set up a foreign key reference for the table in question. The following points describe what you should know before you can setup a foreign key reference for a table.

• The physical name of the table. Typically this is the primary table of a maintenance object.
• The program used by default to construct the referenced entity's info description. Refer to Information Description Is Dynamically Derived for more information on how this is used.
• The transaction used to maintain the referenced entity. This is where the user navigates to when using the "go to" button or hyperlink associated with the entity. Refer to Navigation Information Is Dynamically Derived for more information on how this is used.
• The name of the search page used to look for a valid entity. The system launches the search when a user presses the search button that suffixes the characteristic value or column reference value. Typically, this will be the same search page that's invoked from the table's maintenance page.