A Business Object Has Properties

A business object has properties (AKA, elements). Properties such as "Social Security Number" and "Home Phone" are applicable to an individual taxpayer, whereas "Corporate Name" is applicable to a corporation. The structure of a business object is defined using an XML schema. The purpose of the schema is to describe the business object's properties and map them to the corresponding maintenance object fields.

Figure 1. Customer - Business Object Schema (partial)

Keep in mind that many maintenance objects have child table collections (e.g., a collection of phone numbers, or a collection of characteristics on an account) and therefore the definition of where a property resides can be sophisticated. For example, defining a business object property like "Name" requires the implementer to define:

The child table on the maintenance object that holds names (e.g., CI_PER_NAME)
The unique identifier of the instance of the collection in which the value resides (e.g., where Name Type Flag = PRIM(ary))
The name of the field in which the property resides (e.g., ENTITY_NAME)

Note: Flatten. We use the terms "flattening" and "flatten out" to describe a business object property that resides in a collection but is defined as a singular element.

Some maintenance objects allow data to be stored as an XML structure field (CLOB) with the entity. Business object properties may reside in the MO's XML extension. You will typically map business object properties to an MO XML extension when the property does not have to be exposed for SQL indexing or joining (e.g., most fields on a tax form or the elements in a market message).

Some business objects may have child tables that allow data to be stored as a CLOB. You can map to these CLOB fields in your schema.

CAUTION:

CLOB is only for non-indexed / joined fields! We'd like to stress that putting properties in an XML document (CLOB) field should only be done for properties that will never be indexed or joined in an SQL statement. If you need to "join" to a property you must map it to an indexed field, like a characteristic, rather than to the CLOB. This is because databases do not commonly support indexes for elements in a CLOB field (at least not today).

Note: Schema Definition Tips. A context sensitive "Schema Tips" zone appears when you open the Business Object page to assist you with the schema definition syntax. The zone provides a complete list of the XML nodes and attributes available to you when you construct a schema.

XAI incoming messages and scripts support interaction with business objects. It is also possible to interact with business objects directly from a Java class.