Understanding Entity Registry
An entity is an object that provides access (view, create, or update) to data in a record. You implement an entity through an application class.
The system delivers entities related to constituent (personal), admissions, and enrollment data. The list of delivered entities may grow with new web services or new functionality that we may deliver in the future. You can create new entities and extend delivered entities (or modify them to a lesser degree). New entities can be built based on new or existing records. How the entity relates to the record is dependant on the entity type.
Note: You define entity relationships in the Entity Registry component. However, outside of the Entity Registry component, entities are unaware of each other. This means all the code related to a particular entity is entirely encapsulated in that entity. This keeps the entities clean and avoids including child entities code inside the parent entity. For instance, even if Emergency Contact entity is a child of Constituent entity, the latter does not know anything about Emergency Contact other than having a relationship defined in the Entity Registry component.
Use the Entity Registry component to configure how the system should use specific entities (or properties). Entity logic is designed to be-reusable for different purposes such as:
Web services: Based on the specified application class, the Entity Registry component enables you to automatically generate code and XML schemas. You can then directly paste the generated code and schemas inside the application classes and Integration Broker messages. The system uses these classes and messages when a transaction is processed through web services. Web services can use the entities for moving the data to and from functionalities such as XML messages, error handling, save/delete, and any other functionality coded in the entity.
Component data validation: Components and web services can use the same logic to do data validation. Currently, the easiest way to reuse the logic is in Savepostchange code. For example, the Application Transactions and the Constituent Staging components use this way.
Beans: Beans are objects containing multiple types of data. Entities are a natural fit to support beans. This is because you can design entities to support multiple types of data, and make any transition to web services easy.
APIs: The system can use entities to modify record data programmatically, with full access to all the common logic used by components or web services.
Import/Export: The system can export data to XML files easily using the entities' ability to get data and encode it into XML. Import can be done using the ability to translate data from a XML file and save the translated data.
Batch Processing: You can use entities to handle data in batch. This can be done by loading the data using XML matching the entity style, or by any other means such as populating the data into an entity directly.
The Admissions Application Web Services (AAWS) feature illustrates an example of how to use the Entity Registry component. In AAWS, an applicant uses a user interface to enter constituent (personal) and admissions application information. In such a case, the system first needs to stage the entered information, then validate it, and finally move the information to the corresponding production tables. We have delivered entities for the constituent data (for example, Names, Addresses, Emergency Contacts, and so on) and we have delivered entities for the admissions data (for example, Academic Interests, Academic Plan, Academic Program, and so on). For each of these entities, we have configured the name of the stage record and the name of the equivalent production record in the Entity Registry component. Based on this delivered Entity Registry component configuration, the system knows how to pass the information that exists inside the incoming and outgoing web services.
Warning! Configuring or extending an entity is a technical task and should only be performed by developers with strong Integration Broker, Application Package, PeopleTools skills and record structure.
Entity Component Adapter
The entity component adapter allows entities to bind to the component row sets. By binding to the component, entity validation and presave logic can be run on live component data. This allows us to better consolidate common logic and make sure that components, services, APIS, etc. all follow the same rules for the data. The Entity Component Adapter also serves to allow rules to be run based on component data.