In order to link attachments to objects in the system, there may be some configuration or implementation required to support the link. It is possible that one or more objects in your product already support attachments out of the box. Consult the product documentation for the specific object for confirmation. For objects in the system that do not support attachments out of the box, the following sections provide some guidelines for enabling support for attachments. Contact product support for more information.
The attachments themselves are created / uploaded using the attachment portal. Refer to Maintaining Attachments for more information.
If your implementation has a use case where one or more common attachments may be linked to an object (and the object does not already support this functionality), the object may need to be extended to capture the attachments.
If the object includes a characteristic collection, this is a recommended way to capture attachments. A characteristic type should be defined for each type of attachment. The characteristic type should be a foreign key type and should reference the Attachment FK reference. The characteristic entity collection should include the object that the common attachment will be linked to.
Most characteristic collections are sequence based characteristics and would support multiple entries for the same characteristic types, if multiple attachments are applicable.
If the object to support the attachments is governed by a business object, the implementation must extend the business object to define one or more appropriate elements used to capture the attachments. If only one attachment of a certain type is allowed, a single flattened characteristic may be used. If multiple attachments of a certain type are allowed, the BO schema may define a “flattened list” exposing the sequence and the characteristic type.
If the object is maintained on a “fixed page” with a generic characteristic collection, no additional configuration is needed to allow users to link attachments to that object.
When creating an attachment for a specific record, the attachment itself captures the information about the related record, namely its maintenance object code and its primary key. For these types of attachments, no configuration is needed on the related business object to capture the attachments, as was the case with common attachments.
However, it is recommended to configure the user interface of the related object so that the owned attachments can be viewed and maintained from that page. This typically entails the creation of a special zone that retrieves a list of existing attachment records that reference the current record as its foreign key (owner). The zone would include links or buttons to add, upload or view an attachment.
If your product already has support for viewing and maintaining owned attachments on one of the base portals, that may be used as an example to follow. If your product does not have support for owned attachments, contact customer support for more information.
As mentioned, the product provides support for several content types. If your implementation needs to support attachments for a content type not currently supported, create a new business object copying the configuration of an existing attachment business object.
Once the business object is defined, it is ready for use.
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