Relationships Types
A relationship type categorizes relationship phrases and roles that determine the nature and purpose of a relationship. A relationship type defines the aspects of a relationship, such as the roles of the subject and object, business rules, and phrases that describe the relationship.
A relationship uses the relationship type to define how a party is related to another party. You can manage relationship types from the Manage Relationship Types task.
The components of a relationship type are:
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Relationship phrase pair and role pair
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Relationship characteristics
Relationship Phrase Pair and Role Pair
A relationship type contains a relationship phrase pair and a role pair. These pairs define the mutual roles that the two parties play in a relationship, as shown in the following table.
Pair |
Purpose |
Direction of Relationship Matters |
Example for Employment Relationship Type |
---|---|---|---|
Role Pair |
Describes the roles of the entities. |
No |
Employee and Employer. For example, Bill has the role of an employee, and Oracle has the role of an employer. |
Relationship Phrase Pair |
Describes the roles of the entities in the relationship. |
Yes |
Employee of and Employer of. For example, Bill is employee of Oracle. |
Relationship Characteristics
Relationship types include rules that define how you can use the relationship type.
When defining a relationship type, you can define the relationship to be one of the following:
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Circular
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Related to self
The following table explains these characteristics.
Relationship Characteristic |
Description |
Example |
---|---|---|
Circular |
The relationships between two parties forms a loop. |
A competitor relationship type links two organization parties. In this scenario, ABC Corp is a competitor of XYZ Corp, and XYZ Corp is also a competitor of ABC Corp. |
Related to self |
The subject and the object of the relationship are the same. |
A subsidiary relationship type links a subsidiary organization ABC to a parent organization XYZ. The parent organization XYZ, in turn, is linked to itself as a subsidiary using the same relationship type. |