Select Business Objects for a Transaction Model

As you create a transaction model, select business objects that provide data pertinent to the risk your model defines. Include objects that contain attributes you'll use both to define the risk and to supply result values the model returns.

For example, if a model is to include the filter "Payment Amount is greater than 5,000 dollars," you'd select the Payment business object, because it includes the Payment Amount attribute. While Payment Amount might also serve as a result attribute, so might other attributes that belong to other business objects. For example, you might use the Supplier Name attribute of the Supplier business object to identify the supplier to which the payment has been made. So you'd select the Supplier business object as well.

You can select delivered business objects; each is a set of related fields in a business application, and each field is an attribute of the object. In addition, you can select imported objects (data imported from a file) or user-defined objects (data returned by a specially configured advanced control). A model may also use system-generated objects, but you create filters that define them, so they're not available to be selected.

Note: "Approvals" business objects provide both archived and completed approval records created from workflow tasks. To do so, each of these objects depends on an Extract Workflow Tasks for Archive job, which is scheduled to run once a day. If you select any of these objects for a model, you may want to run the job manually before evaluating the model, to ensure data is freshly updated. Navigate to Tools > Scheduled Processes to run the job. These business objects include Cash Advance Approvals, Expense Report Approvals, Journal Approvals, Payables Invoice Approvals, Purchase Order Approvals, Salary Approvals, and Supplier Approvals.

Make Selections

To add objects to a model:

Click Add in the Model Objects panel of the page to create or edit a model. A Select Business Objects page opens.
Search for objects. You can use the Search field to search by name. Or, click Show Filter, then filter the list of objects by name, category, or type.

Each row displays not only the name of an object, but also its category and type. In general, category is a label describing the data an object contains, such as Transaction, Operational Master Data, or Configuration Setup Data. Type indicates an activity or product offering that the object supports.
Select the objects you want. For each, click the plus sign in its row. The icon changes to an image that displays a check mark.
When you finish selecting objects, click Done to return to the create- or edit-model page. (Done is represented by an icon that looks like a less-than symbol.) A representation of each object appears in the Model Objects panel. In it, you can view the attributes of the object.

Modify Selections

You can also remove business objects you don't need:

As you work in the Select Business Objects page, click the check-mark icon for an object that's selected for the model. The icon becomes a plus sign, indicating that the object is no longer selected.
Use the representation of an object in the Model Objects panel of the create- or edit-model page. There, click the x icon in the title bar of the object.

Create Attributes

You can create attributes for an object. Each applies only to the model it's created in (and a control developed from the model).

In the representation of an object, click the Add icon. An Add Configurable Attribute dialog opens.
In an Attribute Name field, create a name for the new attribute.
In a Base Attribute field, select one of the existing attributes.
In a Modifier field, select a mathematical operator: + (addition), - (subtraction), * (multiplication), / (division), or the ampersand symbol (creates a comma-delimited text string of the combined values). You can select only among modifiers appropriate for the base attribute you selected in step 3. For example, you can subtract dates, but you can't multiply them.
In a Type field, select Value or Object.
If you selected Value, enter a value to be combined with the base attribute, as defined by the modifier. If you selected Object, select a second attribute, whose values are combined with those of the base attribute, as defined by the modifier.
Click the OK button.

For example, suppose a model returns records of employee expense reports that include duplicate expenses. Among the model's result attributes, you want to include the number of days between the start and end dates on the expense line. You can use one of the model's business objects, Expense Report Details, to create two new attributes, the first serving as an attribute on which the second is based.

Start with a calculation involving two delivered attributes: End Date minus Date ("Date" being the name of the attribute that reports the start date). Select the icon in the Expense Report Details object to open its Add Configurable Attribute dialog. Give the new attribute a name (for example, 1NumberOfDays), select End Date as the base attribute, the minus sign as the modifier, Object as the type, and finally the Date attribute.

But this calculation separates the start date from the period to which it belongs, so you need a second calculation that adds 1 to the result of the first calculation. Reopen the Add Configurable Attribute dialog and give your second new attribute a name (for example, 2NumberOfDays). This time, select 1NumberOfDays as the base attribute, the plus sign as the modifier, Value as the type, and 1 as the value. Then select 2NumberOfDays as a result attribute for the model.

Note that the names of these attributes incorporate numbers for two reasons. First, you can create similar names for two closely related attributes, but nevertheless distinguish between them. Second, because the names begin with numbers, they're listed ahead of other attributes of the object, and so are easy for you to locate.