Work with Lookups
Lookups are dynamically stored and retrieved list of values that you can use to autofill forms and fields. They offer great flexibility to reuse data when working with multiple applications and business contexts.
The application data to be rendered as lookups is striped into multiple virtual tables called lookup views. Each lookup view contains lookup types, and within each lookup type multiple lookup codes are defined to support application development requirements. To get lookup data, you need to know the lookup view and the lookup type as defined in the database table. Your implementation team must be aware of how lookups are defined in the application. They could also provide you with details of database views and any other relevant business component object information.
- Standard Lookups (
standardLookups) - Common Lookups (
commonLookups) - Set-Enabled Lookups (
setEnabledLookups)
If you need to scale up the functionality, you can add lookup types, codes, and values to any of these lookup views and use them in your application.
The following table provides a brief explanation for each lookup view to help you understand the contexts in which these are used.
| Lookup View | When to Use |
|---|---|
| Standard Lookups | This is the default and most commonly used lookup view that's available for all types of implementations. |
| Common Lookups | These lookups are similar to Standard Lookups but some implementations may prefer to use these instead. |
| Set-Enabled Lookups | These lookups are meant for use in applications that contain reference data. An additional data striping is provisioned so that the lookup code is associated with the specific determinant of the reference data set. For more information, see Reference Data Sharing. |
All these lookup views operate in the same way and support all the CRUD actions. However, factors such as the business purpose or the type of implementation determine the use of a specific lookup view.
If you need to get data from any lookup view, or you don't have a preference about which lookup view to use, you can try the Generic Lookups (genericLookups) REST resource. This resource is a utility to get lookup types and other details from any lookup view.
For conceptual information about how lookups are implemented, see topic Overview of Lookups.