How to Link Business Objects?

This video will show you how BOs can be linked.

When linking BOs, the following properties are defined for the links, based on the application requirement.

• The first toggle refers to the Cardinality setting, which defines the type of relationship between two business objects (BOs). The possible options for Cardinality are 1:1, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many.

  E.g.

  For example, in a banking application, BOs being considered are Bank and Branches. Since a bank can have multiple branches, the "one-to-many" cardinality option can be selected by enabling the first toggle.

• The second toggle setting is Reverse Linkagewhich allows navigation from the linked BO to the main BO. When enabled, an attribute with the same name as the main BO is created on the linked child BO.

  E.g.

  Continuing with the previous example, the second toggle is enabled to allow navigation from the "Branch"  BO to the "Bank" BO. This means that an attribute named "Bank" will be created on the "Branch" BO, which will allow you to navigate from a branch to the bank. While utilizing the Branch object on the screen, you will be able to access the Bank properties on the same page as well. 

• The Reverse Cardinality feature allows you to define the relationship between a child BO and a parent BO when the "Reverse Linkage" option is enabled.

  E.g.

  In the case of Bank and Branches, this option is disabled.

  E.g.

  Consider another example of Trusted Contacts and Accounts in the Account Onboarding Application, the "Reverse Linkage" option is enabled to allow navigation from a Trusted Contact to the Account it is linked to. And since the "Reverse Cardinality" option is also enabled, this establishes a many-to-many relationship between the Trusted Contact BO and the Account BO, meaning that a single Trusted Contact can have multiple Accounts and a single Account can have multiple Trusted Contacts.

• Cascade delete: Determines what happens to linked BOs when the parent BO is deleted.
  • When the last toggle is enabled, it means that both BOs will coexist and the linked BO cannot exist without being linked to the parent BO.

    E.g.

    In the Banking Application example, since the Bank and Branches have a composite relationship, a branch cannot exist without being linked to a Bank.

  • Aggregate: When the last toggle is disabled, it means that the linked BO can exist independently without being linked to the parent BO.

    E.g.

    For example, in the Account Onboarding Application, Trusted Contacts and Accounts have an aggregate relationship, which means that even when an Account is deleted, its linked Trusted Contacts can still exist independently.