Custom properties of business objects

You can use custom properties to add contextual information to business objects, such as quantities per unit or reorder levels for products.

Custom properties are supported only on these business objects:

  • Entity
  • Organization
  • Account
  • Cash Flow
  • Segments 1 to 3
  • Analysis dimensions 1 to 5 and 7 to 11

You access custom properties in the Manage Properties dialog box. Select Columns > Manage Properties. You can add and delete custom properties, and edit their captions. You can also specify which custom properties are displayed in the grid.

Custom properties can be of different types. String is the default type. During an upload or import from a file, only records of the specified type are imported. If the property type is List, only records that match an item in a defined list are imported.

When you use the Reset and Publish option, custom properties are dropped. To preserve them, first export the model.

After adding custom properties, you can populate them through imports, uploads, or manual edits.

Custom properties have these characteristics:

  • They are published to Attribute Table 3 of the related OLAP dimension.
  • Their attribute names are published to OLAP , prefixed with CST_.
  • The maximum number of custom properties for each business object is 49.
  • The maximum length of names is 46 characters. A further four characters are reserved for the CST_ prefix.
  • The maximum length of captions is 50 characters.

Standard properties are also accessible in the Manage Properties dialog box. They include, for example, ID and Parents, and language properties. You cannot add, edit, or delete standard properties, but you can specify which are available in the grid.