Business objects overview

This chapter explains how to the create business objects through which the application layer is able to interact with data sources. Business objects are characterized as follows:

  • Business objects include a set of attributes, which enable information to be passed to and from the object. These are similar to database fields, so a business object that manages address information would have an attributes for name, address, city, country, etc.

  • Business objects can include subsets, which enable several related records to be associated with each primary record. For example, the primary record set could be order details, which include customer information and an invoice number; associated with each order would then be a subset including one or more order-line records, each of which tells how many of a given product were ordered.

  • Business objects provide one or more methods, which enable the object to perform actions such as searching a database, running a stored procedure, or submitting new records. For example, a presentation layer page might include a component that calls the search method on a given business object; the object then returns one or more sets of attribute values that can be displayed on the page.

  • Each method is implemented as a pipeline, which consists of one or more pipeline stages. The selection of stages and the order in which they are executed characterize the method provided by the business object.

  • Each pipeline stage connects to a data source via a connector. Pipelines with several stages can therefore draw data from several data sources, though often only a single source is used.

  • The connector specifies the connection information required to identify and log into the data source. The connector is furthermore designed to communicate with a specific type of data source using the protocols, syntax and communication methods expected by that data source.

  • Connectors are configured using the Data Sources tab of Infor e-Commerce Development Studio. Here, you can establish connection details and make field mappings to connect fields and tables from the data sources to various business object attributes (see Working with data sources).

The Business Objects view in Infor e-Commerce Development Studio enables you to create and manage business objects and their attributes, subsets and methods. As an example, these are shown for the Country business object in the figure below.