Figure: Select Business Object
The Business Object Manager view provides functionality to manage Business Objects. Access to the view is restricted to administrators. The Business Object Manager view allows to:
For details on Business Objects used in Stardust, please refer to chapter Business Objects Business Objects in the Stardust Concepts Online Documentation - Concepts section.
Note that the Business Object Manager View is currently not supported on IE 9 and Firefox version 37. For details on general Browser versions supported by Stardust, please refer to the Stardust Release Notes. Release Notes in the Stardust Documentation.
To open the Business Object Manager view, select Business Object Management in the Business Object Management section of the Control Center perspectives launch panel.
Figure: Select Business Object
For details on defining structured data as Business Object, please refer to chapter Specifying Structured Data as Business Object in the Business Process Modeling Handbook.
In case Business Objects do exist in deployed models, a drop-down list is provided to select a Business Object from. The Business Object name is preceded by the model name.
Figure: Select Business Object
In case no model that has a Business Object is deployed, the following infobar is displayed:
Figure: Message if no Business Objects are available
Once a Business Object is selected in the drop-down list, the view updates with the search options for that Business Object.
Figure: Fields populated for selected Business Object
The search fields are the Business Object's top-level, primitive, single cardinality fields that are indexed.
Start a search by typing a value in a field and tabbing out. To search for all, simply tab out of a field. A search is directly initiated on tab out and the Search Results will populate.
To initiate more specific searches, type values in additional data fields. The search interpretes the fields in AND conditions.
The Business Object Search toolbar provides options to:
Exporting Business Object Instances
(see section Exporting Business Object Instances)
Refresh/re-initiate the search with the current fields
Import Business Object Instances
(see section Importing Business Object Instances)
Create a Business Object Instance
(see section Creating Business Object Instances)
Delete Business Object Instance(s)
(see section Deleting Business Object Instances)
Clear the search fields and perform a wildcard searchYou find the results of the Business Object Search presented in a table underneath the search fields.
Figure: Table with search results
Each row in the table is an instance of the Business Object, and may or may not be associated with a Process Instance.
The table provides controls for:
to re-initiate the search and refresh the view and search results.Select a row in the table to initiate a Process Search for the selected Business Object Instance. The latest version of the Data object will be populated in the Data section.
Figure: Selected Data Object displayed in Data section
The search results of a Process Instance Search are presented in a table within the PROCESS INSTANCES USING <BUSINESS OBJECT LABEL> section.
The table supports the following functionality:
Exporting Data Fields - the data fields export functionality is the same as for
the Business Object instances export. Please refer to
section Exporting Business Object Instances for details.
Figure: Business Object Process Instance Search Result
Selecting a row updates the view to display all fields/values in that version of the Business Object Instance.
Selecting a Business Object Instance updates the view to display the following:
All fields in the Business Object Instance are displayed, including those not indexed. They can be modified inline and persisted by clicking Save.
Figure: Business Object Data in Process Instance Search Result
To update the changes for the Business Object Instance, click the Save button.
Note
Only administrators have the authorization to update existing Business Object Instances.
Note that you can also modify the Primary Key. When you modify a Primary Key, the system checks whether there is another Business Object Instance with the same Primary Key as the new Primary Key value. If it exists, an error message is displayed. Otherwise a new Business Object Instance with the new Primary Key is created and the Business Object Instance with the old Primary Key is deleted.
References of the selected Business Object instance to Other Business Objects instances appear as links under the RELATED OBJECTS heading.
Figure: Related Objects
The number of referenced instances is displayed in parenthesis in each link.
For details on Business Object relationships, please refer to chapter Specifying Structured Data as Business Object in the Business Process Modeling Handbook.
To view the referenced Business Object Instances, click a reference link. The Related Objects dialog opens, which supports viewing and removing existing references as well as adding new references.
Figure: Referenced Business Objects Instances
The top table displays Business Object Instances related to the in-scope Business Object instance.
Business Object Instance search results are displayed in a table below.
To remove a referenced Business Object Instance, click a table entry row to select it and click Delete.
Figure: Delete referenced Business Object
Click Save to persist the changes and close the dialog. In case you like to discard the changes, close the dialog with Cancel.
To add a new referenced Business Object Instance:
zero or more or
one or more.
Business Object Instances may be created as part of processing Process Instances that use Business Objects or added manually in the Business Object Manager View. These instances will not be bound to any Process Instance.
To add a Business Object Instance in the Business Object Manager View:
The search field collapses and all of the fields in the selected Business Object populate in the area underneath the top select boxes.
Values can be entered in the fields. To add the configured Business Object Instance, click the Save button.
Figure: Save the Data
Note
New Instances of the referenced/related Business Objects cannot be added.
Click the Export icon in case you like to export a Business Object instance as CSV file.
Figure: Exporting Business Object Data as CSV
The structure of the exported CSV file looks like in the following example:
Figure: Exported CSV file
Note that only items that are present on the current page are exported. In case you
like to export all pages, select the
icon in the
toolbar.
Select Export All Pages | All Fields to export all pages with all fields.
Figure: Export CSV option
Option Export Current Page | All Fields is equivalent to the general Export option.
You may import Business Object Instances from a CSV file. Click the Import
icon
in the toolbar to import data from a CSV file.
The CSV import dialog opens, where you can browse to the CSV file.
Note that the CSV file needs to contain the following:
Figure: Importing Business Object Data as CSV
Note
Relationships of imported Business Object Instances will not be maintained.
In case the import is successful, a message dialog appears notifying the number of records that were uploaded.
Figure: Import Success Message
If the import fails an according error message is displayed. There are several reasons for an upload failure:
In some cases, only a part of the records are incorrect, e.g. only one or not all given primary keys do already exist. In these cases a partial import is performed until the incorrect record row is reached. Until that row is reached, all correct records will be uploaded and the following records will be ignored. An according error message is displayed notifying about the partial upload and the number of uploaded records.
Figure: Partial Import Message
In this example, we import an Excel table for a Business Object of the following data structure:
Figure Business Object Data Structure
In an Excel table we enter records for this Business Object. The first row (header row)
contains the IDs of the top level fields, TaxId, FirstName, LastName.
The next rows contain values for these top level fields.
Figure: Excel file with records
After a successful import, the records are added and displayed in the Business Objects table:
Figure: Resulting imported table
To delete a Business Object Instance via the Business Object Manager view:
Note that deleting business objects is cleaning up all references to the deleted object based on the defined relationships.