Create a business view

A business view is a set of related business entities, beginning with a root business entity and enabling navigation to other entities through transitions.

Create a business view

To create a business view:

  1. In the model, expand the node of the entity that should be at the root of your business view.

  2. Right-click the Business Views node under this entity and select Add Business View.
    The Create New Business View wizard opens.

  3. In the Create New Business View wizard, enter the following values:

    • Name: internal name of the business view.

    • Label: user-friendly label for this business view. Note that as the Auto Fill checkbox is selected, the label is automatically filled in. Modifying this label is optional.

  4. Click Next. The second step of the wizard configures the business entity at the root of the business view.

    • Browsing Form: select the form that is used for showing single records for this entity.

    • Root Filter: this SemQL condition filters the records of the root entity that should appear when opening the business view. For example, in a business view representing the hierarchy of cost centers, we should filter only the cost centers with no parent cost center.

    • Root Label: label used for the root business entity. It defaults to the label of the root entity.

    • Root Plural Label: plural label used for the root business entity. It defaults to the plural label of the root business entity.

  5. Click Next.
    The third step of the wizard allows you to select reference relationships to the root business entity for which you want to create a transition.

    • Select all the references for which you want to create a transition.

  6. Click Finish.
    The Business View editor opens on the new business view, with the transitions and child business entities created for the selected references.

  7. (Optional) Configure the business view by setting the following properties:

    • Name and Definition

      • Description: enter a description for the business view.

      • Required Role: select a role required to open this business view. This role is required in addition to the privilege grants on the entities composing the business view.

    • Icon and Label

      • Icon: select an icon from the image library to represent the root business entity.

Add transitions

To include more entities in a business view (e.g., child cost centers or employees reporting to the cost centers), it is necessary to create more transitions to other business entities.

To create transitions:

  1. In the Business View editor, scroll down to the Transition table.
    This table shows the business entities and their related transitions.

  2. Select the parent business entity for the new transition.

  3. Click the Add transition Add Transition button in the toolbar of the transitions table.
    The Create New Transition wizard opens.

  4. In the Create New Transition wizard, enter the following values:

    • Transition Path: click the Edit expression Edit Expression to select a transition path. This path is a SemQL path to child records related to the parent entity.

    • Name: enter the name for the transition.

  5. Click Next.
    The second step of the wizard configures the child business entity of the transition:

    • Filter: the business entity shows records related by the transition path to the parent business entity, filtered in addition using this condition.

      Consider a business view with a Company root business entity and a Contact child business entity. When showing a given customer, the business view will show only the contacts related to the given customer. The filter condition applies in addition to that (e.g., to show only the contacts with a phone number).

    • Select whether you want to create a new business entity or use an existing one.

    • If you choose to Create a New Business Entity, select an Entity and give a Name for the new business entity.

    • If you choose to Use an Existing Business Entity, select an existing Target Business Entity.

      This option is only available if this business view already contains a business entity pointing to the same entity as the transition path.
  6. Click Finish.