{"id":11103,"date":"2020-10-27T11:48:19","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T15:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.carnaghan.com\/?p=11103"},"modified":"2020-10-28T11:42:19","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T15:42:19","slug":"getting-started-with-entity-modeling-in-opentext-appworks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carnaghan.com\/getting-started-with-entity-modeling-in-opentext-appworks\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Started with Entity Modeling in OpenText AppWorks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AppWorks provides a handy feature for modeling business objects through the use of entities<\/span>. Objects could take the form of any aspect of a business application you are building. For example, if you needed to write an application<\/span> that would be used as part of a school’s administration system you may include entities<\/span> that represented objects such as teachers, students, courses, lessons, and so on. AppWorks provides a nice interface for managing these different types of entities<\/span> and even lets you build relationships. The term entity<\/span> modeling is not new to this platform, the concept behind this has been around for a long time, but it has traditionally been the responsibility of database engineers or software developers<\/span> to define. The low-code platform AppWorks provides now enables business analysts to define these entities<\/span> and relationships, without the need to have a software engineering background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All entities<\/span> within AppWorks are typically made up of building blocks. There are four main types of building blocks, structure, presentation, business logic, and functional. Within each of these groups are a number of building blocks you can use to define, design, develop, and publish your application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This article focuses on the structure building blocks<\/strong>, which enables us to define properties<\/span> (or fields) as well as to define relationships between entities<\/span>. I demonstrate some of the basic functionality in AppWorks using example entities<\/span> in this article, but this is by no means a full application<\/span> development tutorial, rather a reference<\/span> for the various features of the platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Within structure is the properties building block, which provides a way for us to easily add fields to our entities<\/span>. For example a course within a school may have fields such as name, description, start date, end date, required, etc. Each of these fields can be defined as different data<\/span> type, for example name and description could be defined as text, start and end date could be defined using the date type, and required could be defined as boolean. Currently AppWorks provides 13 different data<\/span> types to choose from when defining a field. These are listed below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of these should be fairly self explanatory. AppWorks provides advanced configuration<\/span> for each data<\/span> type which enables to do things like add a pattern (e.g. 999-999-9999 could be used for a phone number). Advanced configuration<\/span> also lets you set things like default values, tooltips, and define when or if users<\/span> can change values on the property<\/span>. Enumerated text can be defined as both static and dynamic. Static enables you to enter a predefined (drop-list) of values, while dynamic can be built from a pre-defined business process. AppWorks performs what is described as intrinsic validation on user<\/span> entered data<\/span> based on the field types defined. If for example a user<\/span> tries to add alphanumeric text into an integer field, intrinsic validation will fire, preventing this action and data<\/span> to be stored. Later we will look at Rules, which provides more advanced validation in the platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To create a new Entity<\/span> in AppWorks, navigate to Workspace Documents in the AppWorks Explorer. See Getting Started with Low-Code Development in OpenText AppWorks<\/a> for reference<\/span>. Create a new project by right-clicking Projects and selecting ‘New Project’. Right-Click your project and select New – Other and choose Entity<\/span> from the icons selection. You should see a screen where you can begin defining your properties<\/span>. I have entered some example properties<\/span> of a person entity I’ll come back to later when I discuss relationships. You can add any fields here and explore the various data<\/span> types available under the ‘type’ column.<\/p>\n\n\n\nProperty Building Block<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Boolean<\/td> Duration<\/td> Image<\/td><\/tr> Currency<\/td> Enumerated Integer<\/td> Integer<\/td><\/tr> Date<\/td> Enumerated Text<\/td> Long Text<\/td><\/tr> Date and Time<\/td> Float<\/td> Text<\/td><\/tr> Decimal<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nCreating Entities with Properties in AppWorks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n