Relationships

Relationship is formed when records in a repository can either be related to each other within a repository or from across repositories.

• Simple Relationship: When records within a repository are related to each other, they are known as simple relationship. For example, if two records are related by ASSOCIATE relationship and both the records are in the same repository, they are said to be in simple relationship. You can define relationships of your choice between repositories or between the records of the same repository.
• Cross-repository Relationship: When records that span across repositories are related to each other, they are known as cross-repository relationship. The cross-repository relationship is identified by the relationship established between the source and target repositories.
  • The repository for which relationship is defined as a forward relationship is treated as the source repository.
  • The repository that establishes a relationship with the source repository becomes the target repository.

    Consider that Customer is a source repository and the Address is a target repository. You have stored the Customer’s Billing Address information in the Address repository. In this case, the relation between Customer and Address repositories is defined by the Billing Address relationship. In the hierarchy, the Customer source repository becomes the parent. The Address target repository becomes the child. Since the relationship is from Customer to Address, the relationship is known as a forward relationship. With respect to the Address repository, the relationship is known as a reverse relationship.

    You can also establish a simple relationship within a repository; in which case the target repository must not be specified while defining relationships.

    You can add, modify, copy, view, or delete records that are involved in a cross-repository relationship as you work with records related by simple relationships.

    By using the cross-repository relationship, you can independently manage different entities, create business process rules specific to certain repositories, and also create rulebases that apply only to specific repositories.

• Circular Relationships: Cross-repository relationships can chain repositories such as repository, Customer, can be related to Address, which is related to Bank and so on. Therefore, it is possible to define circular relationships. In the previous example, Bank can be related to Customer.
  Note: Records associated using such circular relationships cannot create an instance of circular relationships.

  When records are processed, one of the repositories is identified as the source repository. All relationships of chained repositories, starting from the source repository are processed. In most cases, the source repository is implicitly identified by the user action. However, in some cases, the source repository must be identified explicitly, such as in workflows.