type adoption in xcp 2.1 applications

White Paper

Abstract

This white paper explains adopting types from repository, editing and using them in xCP applications. December 2013

TYPE ADOPTION IN xCP APPLICATIONS Adopting types from repository to xCP applications

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2 Type Adoption in xCP Applications

Table of Contents

Executive summary.................................................................................................. 4 Audience ............................................................................................................................ 4

Overview ................................................................................................................. 4 Adopting types to xCP 2.x Applications ............................................................................... 4 Editing and configuring Adopted Types ............................................................................... 9 The Runtime behavior ....................................................................................................... 12

References ............................................................................................................ 12


Executive summary This preliminary white paper provides detailed overview of adopting types to xCP applications. It explains adopting types from repository, editing, using them in Processes, creating pages and other required artifacts within the application, deploying them and runtime behavior of adopted type instances.

Audience

This white paper is intended for application designers who design applications using xCP Designer. It assumes that reader possess basic knowledge of xCP.

Overview Type Adoption allows xCP 2.1 applications deployed in the Content Server to take advantage of the most important assets the content and type definitions in a repository. Using Type Adoption, xCP 2.1 app will read or write data instances not created through xCP clients but adopted in the xCP Designer. Similarly, new instances of adopted types created in xCP 2.x applications can be read or written through other clients like DA, Webtop, Taskspace etc. Thus, Type Adoption provides interoperability in between older Documentum Clients like xCP 1.x, Webtop, MyD and 2.x client applications in accessing data instances.

Type Adoption should be considered when

• You already have a good xCP1.x application running but want to upgrade to D7 platform and build new apps using xCP 2.x for improved user experience with both xCP 1.x and 2.x sharing the data.

• Have to use the features in xCP2.x to fulfill the new business needs without any data model refactoring from xCP 1.x. Build new xCP 2.x application as replacement for 1.x application.

Adopting types to xCP 2.x Applications

Only the sub types of ‘dm_sysobject’, ‘dm_document’ and ‘dm_folder’ can be adopted by xCP application. Types are adopted by importing them from repository to xCP application. In this process to connect to repository, a Design-time Environment configuration is required. To adopt the types use the ‘Adopt Data Type(s)’ option from ‘Object Model’ tab.


Choosing Adopt Data Type(s) will prompt a wizard to adopt the types from repository to the application. This process starts with selecting Design-time Environment .


Choose the appropriate Design-time Environment from where types have to be adopted. Clicking on ‘Next’ after choosing an appropriate Design-time Environment, will take to next step ‘Import Data Type(s) to Target Project’. Select the types to be adopted, the target project and click on ‘Finish’ to complete the adopting.


Clicking on ‘Finish’ button will show the confirmation dialogue ‘Adopt Data type[s] Confimation’ on which types have been adopted successfully and not adopted.


Adopted types will be seen ‘Object Models’ view according to their category.


It would create object models with label value that been provided during type creation. For example, if type ‘loan_customer’ has been created with label ‘Loan Customer’ (this value stored in ‘label_text’ attribute of dmi_dd_common_info object for type ‘loan_customer’) and when this type has been adopted to xCP Application, the object model will be created with ‘Loan Customer’ as label and ‘loan_customer’ as system name.

If label is not provided during type creation, it would use the default label values set by Content Server. The default values are according to Documentum super type of the types. For sub types of dm_sysobject, it would be ‘Sysobject’. For sub types of dm_content, it would be ‘Document’. And for sub types for dm_folder, it would be ‘Folder’. When multiple types which don’t have label values or same label values adopted at a time, error(s) might be shown in ‘Problems’ tab of xCP Designer as multiple object model may have same label . In such instances, designer should change the object model ‘label’ values in appropriate manner to fix the error.

If a type which inherits from other types in repository is adopted, all of its super types will also be adopted by default. For example, if the type ‘premium_customer’ inherited from type ‘privilaged_customer’ which in turn inherited from type ‘customer’, adopting the type ‘premium_customer’ would result in adopting its super types ‘privilaged_customer’ and ‘customer’.

Since xCP Designer doesn’t support having DQL reserved words (mentioned in DQL Reference Manual) as attribute names for types, types which contains DQL reserved words as attribute names can’t be adopted to xCP Applications unless attribute names are changed.

The Documentum fundamental types ‘dm_sysobject’, ‘dm_document’ and ‘dm_folder’ cannot be adopted.

Editing and configuring Adopted Types Once the types are adopted to the project, they are like any other types created in xCP Designer. They can be modified to add or remove attributes, relationships with other types can be created, and type fragments can be attached. Permission sets can be applied. An object model being created in xCP Designer can be inherited from an Adopted Object Model (type). Relationships can be created from adopted types to adopted types, adopted types to the regular types and regular types to adopted types. Picklists can be added to adopted types


And Business Events can be configured for Adopted types.

Pages for create, update and view operations, object selectors, action flows, page fragments and context menus can be created. If Adopted Type being Content, ‘Import’ actions can be configured


Adopted Types can be used in Processes as packages or attachments. Real Time, Full Text and Historical queries can be created for Adopted Types. Task List queries can be created with Adopted Type’s attributes in Data Set if it is being used as package. Note: System Name of adopted type represents the actual type name from the repository and it can’t be changed in the xCP application. xCP does not honor the entire data dictionary, which includes value assists, attribute label internationalization, constraints etc..

Deploying Adopted Types Adopted types deployed along with other object models to the repository on deploying the xCP Application to which they have been adopted. If the adopted type doesn’t exist in target repository, it would create the type and publish it. If the adopted type already exists in the target repository, it alters the type and publishes it if there are any changes to it. Otherwise, type in the target repository remains unaltered. Like any other types created within xCP Designer all the rules of different Data Policies are hold good for Adopted Types as well. If Data Policies other than MINIMAL or MAINTAIN are used, all the existing instances will be deleted. It is always best practice to use ‘MAINTAIN’ data policy when deploying to avoid data loss.

From now on Business Events and Alerts will be triggered even if the instances of adopted type is modified outside of xCP client


The Runtime behavior Once the Adopted Types are deployed, the existing instances of Adopted Types will behave same as new instances created within or outside xCP clients. All the older instances will be retrieved along with newly created instance after the deployment of adopted types when a real time query is used. They can be viewed, edited and deleted. New instances can be created. Alerts, Business Events will be triggered on such operations if they are configured. Both old and new instances can be related with other object instances using relate action. They can be attached to Packages or Attachments during workflow actions

References Documentum Content Server DQL Reference Manual

Documentum System Object Reference Manual


type adoption in xcp 2.1 applications

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