Implementing WebSphere Business Integration Express for Item Synchronization

64 Implementing WebSphere BI Express for Item Synchronization

and create maps that will perform these mapping activities before the

collaborations continue. We cover this in later chapters.

6.5 What are relationships?

A relationship definition establishes an association between two or more data

entities in the InterChange Server system. Relationship definitions within maps

are most often used for transforming business object attributes in which the data

has a similar purpose but is represented differently in each application. Most

maps use one or a few relationship definitions.

There are two types of relationships:

򐂰 Identity relationships

Identity relationships are used when different applications uniquely identify

the same identity (for example, a customer number in an ERP system and a

customer number in a CRM system).

Identity relationships are also known as dynamic relationships because the

data is generally created and updated dynamically by the responsible

application. Furthermore, the relationship data is usually updated dynamically

via map calls (when a new identity is created by the application, for example).

򐂰 Lookup relationships

Lookup relationships are used when data meaning the same thing is stored

as different values in different systems. For example, a country in an ERP

system may be stored by name but may be stored by the ISO country code in

a CRM system. The lookup relationship allows for semantic resolution of

these values.

Lookup relationships are also known as static relationships because the data

values are usually loaded once. Then, those values are normally static.

A relationships is stored as (1)a series of database tables in the repository (one

for each participant or participating system) and (2) a stored procedure that

controls the access and actions performed on these tables (such as update,

insert, and so on).

6.5.1 Where are they used

Within the item synchronization solution, there are nine relationships.These

relationships provide for the transformation of some of the values required by

UCCnet. These values include fields such as unit of weight, unit of measure, and

so on.

Chapter 6. About some of the key components 65

All of these relationships are implemented as static (lookup) relationships and

the lookup of these relationship tables is performed as part of the mapping

functions between the generic item business object and the UCCnet envelope

business objects.

The creation and population of these relationships is part of the post installation

configuration. It is discussed in the 8.2, “Load relationship tables” on page 97.

See Figure 6-3.

Figure 6-3 Relationships

Of these nine relationships:

򐂰 Two have a single participant and are used as a look-up only.

These are processed GTINs and trading partner information.

򐂰 Seven have two participants and are used for data transformation.

The table names indicate the name of the relationship and the name of the

participant, as in the following examples:

– LIUT_UCCNET_T

Contains lookup values for unit of length, height, and weight as known by

UCCnet