OBN Workflow

Use

To describe the workflow that the portal content administrator need to follow to make OBN capabilities available to portal users.

For the basic OBN concepts, see Object-Based Navigation .

Process

The process shown in the table below must be in sequence, just as operations cannot be created without business objects, and target implementations cannot be defined without operations.

Prerequisites

Source and target navigation content

To initiate object-base navigation you need an iView form which the navigation begins, that is a source iView that contains an OBN link. To implement business object operations, once the link in the source iView is selected, you need content that returns information and that can be target by operations.

Note

Source iView may be developed at any time and are not necessarily prerequisite to the process described in the table of administration tasks. Although the existence of targets are prerequisite, their development is not dependent on the administration and maintenance process.
Portal systems - for system business objects only

Although context business objects are independent of existing systems, in the portal, system business objects must be imported to the Business Object folder from existing portal systems.

Note

Although OBN technology uses the portal navigation framework, source and target iViews are not bound to each other. Clicking an OBN source link launches a search for targets wherever they may located in the PCD.

This decoupling enables the use of OBN also in applications outside the portal, such as Visual Composer. In this case, the prerequisite existence of portal systems in order to use system business objects may not be necessary.

	Task	Comments
1.	Create systems	To work with system business objects, systems that represent backend applications must be available in Portal Content. For more information, see Creating Systems .
2.	Import/create business objects	OBN links and content (iViews or Pages) targeted by OBN links must be based either on system business objects imported from available portal systems, or on context business objects that are created to encapsulate some business logic. In either case, see the Business Object Importer .
3.	Create operations	To implement the return of business information by means of content targeted by OBN, operations need to be associated to the business object, and prioritized. Any number of operation may be attached to each business object.
4.	Attach target iViews/Pages	Target content (iViews and/or Pages) need to be attached to the business object operations, and prioritized. Any number of targets may be attached to each operation.

For information about the administration of operations and target implementations according to role, see the Object-Based Navigation Editor .