Relationship Editor 

Definition

A user interface of the NetWeaver portal by which relations between business objects can be mapped, viewed, and modified.

Use

The navigation path for accessing the Relationship Editor is Content Administration ® Unification.

Uses of the Relationship Editor

Mapping relations	Allows you to map relations between objects by adding business objects to the Relationship Editor matrix as source or target objects.
Viewing relations	The Relationship Editor turns to the relation resolving service for the information to display in the matrix at the crossing of source and target objects. The Relationship Editor displays whether or not a relation exists, and if so, if it is a direct relation based in the back-end application or a manual relation edited by the content administrator. If a relation appears to be empty, no relation may exist between some pairs of objects.If this is because a direct relation was deleted, this is indicated in the tooltip.
Modifying relations	The Single Relation Editor, is a sub-editor of the Relationship Editor.

Before using the Relationship Editor, you have imported into the business object folder of the Portal Content Catalog, from available back-end systems, as many of the business objects as necessary to provide the user roles in your organization with the business information base they require to do their jobs.

For detailed information about importing business objects, see Business Object Importer.

The Relationship Editor does not check the logic of the relations you map or define, nor the performance of data navigation based upon those relations. Therefore, carefully plan and test new relationships and modifications to existing ones before implementing them.

Structure

After choosing Relationship Editor from the context menu in the Portal Content Catalog, the Relationship Editor opens in the work area of the portal.

The Relationship Matrix

The main area of the editor is dedicated to displaying a matrix of source and target objects. When opened for the first time, the source and target headings are visible in the upper left corner of this area. Objects are added from the Business Object folder of the Portal Content Catalog.

The meeting point of two objects in the matrix displays details about the relationship of the source and target objects:

·        An icon indicates the type of relation. See the legend.

·        tooltip, activated by hovering the mouse pointer over the relevant square on the matrix, gives details of the relation:

¡        the type of relation

¡        the names of the constituent source and target objects, and the object ID.

Empty Relation

If no relation exists between any two objects, their meeting point in the matrix is empty and the tooltip for the meeting point indicates that the relation is empty and details the constituent objects.

The tooltip for an empty relation also indicates if this is because a direct relation between the objects has been deleted during editing in the Single Relation Editor.

Add Business Objects to the Matrix

You can add objects to the relationship matrix by right-clicking an object from the collection of business objects imported to the Business Object folder, and choosing either Add as source or Add as target.

Icon Legend

To the right of the matrix area the legend displays the icons that appear in the relationship matrix area, representing Foreign Key, Manual, Cannot be Edited (indicating a meeting points in the matrix of two identical objects), and Inaccessible.

Display Relations

Also to the right of the matrix area, under Display Relations, are icons for the relation types, for choosing the relation types to be displayed in the matrix. After selecting the desired relation type, or types, choose Display.

The options are:

Manual	View only relations which have been modified.
Manual and Foreign Key	View manual and foreign key (direct) relations. Displaying foreign key (direct) relations only is not a useful option. Existing manual relations would appear to be empty in the matrix and an existing manual relation may have overwritten a direct relation.

From and To Object Selection Fields

In an organization where the productive system could contain a very large number of business objects and relations, the From and To Object fields can help avoid tiresome scrolling in order to find these relations for editing.

The drop-down selection fields contain lists of all the business objects added to the respective parts of the relationship matrix area. After selecting the desired From and To objects, choose Apply and the relevant relation is highlighted in the matrix.

Commands Affecting the Relationship Matrix

The five buttons below the relationship matrix area activate the following commands:

Edit	Opens the Single Relation Editor for the selected relation in a separate tab. Double-clicking the selection also opens the editor.
Delete	Deletes the selected relations from the relations matrix area.
Remove Object	Removes selected business objects from the Relationship Editor.
Clear	Removes all objects from the Relationship Editor.
Refresh	Updates the editor with system changes.