Creating relationships between objects

You can establish relationships between objects that you are creating or updating from your source. However, before you create relationships, all objects in the relationship must first be defined, see Creating and configuring objects. You can select the objects for the relationship in any order; the import wizard determines which object should be the parent and which should be the child.

NOTE:

Refer to the Provance Class Definitions document to understand the number of objects possible in any given relationship.

To create a relationship between objects in your data:

>> On the Add Objects and Relationships page, click Add Relationship. The Add Relationship form opens. Configure the relationship as described in Configuring general properties, Configuring map properties, and How to create a relationship.

Configuring general properties

1. On the Add Relationship form, select an Object in the relationship.

2. Select a second object in the relationship. Select the objects in any order.

3. Select the type of relationship by choosing a class. The available classes changes depending on the objects selected. Choose Provance classes over other classes as they are more likely to represent an accurate relationship for the objects.

4. Enter a name for the relationship. This helps you identify it while working in the wizard, as with the following relationship between a hardware cata­log item and the supplier that it is related to:

5. 

    

6. Choose a Relationship Processing Option to determine how the relation­ship should be processed:

   Create Only	Create a relationship between the two objects. The objects must exist and be identified with the Object Processing Options of Cre­ate, Update or Reference Instance. In a one to one relationship, the create only functions when there is no existing relationship. For example, if a hardware asset already has an Assigned to, then no additional Assigned to rela­tionship would be permitted because it can only have one. In a one to many relationship, any new relationship is created, but only if that relationship did not previously exist. For example, there could be multiple cost events added to a hardware asset through a Create Only, but if one of those cost events previously existed then it would not be added again to the asset. For more details, see How to create a relationship.
   Create or Update	Create a relationship between the two objects or change an exist­ing relationship. The objects must exist and be identified with the Object Processing Options of Create, Update, or Reference Instance. In order to perform a create, omit the criteria. When creating a one to one relationship, any existing relation­ship is replaced. In all other situations, a new relationship is created. For example, if a hardware asset already has an Assigned to, a different user would replace the existing assign­ment. Updates are only performed on relationships with properties. When a relationship has properties, they are visible on the Mapping page of the wizard. You must enter criteria for it to find the relationship. If the relationship matches the criteria, then its properties are updated. If a match is not found then the relationship itself is created. For more details, see How to create a relationship.
   Update Only	An Update Only is used when you wish to modify the properties of a relationship, such as the type of Software Manager on a soft­ware title. Updates are only performed when the source and target objects are found through the Criteria defined for them (Destina­tion Object wizard). If the source and target objects in the rela­tionship cannot be found, then nothing is updated. An update can be performed in a one to one relationship or in a one to many rela­tionship. The properties of the relationship are defined on the Cri­teria page of the Relationship wizard. NOTE: When there is no existing relationship, no update is per­formed because it is considered a create. The relationship must have properties associated with it in order for the update to pro­ceed. The objects must be defined and identified with the Object Processing Options of Create, Update, or Reference Instance.
   Delete	Remove all relationships of the type chosen when used in conjunc­tion with the Object Processing Option: Reference Object. Remove only the relationship that matches the criteria defined with the Object Processing Option: Reference Instance. The objects them­selves are retained. For more details, see How to remove (delete) a relationship.

Configuring map properties

Sometimes relationships have properties associated with them. When there are properties associated with a relationship, then you may map them to data in your source file. When you use Update Only as the Relationship Process­ing option, the properties of a relationship are considered as the update.

NOTE:

When there are no properties associated with the relationship, the Mapping page has no content.

1. If there are properties associated with the relationship, map them to your data. Follow the steps for mapping properties of an object, described under Configuring map properties.

2. If there are no properties listed, click OK to save the relationship.

3. Add additional relationships as required.