In business applications, an "External Party" typically refers to an entity or organization external to the system or application being developed. This can include customers, vendors, suppliers, partners, or any other external stakeholders who interact with the application.
Managing external parties within a business application involves storing and maintaining relevant information about these entities, such as their contact details, business relationships, and associated data or records. This information may be used for various purposes, such as communication, collaboration, transaction processing, or relationship management.
Some key features and functionalities that may be associated with managing external parties in an application include:
Contact Management: The ability to capture and store contact details of external parties, such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses.
Relationship Mapping: The capability to establish and visualize the relationships between the external parties and other entities within the application, such as customer accounts, sales opportunities, or service cases.
Communication and Collaboration: Tools for communication and collaboration with external parties, such as email integration, messaging, document sharing, or portals that enable self-service access.
Data and Record Management: The ability to associate and link data and records with external parties, allowing for a comprehensive view of interactions and transactions.
When a data model is extended, it means that new fields, entities, or relationships are added to the existing model to tailor it to the specific needs of a particular application or domain. This extension includes domain-specific attributes, data elements, or functionalities that the generic model may not have initially considered.
The Master Data Model Builder is a tool to extend the standard DCM Case Model. For every Case Type, it creates a one-to-one Extension business object (where you can add custom attributes) and enables the administrator to add one-to-many business objects. When a Case is created, it will automatically create a record in the Extension business object (and any subsequent business objects) if the attached form has data for them.
Steps
On the top right, navigate to → <<your solution>>
On the left, navigate to → Setup
Navigate to Data Management -> Data Models(1).
Select the Party Type data model (2). In our case, we are editing the Party Type data model called Complainant.
This will open the Data Model Builder in the Data Model Editor tab, ready for development.
Extend the model by adding a dictionary to it. Drag the Dictionary Word object from the System Reference Object and drop it to the Complainant BO.
Assign a Name for the dictionary. In our example, Country.
Select the Category for the Dictionary. In our example, Issues.
Go to the Status Report and see the message Not Deployed. Any change to the data model requires deployment.
Save the changes to the model (it could take a minute) and deploy it.
After a successful deployment, you should have an OK in all the objects and relationships. See the Data Models article on editing and modifying the forms to learn more.
Editing the External Party Form
The next step is to add the new attributes and objects to the form. Go to the Forms tab and use Form Builder to modify it.
You can use a customized detail page for one or many external party objects. To set the detail page for an EP, go to Setup → External Parties → External Party Types
Select the EP you want to edit, then open the Custom Pages tab and select the Detail Page from the dropdown list.
To add a new detail page or modify an existing one, go to Setup → Forms and Pages → Detail Pages.
By default, AppBase creates a detail page for each type of object (Case Type, Party, and Task). These detail pages cannot be modified, so you need to clone them and edit the cloned detail page.
On the cloned detail page, you will find the elements to enrich the EP detail page with the new attributes and objects under the MDM Summary Fields. In our example, you can add the InsuranceID attribute, also the Issue and Reporter objects.
