An entity is an element which allows you to keep business information in a persistent way. The information is stored in Attributes. Entities are used to represent and manage your data base model.

Entity Identifier

When an entity is created, Service Studio automatically creates an attribute called Id; this attribute uniquely identifies the entity.

By default, this attribute is an integer and the Platform Server generates its value, assuring uniqueness; this is done through the auto-number facility provided by Service Studio. How to guarantee uniqueness.

However, if you want, you may switch off the auto number facility or change the identifier type to text.

To set another attribute to be the identifier simply set that attribute as identifier. How?

When you delete an entity, Service Studio is permissive, i.e. no test is done to check whether the entity is being used. However, eSpace validation detects this and returns an error. The eSpace is not valid (An eSpace is valid when all expressions are correctly defined and the TrueChange operation issues no errors.) and you have to fix the elements where the entity is being used.

To handle a single entity element use the type Record with the entity definition. To handle multiple entity elements use the type Record List, where the records have the entity definition.

When designing your application use Static Entities to benefit from strong typing. Learn more About Static Entities.

Using entity references

Service Studio provides you with mechanisms to reuse Entities among eSpaces. You can expose your entities to other eSpaces or use entities defined in another eSpace.

See Also

Entity Properties | Entity Editor | Entities Indexes | Attributes Description | Manage Entities | Expose an Entity | Use Entity References | About Static Entities | Find and Replace Entity Usages