Non-Synthesized Components Synthesized Components Adding Components to the Business Catalog

12-8 Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management Modeling Business Objects 13-1 13 Modeling Business Objects This chapter describes how to use Business Objects in a BPM Project. Business Objects allow you to manage the data in your process efficiently and enable you to reuse existing components. They reduce the complexity of your process making it easier to maintain. This chapter includes the following sections: ■ Section 13.1, Introduction to Business Objects ■ Section 13.2, Working with Business Objects ■ Section 13.3, Using a Business Object in a Process ■ Section 13.4, Adding Business Objects Based on a XML Schema Element or Type ■ Section 13.5, Introduction to Business Object Attributes ■ Section 13.6, Working with Business Object Attributes

13.1 Introduction to Business Objects

Business Objects allow you to model and develop the business entities that are part of your process using the Object Oriented paradigm. Using Business Objects simplifies the management of the data in your process by encapsulating the data and business behavior associated with the business entity it represents. A business object is composed of a set of attributes and a set of methods. Attributes store the data related to the entity you are modeling. Methods manipulate the value of these attributes, or perform calculations based on their values. Typically Business Objects represent entities in an actual business, but you can also use them to encapsulate business logic that is not associated to any particular entity. Generally when your process contains a large number of data objects, you can group those that describe the same identity in a business object. For example, in the Sales Quote example you can group the following data in a Quote object: ■ Quote Summary ■ Quote Request Status ■ Recommended Discount Using Business Objects to manage a group of related data reduces significantly the complexity of your process by replacing multiple process data objects by a single data object of the type of the business object you defined. Additionally it provides you