Configuration Guide

10.4

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Entity Types

Entity types classify the entities. Entity types allow you to classify the entities within an entity base object.

Entity types belong to a specific entity. Entity base objects can have more than one entity type, but each individual entity in the base object and only belong to one entity type. For example, a Product entity base object can have a Product entity type or a Product Group entity type. Entities in the Product base object can either have a Product entity type or a Product Group entity type.

Examples include doctors, checking accounts, banks, and so on. An Entity Base Object must have a Foreign Key to the Entity Type table (Rbo BO Class). The foreign key can be defined as either a ROWID or predefined Code value.

Well-defined entity types have the following characteristics:

Use entity types to organize the records in a way that reflects the real-world organization of the entities. They effectively segment the data in a way that reflects the real-world nature of the entities.

Taken collectively, they cover the entire set of entities. That is, every entity has one and only one entity type.

They are granular enough so that you can easily define the types of relationships that each entity type can have. For example, an entity type of “doctor” can have the relationships: “member of” with a medical group, “staff” (or “non-staff with admitting privileges”) with a hospital, and so on.

A more general entity type, such as “care provider” (which encompasses nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors, and others) is not granular enough. In this case, the types of relationships that such a general entity type will have will depend on something beyond just the entity type. Therefore, you need to need to define more-granular entity types.

When you configure hierarchy types, you select an icon and color for the appearance of the entities of that type in the Hierarchy Manager tool.

You can configure the following properties when you create an entity type:

Field	Description
Code	Unique code name of the Entity Type. Can be used as a foreign key from entity base objects. Each entity type must have a unique code value.
Display name	Name of this entity type that is displayed in the Hierarchies tool.
Description	Description of the entity type. Optional.
Color	Color of the entities associated with this entity type as they appear in the Hierarchy Manager tool in the Hub Console and in the Informatica Data Director Hierarchy view.
Small Icon	Small icon for entities associated with this entity type as they appear in the Hierarchy Manager tool in the Hub Console and in the Informatica Data Director Hierarchy view. The small icon appears when there are a large number of entities to display in the hierarchy.
Large Icon	Large icon for entities associated with this entity type as they appear in the Hierarchy Manager tool in the Hub Console and in the Informatica Data Director Hierarchy view.