Binding Business Attributes to Domains

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In Conceptual Modeling, a Business Attribute can be “bound” to a Domain to seed a conceptual model and enforce data type standards. You can export and/or print a binding report.There are several different ways of binding Domains to Business Attributes:

• Binding via Drag and Drop
• Binding from a Business Attribute
• Binding from a Domain

The binding characteristics/limitations follow:

• A Business Attribute can be bound to a Domain.
• You cannot bind both a Domain and a Business Element to the same attribute. You will get a Bound Domain Warning dialog giving you the option to resolve the conflict.

• You can bind multiple Business Attributes to a Domain in the same Business Entity.
• Once a Business Attribute is bound to a Domain, changes to the properties (i.e., data type, width and scale, and optionality) of the Domain cascade to the attribute. However you can use the Override option if you want to change the enforcement of those properties.

Binding via Drag and Drop

You can drag a Domain from the Model View tree onto a Business Entity in the Diagram View.

1 Select the Domain you want to bind with a Business Entity.

2 Drag the Domain from the Model View onto the Business Entity in the Diagram View.

3 If the entity already contains a bound Business Attribute with the same name, a new attribute is created with a unique name. For example, if your existing attribute was “Domain”, the new attribute would be “Domain1”.

Binding from a Business Attribute

To bind a Business Attribute to a Domain:

1 Double-click a Business Attribute either in the Model View tree or in the Diagram View to open the Property View.

2 On the General tab, in the Domain Binding Options group box, click the drop-down arrow in the Bound Domain list box. All available Domains are listed.

3 Select the Domain you want to bind the Business Attribute to.

4 You can choose to override the properties of a bound Business Attribute (data type, width and scale, and optionality) with the changes you make in the Domain. For example, you can change the width setting of “DomainOne” as shown in the following screen shot. Because the Width and Scale enforcement option is selected in the Enforcement options box, that value is propagated to the bound Business Attribute.

When you open the Property View for the bound Business Attribute, notice that the Width setting is now the same as the Domain One width setting.

5 If you change any of the properties in the bound Business Attribute a violation occurs telling you that one or more properties of the Domain and the Business Attribute no longer match. For example if you changed the Data Type to “Binary” in the Business Attribute, a violation notice appears in the Bindings hierarchy. Click Bindings and notice that a “Data Type Violation: Varchar” warning appears in the hierarchy.

6 You can choose to resolve the violations by clicking . However, violations do not have to be resolved and are left in the Bindings hierarchy as a reminder of the changes you made.

Viewing the Binding

There is no visual indicator on the diagram showing that a Business Attribute has been bound to a Domain. However, you can view the binding either from the Business Attribute or from the Domain via their Property Views:

• When you double-click the bound Business Attribute, the Property View for the attribute opens. Click Bindings and the bindings hierarchy is shown under the Bindings heading (). This hierarchy shows the Domain(s) the Business Attribute is bound to.

• When you double-click on a Domain, the Property View opens. Click Bindings to view the attributes bound to the Domain.

Binding from a Domain

To bind a Business Attribute from a Domain:

1 Double-click a Domain either in the Model View tree or in the Diagram View to open the Property View.

2 Click the Bindings tab to open the Bindings hierarchy page.

3 Click and the Creating Binding with Targets... dialog opens. All Business Entities and their associated Business Attributes and Domains are listed.

Note: If a binding has already been created, the Add Target to Binding... dialog opens.

4 Select the target (i.e. attribute) you want to bind to the Domain and click OK.

Note: If you attempt to bind an attribute that is already bound to a Business Element, you will get a Bound Domain Warning dialog.

5 In the Property View for the Domain, click Bindings to view the Bindings hierarchy.

Using the Override Option

When binding Business Attributes to Domains you can choose to enforce some or all of the properties of the Domain to the Business Attribute.

1 Create a Domain and select the properties you want enforced when binding to Business Attributes. In the following example, when you bind a Business Attribute to DomainOne, the Data Type and Optionality properties will be enforced on the Business Attribute. The Width and Scale properties of the Domain will not be enforced.

2 However, when you bind the Business Attribute to the Domain, you have the option to override the enforced properties. In the following example notice that in the Business Attribute Property View, the Width and Scale option is greyed out. Also notice that the Data type and Optionality list boxes are not available.

3 If you want to override any of the available properties, select that option in the Domain binding options. For example, if you selected the Data Type option, the Data Type list box becomes available and you can change the setting.

4 Once you override a property and click on the Bindings tab a violation notation appears in the hierarchy telling you that the properties of the Business Attribute and the Domain no longer match and what that mismatch is.