Table of Contents
The STAR Business Object Document (BOD) Guidelines provide the data dictionary information for a particular business process. This document is broken into several sections, and to help reduce the overall size of the document, components are only documented once when they first occur. This section will cover both the organization of the document, and some of the common terminology used. More detailed information about the BOD methodology used can be found in the BOD XML Implementation Reference document available on the STAR web site.
Documentation for elements coming from OAGIS, is maintained by the Open Applications Group, and not maintained by STAR. BOD is a registered trademark of the Opena Applications Group.
The STAR BOD Guideline information is generated directly from the STAR schemas, and is created using the Docbook publishing specification format. The Docbook source format is available to members upon request.
This guideline is broken into several sections:
Use Cases - describe typical use case scenarios for the Verb and Noun combination in a particular guideline. This section may provide more detailed information on the use of particular components in various scenarios.
BOD Design - covers briefly the XML Namespaces used, and the overall structure of a BOD.
BOD Components - information regarding the attributes and components that are common to all BODs. This is the information that is found at the root element level of a business object document. This also includes information regarding the ApplicationArea that is sent with every BOD.
Data Area - The data area is where the noun and verb for a BOD reside.
Verbs - There may be several BODs that related to a particular noun, and several verbs used by the noun. To help reduce the overall number of guidelines that need to be generated, all verbs that a particular noun may use are documented in one area.
Noun - The noun contains the detailed information about the data that is carried by the BOD. This section will always be noun specific and is the main section implementors should focus their attention.
The order in which the data elements show up in the BOD Guideline is the order in which they occur in the XML instance. In order to help reduce the overall size of the guidelines, a component is only documented the first time it occurs. Fields may occur in multiple components and so may be documented multiple times. So as the user goes through the guidelines, they should be able to match up a component to a particular XML instance. It is recommended at the minimum that a sample XML Instance for the BOD being mapped be generated to help seeing the hierarchical structure of the document. Many XML editors will provide a tree view of the XML Instance that can be used in conjunction with these guidelines during the mapping exercise. Also, there is space intentionally left over for users to add their own notes and annotations to the guidelines.