Associations overview

An association is a BMC Action Request (AR) System server object that describes relationships between entries in BMC Remedy AR System forms. The association enables you to manage relationships between entries in two forms to support referential integrity, cascade deletes, and archiving related entries.

An association defines a relationship between entries in two forms. The relationship can have three cardinality options: One to One, One to Many, and Many to Many. For one-to-one and one-to-many relationships, an association between two forms is defined by specifying one form as primary and another form as secondary. For these relationships, the primary form can have only one entry in the relationship. For many-to-many relationships, there are no primary and secondary forms.

The following sections are provided:

Understanding the value of associations

Associations can be used to describe the data model for an application. You can understand an application easier with associations. Enforced associations can eliminate the need to create workflow to restrict operations or to remove related data when an entry is deleted.  Reducing the amount of workflow needed for an application again makes it easier to understand your applications.

Associations can also be used to govern the behavior of archive definitions. For more information, see Defining associations to follow.

Cardinality

Each association has cardinality, which dictates how the entries in the two forms are related. The options are:

• One to One — This cardinality describes a relationship in which an entry from the primary form can be related to exactly zero or one entry in the secondary form.
• One to Many — This cardinality describes a relationship in which an entry from the primary form can be related to zero or more entries in the secondary form.
• Many to Many — This cardinality describes a relationship in which an entry from the primary form can be related to zero or more entries on the secondary form and an entry from the secondary form can be related to zero or more entries on the primary form.

Relationships

Data relationships defined by associations may be enforced (strong) or not enforced (weak).

Enforced associations

If an association is defined as enforced, the BMC Remedy AR System server ensures data integrity is maintained. Data integrity means that the server will enforce the cardinality of the association and will ensure referential integrity. Thus, an entry will not be able to refer to another entry that does not exist.

Only one-to-one and one-to-many cardinality can be enforced. You cannot create an enforced many-to-many relationship in BMC Remedy AR System. The server performs the following functions for the enforced association:

• If an entry is deleted from the primary form, the server deletes all related entries from the secondary form (cascade delete).
• Server does not allow duplicate primary key values in the primary form. For example, each employee must have unique ID.
• Server does not allow entries in the secondary form with invalid foreign key values. For example, an entry in the contact form must reference a valid employee.
• Server does not allow changing primary key values in the primary form if they are referenced in a secondary form. For example, you cannot change an employee ID if that employee is referenced in a birth information form.
• For one to one associations, the server does not allow creation of entries in the secondary form if that breaks the cardinality defined by associations. For example, it will not allow creation of a second birthday entry for the same employee.

Unenforced associations

If an association is not enforced, the BMC Remedy AR System server allows creation of records even if the creation breaks the cardinality defined by the association or the referential integrity. If an association is not enforced, the server does not perform the actions listed above for enforced associations.

Unenforced associations provide a way to describe data relationships that are not directly enforced by the server. These associations may be otherwise enforced, by defining workflows in BMC Remedy Developer Studio.

Type of associations 

Entries in forms may contain direct references to each other, or may be related through a third form that contains references to each of the related entries. The association type describes which of these approaches is used.

Direct associations

Direct associations involve only two forms, and require that references from one form to the other use only data that is present on the forms.  Direct associations can be used for one-to-one and one-to-many relationships. They cannot be used for many-to-many relationships. In the following example, the Employee Phone form directly holds reference to Emp ID of the Employee form.

Indirect associations

Indirect associations include a third form that contains references to each of the related forms.  Entries in the two related forms in an indirect association do not have references to each other. Indirect associations can be used for any kind of relationship, and only an indirect association can be used for a many-to-many relationship. In the following example, the Employee-Department form (third form) contains references to the two related forms: Employee and Department.

Qualifications

When defining an association, you have the option of specifying a qualification for each of the forms involved. Qualifications allow different relationships between entries in the same two forms or the storage of multiple relationships in a single indirect association form.

When you specify qualifications, only entries matching the qualification are related to the association. For example, you might have a Phone details form that includes a Phone Type field indicating that an entry is an office phone number or another type of phone number. You could then create different associations between an employee form and the phone details form:

• one-to-one association between an employee and an office phone
• one-to-many association between an employee and all other phones

You would add a qualification in the first association requiring that the field on the telephone number form be office phone option.

Permissions

An Association object does not have any permissions. Only administrators are allowed  to create, modify and delete associations.  All other users can view an association, if they have access for viewing the all the fields and forms used in that association.