Association model

The Association model defines relationships between major entities. Associations in TMS are ordered in a parent-child relationship. The associations are stored in the Association Template table during the Definition stage, and in the Association table during the Runtime stage.

The following associations are stored in the Associate Template table:

• [itsmps:n-n] Application Parent template to Task Group template.
   An Application Parent template (for example, a change request template) can be associated with multiple Task Group templates. An example is a change request template having a planned task group template, an execute task group template, and a verification task group template.
• [itsmps:n-n] Task Group template to Task Group template. In this case, the first one is the parent and the second one is the child.
• [itsmps:n-n] Task Group template to Task template.

The following associations are stored in the Association table:

• [itsmps:1-n] Application Parent instance to Task Group.

  Warning

  Important

  An example of an Application Parent Instance is a change request.

• [itsmps:n-n] Task Group to Task Group. In this case, the first one is the parent and the second one is the child.

  Warning

  Important

  This is an n-n relationship because a Task Group can be the parent of one or more Task Groups and also a child of one or more Task Groups.

• [itsmps:1-n] Task Group to Task.

Foreign keys and an entry on the Association table are needed for the following relationships:

• The Task Group has a foreign key to the Parent Application instance.
• Task has a foreign key to the Parent Application instance.

Foreign keys are used to perform a quick lookup and to support direction, while the Association table entries help navigation. The following figure illustrates the Association model.

Association model