Business Data Concept

The Business Data Store implements a document store. Beside the stored value, the repository stores additional information about the Business Data, like an identifier, a version, and the creation / update date.

A value data class can have fields of complex types, which allows you to create an object hierarchy or -tree. The storage mechanism can handle recursions and will respect objects of same instance. If the same instance of an object is referenced in a field and in a list - after storing and loading the value - the loaded value will have the identical structure; the field as well as the list entry will reference the same instance.

Identity

A Business Data value is identified by an identifier given by the repository and its data class.

A unique id is generated if a Business Data value is stored for the first time. If there is a field of type String with the name id in the Business Data class, the generated id will be stored into this field, too.

It is also possible to use your own id if you set the id to the Business Data value before saving it for the first time.

Business Case Data

The handling of identifiers of Business Data values is complex because you have to manage the identifiers in the process data manually. Therefore, the Business Data Store can store data in the context of a business case. You can activate this by marking a data class with the @BusinessCaseData annotation. In the Data Class Editor, change the type of your data class to Business Data. Now, all values of the annotated data class are automatically associated with the current business case. You can use the get method to load the value associated with the current business case. If no value is associated, it returns a new object.

Migrate data classes

You can add and remove fields in the value data class hierarchy. New fields will be initialized with null when old values get loaded. Deleted fields will no longer be available. The current data of deleted fields will remain persisted until the new value gets stored with the new data - which will override the old data.

Optimistic locking

Business Data supports optimistic locking. It is possible to check if the current version is up to date and save only if there are differences. It is possible to update a value partially so that multiple participants can work on different parts of the same Business Data value. See the Concurrent Modification WorkflowDemos projects for a practical example.