the data model...Party Group; Party; Relationships

[justin.g.robinson]

Ok my questions are really about the ofbiz framework, but they are
framed in the context of opentaps, as a means of illustration,
I have had users of this mailing list who where touchy about the
separation between the 2 systems(understandable).
I'm customizing opentaps but I've looked & the functionality I'm
looking for doesn't exist as far as I can tell.
So just substitute account for party of type party group; team member
for party as type person etc.

My object is to have accounts and contacts visible to all teams, but
when it comes to cases have them only visible to select teams. If
there where a team hierarchy where relationships were conferred by
party groups or teams to their member parties, that could be
accomplished.

But that doesn't seem to be the cases......from what i understand

If I create a team with say two members & then assign an account to
that team in the team members' party profile relationships section.
Each of the team members have a relationship to that account. But then
if I remove the first team member from the team, that team member's
relationship to that account persists. Likewise if I add a third team
member to the team. They do not then automatically have a relationship
to the new account I had assigned to the team earlier.

I had imagined that by assigning a team to an account the relationship
between the account and the team would confer a relationship between
the account and the the team members. But what actually seems to
happen when an account is assigned to a team is that relationships are
then created linking that account to each team member. The mechanism
that performs the task of creating relationships, obviously isn't
employed for situations where a team member is added to a team or
removed from the team.

Which I'm sure wouldn't be difficult to add, but I'm still confused
about the data model hierarchy.

I assume though when it comes to cases, the account or contact used to
create the case and it's relationship to the team member, then does
confer a relationship between the case and the team member. But then
how is the difference established between my cases and my team's
cases? Unless that is also conferred via the associated account or
contact. Which would mean that if say if I wanted to assign a case to
a technical team, I'd have to assign the account to their team.

Assuming I'd added the mechanisms that remove relationships with team
reassignment, that would then mean that the account was no longer
visible to the customer service team?

Having a look at:
com.opensourcestrategies.crmsfa.teams.TeamServices
com.opensourcestrategies.crmsfa.party.PartyHelper
org.opentaps.common.party.PartyHelper

the copyToPartyRelationships() method seems to be where team members
are related to the account.
But if I am to remove the relationships between a team member and the
team's accounts.(if that memember is removed from the team) Then I
need to know which relationships for that team memeber's party where
oringinally created because of his memembership to the team & there's
no record I can see of which accounts belong to the team........?

From an ofbiz piont of viw can anyone give me some insight into the
party of type party group, party of type person relationship situation

--
Regards,
Justin
Venture-Net Research & Development

[hans_bakker]

Hi Justin,

any relationship can be documented in he partyRelationship entity.
But please move your discussion to the opentaps mailinglist?

Regards,
Hans

On Wed, 2011-02-23 at 17:55 +0200, Justin Robinson wrote:
> Ok my questions are really about the ofbiz framework, but they are
> framed in the context of opentaps, as a means of illustration,
> I have had users of this mailing list who where touchy about the
> separation between the 2 systems(understandable).
.....
--
Ofbiz on twitter: http://twitter.com/apache_ofbiz
Myself on twitter: http://twitter.com/hansbak
Antwebsystems.com: Quality services for competitive rates.

[BJ Freeman]

the last times I looked at the opentaps CRm it uses entities not in ofbiz.
it also dose not follow using the partyrelationship as called out in the
datamodel book.
which is why you need to discuss this in opentaps


=========================
BJ Freeman
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation  <http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=52>
Specialtymarket.com  <http://www.specialtymarket.com/>
Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist

Chat  Y! messenger: bjfr33man


Justin Robinson sent the following on 2/23/2011 7:55 AM:

> Ok my questions are really about the ofbiz framework, but they are
> framed in the context of opentaps, as a means of illustration,
> I have had users of this mailing list who where touchy about the
> separation between the 2 systems(understandable).
> I'm customizing opentaps but I've looked&  the functionality I'm
> looking for doesn't exist as far as I can tell.
> So just substitute account for party of type party group; team member
> for party as type person etc.
>
> My object is to have accounts and contacts visible to all teams, but
> when it comes to cases have them only visible to select teams. If
> there where a team hierarchy where relationships were conferred by
> party groups or teams to their member parties, that could be
> accomplished.
>
> But that doesn't seem to be the cases......from what i understand
>
> If I create a team with say two members&  then assign an account to
> that team in the team members' party profile relationships section.
> Each of the team members have a relationship to that account. But then
> if I remove the first team member from the team, that team member's
> relationship to that account persists. Likewise if I add a third team
> member to the team. They do not then automatically have a relationship
> to the new account I had assigned to the team earlier.
>
> I had imagined that by assigning a team to an account the relationship
> between the account and the team would confer a relationship between
> the account and the the team members. But what actually seems to
> happen when an account is assigned to a team is that relationships are
> then created linking that account to each team member. The mechanism
> that performs the task of creating relationships, obviously isn't
> employed for situations where a team member is added to a team or
> removed from the team.
>
> Which I'm sure wouldn't be difficult to add, but I'm still confused
> about the data model hierarchy.
>
> I assume though when it comes to cases, the account or contact used to
> create the case and it's relationship to the team member, then does
> confer a relationship between the case and the team member. But then
> how is the difference established between my cases and my team's
> cases? Unless that is also conferred via the associated account or
> contact. Which would mean that if say if I wanted to assign a case to
> a technical team, I'd have to assign the account to their team.
>
> Assuming I'd added the mechanisms that remove relationships with team
> reassignment, that would then mean that the account was no longer
> visible to the customer service team?
>
> Having a look at:
> com.opensourcestrategies.crmsfa.teams.TeamServices
> com.opensourcestrategies.crmsfa.party.PartyHelper
> org.opentaps.common.party.PartyHelper
>
> the copyToPartyRelationships() method seems to be where team members
> are related to the account.
> But if I am to remove the relationships between a team member and the
> team's accounts.(if that memember is removed from the team) Then I
> need to know which relationships for that team memeber's party where
> oringinally created because of his memembership to the team&  there's
> no record I can see of which accounts belong to the team........?
>
>> From an ofbiz piont of viw can anyone give me some insight into the
> party of type party group, party of type person relationship situation
>

[Scott Gray-2]

As the others have said this is better posted to opentaps because you're really asking about how the business logic makes use of the data model rather than how the data model itself is structured.  

But with that said, it sounds to me like opentaps have taken the easier route of associating the members of the group to an account rather than adding the group itself to the account.  This simplifies lookups because everything is done within the context of a single user rather than worrying about what groups the user is a member of but it does complicate a number of other things such as what you are experiencing below.  There are certainly solutions to the problem but they are at the application level and not the data model, hence it being a discussion for the opentaps forums.

Regards
Scott

HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com

On 24/02/2011, at 4:55 AM, Justin Robinson wrote:

> Ok my questions are really about the ofbiz framework, but they are
> framed in the context of opentaps, as a means of illustration,
> I have had users of this mailing list who where touchy about the
> separation between the 2 systems(understandable).
> I'm customizing opentaps but I've looked & the functionality I'm
> looking for doesn't exist as far as I can tell.
> So just substitute account for party of type party group; team member
> for party as type person etc.
>
> My object is to have accounts and contacts visible to all teams, but
> when it comes to cases have them only visible to select teams. If
> there where a team hierarchy where relationships were conferred by
> party groups or teams to their member parties, that could be
> accomplished.
>
> But that doesn't seem to be the cases......from what i understand
>
> If I create a team with say two members & then assign an account to
> that team in the team members' party profile relationships section.
> Each of the team members have a relationship to that account. But then
> if I remove the first team member from the team, that team member's
> relationship to that account persists. Likewise if I add a third team
> member to the team. They do not then automatically have a relationship
> to the new account I had assigned to the team earlier.
>
> I had imagined that by assigning a team to an account the relationship
> between the account and the team would confer a relationship between
> the account and the the team members. But what actually seems to
> happen when an account is assigned to a team is that relationships are
> then created linking that account to each team member. The mechanism
> that performs the task of creating relationships, obviously isn't
> employed for situations where a team member is added to a team or
> removed from the team.
>
> Which I'm sure wouldn't be difficult to add, but I'm still confused
> about the data model hierarchy.
>
> I assume though when it comes to cases, the account or contact used to
> create the case and it's relationship to the team member, then does
> confer a relationship between the case and the team member. But then
> how is the difference established between my cases and my team's
> cases? Unless that is also conferred via the associated account or
> contact. Which would mean that if say if I wanted to assign a case to
> a technical team, I'd have to assign the account to their team.
>
> Assuming I'd added the mechanisms that remove relationships with team
> reassignment, that would then mean that the account was no longer
> visible to the customer service team?
>
> Having a look at:
> com.opensourcestrategies.crmsfa.teams.TeamServices
> com.opensourcestrategies.crmsfa.party.PartyHelper
> org.opentaps.common.party.PartyHelper
>
> the copyToPartyRelationships() method seems to be where team members
> are related to the account.
> But if I am to remove the relationships between a team member and the
> team's accounts.(if that memember is removed from the team) Then I
> need to know which relationships for that team memeber's party where
> oringinally created because of his memembership to the team & there's
> no record I can see of which accounts belong to the team........?
>
> From an ofbiz piont of viw can anyone give me some insight into the
> party of type party group, party of type person relationship situation
>
> --
> Regards,
> Justin
> Venture-Net Research & Development