Business Integration perspective and views

The Business Integration perspective provides simple, uncluttered views of essential resources so you can model and build business solutions. Unnecessary details and unused tools are hidden.

By default, when you launch the product, the Business Integration perspective is opened. This perspective has the following views:

For more information about the Business Integration perspective and views, see the tutorial under related information at the end of this topic.

Business Integration view

The Business Integration perspective has a Business Integration view, which provides a logical view of the key resources in each module, mediation module, and library. Within each module, mediation module, or library, the resources are categorized by type. Logical resources shown in the navigation tree do not necessarily have a one-to-one mapping to files. Artifacts that are not necessary for the development of integration applications are not shown in this navigation tree.

Here is the view of two modules, CustomerQuery and StockQuote, and a library, SharedLib:

Business Integration view

In the Business Integration view, a module's resources are organized by type:

  • The first resource is the module's assembly. Double-click Assembly Diagram to open the assembly editor.
  • Double-click Dependencies to open the dependencies editor to see and manage the dependencies on other modules or libraries.
  • Business Logic contains all the artifacts that perform specific business tasks. Processes, state machines, human tasks are some examples of business logic implementations.
  • Data Types contains all the data representations in the system. It contains business objects, business graphs, and user-defined simple types.
  • Interfaces contains interfaces that define the operations that can be called from services.
  • Mapping contains business object maps, interface maps, relationships, and roles.
  • Events contains event definitions that were created in the event definition editor.

Here is a view of a mediation module called StockQuote and a library called Resources:

Business Integration view showing a mediation module and a library

Click the Show Namespaces button,Show Namespaces button, to show the namespaces of the resources, as shown in the following Business Integration view:

Module and library expanded to show namespaces of resources

By default the resources are sorted by type of object. You can also sort all the resources within each module or library by the folders that contain the resources or by namespaces (which would turn on and display the namespaces of all the resources). The sort options can be selected from the down arrow at the top of the Business Integration view:

Sort by selection for the Business Integration view

References view

For a selected object in the Business Integration view, the References view shows all of the artifacts that reference it and all the artifacts that it references. The following image shows the Customer business object selected in the Business Integration view tree, and the References view graphically shows the Address and Phones business objects referencing it.

References view

Select an artifact in the References view and click the graph mode button Graph Mode button to focus on that artifact and to show its relationships to other artifacts. Click the Lock View button Lock View button to lock the References view so that selecting objects in the Business Integration view will not affect the References view.

Physical Resources view

The Physical Resources view shows all of the file-level resources in the modules and libraries. Related projects that are generated when creating business integration applications are still hidden in this view. By default, this view is not open in the Business Integration perspective. Select a module, mediation module, library, or logical artifact in the Business Integration view, right-click, and select Show Files to open the Physical Resources view. The following image shows the Physical Resources view with the library and one of the modules expanded to show their resources:

Physical view

The logical contents of the physical file are also displayed in this view. For example, if you have several business objects in an XSD file, you will be able to expand the XSD file in this view and see all the business objects in the file.

If you have an artifact open in an editor, you can click the opened artifact in the Editor view (to focus on it) and then click the Link with Editor Link with Editor button button to quickly locate the file in the Business Integration view.

To understand how to use these views, see the tutorial listed at the end of this topic.

Editor view

When you open a resource from the Business Integration view with an editor, the resource is displayed in the Editor view. Many business integration tools are graphical editors so that the diagrams are composed on the canvas of the editor. The following image shows a module assembly that is open in the Editor view:

Editor view

Graphical editors usually work with the Properties view to show the properties of selected elements on the canvas. Also, see the Outline view to see how the Editor view may work with that view.

Properties view

When using the Properties view with the Business Integration view or Physical Resources view, the Properties view is a read-only view where you can see information about a selected artifact. The following image shows the Properties view displaying information on a selected business object in the Business Integration view:

Properties view

When using the Properties view with editors, you will be able to modify properties of selected elements in the editor.

Visual Snippets view

The Visual Snippets view is used to compose customized behavior in the form of Java™ code. See the related topics for more information. Here is the Visual Snippet view:

Visual Snippets view

Outline view

The Outline view works with the resource that is opened in the Editor view. The Outline view operates in two modes: Show Outline, which is a navigation tree view, and Show Overview, which is a graphical view. To explain the Outline view, assume that we have an assembly diagram open in the Editor view.

Outline view in Show Outline mode

The Outline view in the Show Outline mode, displays all the elements in the assembly diagram that is open in the Editor view. When you click on an element in the Outline view, the Editor view and Properties view are synchronized to show the selected element. Here is an image showing the Outline view in the Show Outline mode:

Outline view

You can invoke actions from the elements in the Outline view; select an element and right-click to see the actions that are available.

Outline view in Show Overview mode

Click the Show Overview button, Show Overview button, on the top right corner of the Outline window to change the view into a graphical view of assembly diagram that is open in the Editor view. The complete assembly diagram is displayed as a miniature model in the Outline view. The grey box is the part of the assembly diagram that is visible in the Editor view. Use your mouse to drag the grey box to the part of the assembly diagram that you want to see in the Editor view. This is an easy way for you to shift the Editor view to the part of the diagram that you are interested in. Here is an example of an assembly diagram displayed in the Outline view:

Assembly diagram displayed in the Outline view

Problems view

Use the Problems view to help you debug errors. For example, clicking on an error for some component in a module assembly will open the assembly diagram in the Editor view and the component that has the error is highlighted. Here is the Problems view:

Problems view

Note: The filter setting of On selected resources and its children does not work properly with the Business Integration view.

Servers view

Use the Servers view to create servers. You will use the view for testing and deploying business integration applications. See the related topics for additional information.

Related concepts
Modules and libraries
Modules and libraries dependencies
Business integration capabilities and roles
Business integration cheat sheets
Best practices: Sharing projects
Related tasks
Creating a module for business services
Creating a mediation module
Changing default namespaces
Enabling tools capabilities
Adding dependencies to modules and libraries
Creating the library
Opening the Business Integration perspective
Testing modules and components
Deploying modules
Related reference
Visual snippet editor

Related information

Tutorial: Work with modules and libraries

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