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Creating New Relationship Types

You can create a new relationship type and use it to relate the entities.

The Create New Relationship Type feature in Data Modeler provides the convenience of creating a relationship type by using a user interface instead of a JSON file. You can use the Data Modeler application available through Console to create new relationship types easily, if needed.

Creating a Relationship Type

To create a new relationship type, click the link on the Relationships page. The Create new relationship type page appears.

Adding details in the Create new relationship type page:

In the Name field, enter a unique name which is used in the URI (the path to reach the relationship type). For example: "Family". The URI for creating a relationship type is configuration/relationTypes/.
Tip: As a best practice, do not use special characters and spaces while creating relationship types.

In Display Name, enter a name that would identify your relationship type in the user interface. Optionally, enter a relevant Description for the relationship attribute. The entered description appears on the Relationship Attribute page.

Optionally, from the Inherited relationship type drop-down list, select the relationship type that your new relationship is based on.

Selecting the Direction of the relationship:

Relationships are directional - they have a start object and an end object. Select the direction in which the relationship works. You can choose from Directed, Bidirectional and Unidirectional. To understand how the direction of a relationship defines the relation, see the Direction property details mentioned in the Configuring Relationship Types topic.

You can also check the tool-tip that is provided next to each 'Direction' to understand the type of the relationship that is created based on the direction.

Select the Start object entity type and the End object entity type from the corresponding drop-down lists. To understand how you can define relationships between entities, see topic Entity relationships.

Optionally, you can specify the Directional label patterns.

Adding More Options:

Click More options to specify more details about the relationship type.

You can enter a detailed description of the relationship type. You can even mark the relationship type as Implicit. When you mark a relationship type as Implicit, it is not included in the graphs as it is not considered significantly valuable.
Note: By default, all relationship types are Explicit.

You can set the End-date Strategy by selecting to either end-date only the related crosswalks, or, end-date both relationship and the related crosswalks.

You can choose to save the details and add the attribute details at a later stage. Alternatively, you can go on to add the attributes for the relationship type as the next step. To do so, click the SAVE AND ADD ATTRIBUTE button. The Create new relationship attribute page appears. To learn more about adding relationship attributes, see the Adding a relationship attribute section.

The new relationship type is added to the Relationships page.

Adding a relationship attribute

To add a relationship attribute, you can either select an existing relationship on the Relationships page and click Create New on its Attributes page, or, click SAVE AND ADD ATTRIBUTE on the Create new relationship type page while creating a relationship type.

The Create new relationshipType attribute page appears.

In the Name field, enter a unique name which is used in the URI (the path to reach the relationship attribute). For example: "familyname". The URI for creating a relationship attribute is configuration/relationTypes/(relationname)/attributes/.
Tip: As a best practice, do not use special characters and spaces while creating relationship attributes.
In Display Name, enter a name that would identify your relationship attribute in the user interface.

Enter a relevant Description for the attribute. The entered description appears on the Relationship attribute page.

The entered description also appears on the Relationship attribute panel.

You can also select an appropriate data type for the attribute from the Data type drop-down list.

Default Value You can set a default value for the attribute. This is optional.

Lookup type You can set up a Lookup type that you want to assign to this attribute. This is optional.

You can turn on Searchable, Hidden and/or Important properties for the attribute. Click SAVE to create the new relationship attribute.

Editing a relationship attribute

You may want to modify the details of an existing relationship attribute associated with a relationship. To edit a relationship attribute, you must click the existing relationship on the Relationships page. The Attributes page appears. Hover over the attribute that you want to modify and click the edit (pen) icon on the right side of the listed attributes.

The Edit relationship attribute page appears.

You can modify the Display Name, if required.

Optionally, enter a relevant Description for the attribute. The entered description appears on the Relationship attribute page.

You can also select an appropriate data type for the attribute from the Data type drop-down list.

Default Value You can set a default value for the attribute. This is optional.

Lookup type You can set a Lookup type that you want to assign to this attribute.. This is optional.

You can change the Searchable, Hidden and/or Important properties for the attribute. Click SAVE to update the relationship attribute details.

Editing a relationship

You may want to modify the details of an existing relationship type or add any additional detail like a relationship attribute. Depending upon the inherited relationship type that was used for creating the relationship type and the direction of the relationship, the system allows you to edit the relationship type details.

To modify the details of a relationship type, on the Relationships page, click the edit (pen) icon on the right side of the listed relationships. The Edit relationship type page appears.

You can edit only the Display Name, Directional label pattern and other details that appear in the More Options section.

You can click SAVE to update the relationship type details. Alternatively, you can click SAVE AND ADD ATTRIBUTE to create a new attribute for the relationship type. To learn more about adding relationship attributes, see the Adding a relationship attribute section.