Application structure

Any application can be built on other applications and leverage reusable components. An application can be specialized in multiple ways such as using class inheritance, ruleset overriding, and circumstancing. When specializing an application using class inheritance you can use pattern inheritance for specialization within an application and direct inheritance for specialization across applications. In this module we will explore how the New Application Wizard can be used to define the application structure and how the New Application Wizard uses direct inheritance for specialization across applications.

When creating an application with the New application wizard, you have the option to specify the application structure in the advanced settings. In the advanced setting the application structure can be either implementation or framework, and the default is implementation. In both cases, a single application is created, but with different purposes.

Selecting implementation creates an application for a specific business purpose. Users log in to the application to achieve numerous business outcomes. An implementation can be built on other implementations, reusable components, or frameworks.

A framework layer typically defines a common work-processing foundation for a set of case types and data objects. The framework contains the default configuration of the application and its associated classes that is then specialized by the implementations. The classes of the implementation layer directly inherit from the classes in the Framework layer. Frameworks are not designed to run on their own; there should always be at least one implementation. Implementations extend the elements of the framework to create a composite application that targets a specific group such as a region, customer type, product, organization or division.

For example, the MyCo enterprise makes auto loans, and has an auto loan framework that is composed of the assets needed for MyCo's standard auto loan process. Each division of MyCo extends that basic auto loan application to meet their specific divisional needs.

Only create a specialization layer such as a framework if at the start of a project the business requirements express a need to leverage such a layer throughout the enterprise.