Introduction

To facilitate the process of creating an Entity, the Control Panel has a creation wizard that simplifies and guides the user through the process.

The process of creating an Entity is divided into three steps:

• Fill in the general information.

• Define the schema.

• Configure the advanced options.

The information provided in the first two steps is mandatory (it is generic information that defines the Entity), the third step being optional.

Steps

Create the Entity

From the Control Panel, navigate to the Development > My Entities menu.

Open

This will take us to the list of available Entities. To create the Entity, click on the "+" button at the top right of the screen.

Open

From the different Entities that we will be able to create, we will select the "Creation Step by Step" one:

Fill in general information

This will open the Entity creation wizard, where we will have to enter some basic information:

• Identification: the unique name with which to identify the Entity.

• Meta-Information: tags to characterize the Entity, which will be used for filtering when searching.

• Description: extended descriptive text of the Entity, such as its use, properties, characteristics, etc.

In addition, we have some more options to characterize the Entity:

• Active: so that the Entity works or is blocked.

• Public entity: if we want the Entity to be public, or if we want it to be private.

• Allows encryption of fields: if we want some fields to store sensitive information and be encrypted (more information).

• ContextData Enable: if you want the Entity to internally record write and management changes (more information).

• Supports JSON-LD: if you want the Entity to be able to work with context (more information).

• Enable data class preprocessing: option that allows the Entity to internally register write and management changes.

Once the Entity's general information and options have been defined, click on the "Continue" button to access the Entity's schema definition.

Define the Entity's scheme

In this step, the user will be prompted to select a schema template or to create one from scratch.

If a predefined template is to be used, it will be selected from the list of categorized templates. On the right side of the screen the different fields that the Entity will have will be displayed, as well as the properties of each one of them.

This template can be modified as needed, adding, modifying or deleting fields, as well as changing its properties.

To create your own schema, select the "EmptyBase" template located in the "General" category:

In this case, the empty Entity field manager will appear on the right side of the screen.

To create a new field in the Entity, click on the "+" button.

A new record will then appear in the list, where the following options must be indicated:

• Property: the name of the field. This name cannot contain spaces.

• Type: in this selector you will have to choose the type of data that will be the field.

  The following are differentiated:

  • string: for text fields.

  • object: to store JavaScript type objects.

  • number: to store numbers in general (including decimals).

  • integer: to use integer numbers.

  • geometry-{{type}}: geometry type fields are used to store data with spatial component (coordinates). Each field type corresponds to one of the different geometries supported in the Platform (more information).

  • file: this type is used to store binary data in a field (more information).

  • date: to store dates in ISO 8601 format (yyyy-MM-dd).

  • timestamp-mongo: for storing timestamps in MongoDB format.

  • timestamp: as above, but in ISO 8601 format (yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss).

  • array: to store lists of data.

  • boolean: if the field will be of logical type.

  • email: to store email type fields.

• Required: checking this option will make it mandatory for the field to be entered when adding data in the Entity.

• Encrypted: if the option to allow encrypted fields has been enabled, it will cause the field information to be masked (encrypted).

• Data type: if they have been previously created, they allow assigning data processing operations, such as converting the content of the field from text type to upper case, converting the value according to a domain, etc. (more information).

• Default value: the default value of the field can be specified if no other value is specified by the user.

• Enumerated values: it is possible to enter a series of values so that when filling in this field, there is a list of options to choose from (more information).

• Description: descriptive text to characterize the field.

• Delete: by clicking on the trash can icon you can delete the property being created.

Once you have chosen the default template you want to use, or created the fields you need, click on the "Update Schema" button to register the changes in the entity's schema.

As soon as you click on it, a code screen with the Entity structure in JSON format will be displayed:

Once verified that the structure is correct, click on the "Generate Instance" button to see an example of the Entity data:

Once this is done, click on the "Continue" button to go to the last step of the Entity creation.

Configure advanced options

In this last section you can configure certain advanced options of the Entity.

Among the available options, the first one corresponds to the deletion of data:

• Delete from database: this option enables the automatic deletion of the data stored in the Entity as of a defined time.

• Delete Entities created prior to: if the previous option has been enabled, in this selector you can choose the amount of time after which the Entity's data will be deleted.

The following options refer to Entity communication topics:

• Allows to create a Kafka topic of ingestion for the Entity (more information).

• Allows to create a Kafka topic for notifications.

• Allows to create a MQTT ingest topic for the Entity (more information).

• Enables notifications to the BPM.

Finally, you can indicate the type of database instance to be used by the Entity. This option can only be configured now, during the creation of the Entity, so once the type of instance is defined, it cannot be changed in the future.

From the selector, you can choose the type of instance you need:

The database instance types will vary depending on the Platform instance installed.

Once these options are configured, click on the "Create" button to finish the creation of the Entity.

A window will then be displayed with the available options to be performed with the Entity created.

Clicking on the "Close" button will take you back to the Entities list, where the newly created Entity will appear.