Business object groups unite dissimilar objects

Use a business object group only when the objects in the group cannot be configured as a single object. Unnecessarily creating several similar objects will lead to duplicating of configuration information such as attributes and rules. Whenever the configuration of one of such objects needs to be changed, other similar objects are likely to require the same change.

You need to configure business elements of similar nature as separate objects, as opposed to a single object, when:

• Attributes of one of the objects are not applicable to other objects and should not be displayed on an object form for the other objects.
• Different processing logic applies to different objects. There would be too many rules for one object and they would become too complicated because of the differences.

For example, different forms of customer communication such as email, telephone call, fax or traditional letter, have to be configured as separate objects because of the different way the message information is stored and presented to the user. Withdrawal and deposit transactions, while both being financial transactions applicable to accounts, have to be configured separately because of different processing rules that apply to the transactions.

When objects differ only to a minor extent the difference may be covered by an attribute in a single object. For example, a library catalogue may contain items of different types such as books, videos, CDs, etc. Other attributes such as title, author, description, or catalogue number would be identical. Therefore, a single LibraryItem object may be configured that has an additional attribute representing the item type.