Data Model design approach
When creating Data Objects in Pega Platform™, apply the following approach:
1. Check for preconfigured Data Models first
Verify whether a preconfigured Data Object already exists in your application or foundation layer before creating a new one. Several Pega products ship with ready-made Data Objects relevant to your use case. For example, Pega Customer Service™ specifically requires the implementation of Customer Account, Contact, and Service Account Data Objects right by default. Similarly, Pega Foundation for Financial Services provides preconfigured Data Objects and Data Pages for objects such as accounts and customers. Extend suitable type by adding or removing properties as needed.
The Common Data Model (CDM) includes preconfigured Data Objects in use by most business applications.
2. Define the structure as a reusable building block
If you need to create a new Data Object treat it as a logical grouping of related properties that describe the entity. For a Customer Account, you might organize fields into logical clusters such as Profile Data (name, address), Billing Data (payment methods, amounts), and Contract Data (length, type). Design the object for reusability so that it can serve multiple Case Types or interfaces without redundancy.
3. Handle data access and display separately
After you define the structure, use Data Pages to control how the object retrieves data, and Views to define how it is consistently presented across your application. If the data is in an external system, connect to it through APIs that support standard create, read, update, and delete operations.
In summary, the pattern is reuse first, extend if needed, and then build a new object only when necessary to keep reusability and logical grouping at the core.
Pre-configured data models
When building a Pega application, you have several preconfigured Data Models available.
Common Data Model
Centered around core entities like Account (the customer), Contact (the people), and Service Account (products, policies, or contracts), CDM provides a starting point for your Data Model that you can extend for various industries.
The CDM is based on the Account entity, which represents a buying or selling relationship such as a customer, competitor, partner, or provider to the client organization. The Account holds the aggregate value to the client organization. There are three types of Account: Business, Consumer, and Household.
The CDM meets the approach to data modelling for a Pega application, including:
- Defining the Structure as a reusable building block.
You can reuse CDM entities and Data Objects across Cases and applications. Each entity calls from a set of Data Objects created to support reuse. For example, a Customer Account includes Address, Phone, and Payment Method objects. The same objects can provide Address, Phone and Payment information for a vendor account.
- Handling data access and display separately
CDM uses Data Pages to separate the data source from application data and uses Views to define the display of data in the application.
Industry Data Models
For organizations in specific verticals, extension applications are available, which provide industry-specific properties, picklist reference data, and sample Data Objects by default. Data Models are available for the following industries:
- Financial Services
- Insurance
- Healthcare
- Government
- Communications
To see the primary entity descriptions and an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) for each Industry Data Model, see the Logical Data Model documentation.
When you design your application using Pega Blueprint™, Industry Data Models provide input to your application data model.
Blueprint-generated Data Model
Pega Blueprint™ is a powerful tool that helps you rapidly design the foundations of an application that fulfills your business needs by using the power of Pega GenAI™. Instead of starting from scratch, you can describe your business needs using common language and have Pega GenAI suggest Case Types, the Data Model, and Personas for your application. Then, you refine these assets to meet your specific business scenario
Pega Blueprint™ generates a Data Model based on the Functional Description that you use to create the Blueprint. When you import a Blueprint, you can choose to use the Blueprint-generated data objects.
To generate data objects, Blueprint also uses the Industry Data Models. For example, if you are creating an application design for a financial application, Blueprint uses the Financial Services Data Model, along with the application’s functional description, to create data objects.
If you select Lending for the Department/function, as shown in the following figure, Blueprint creates the core objects that lending applications are typically based on.
You can also modify a Blueprint-generated data object by mapping it to a data object from a built-on application. In this mission, you learn how to use objects from the Common Data Model by building your application on the Common application.
This Topic is available in the following Module:
If you are having problems with your training, please review the Pega Academy Support FAQs.
Want to help us improve this content?