Data Portal

In a Data Model, entities describe an object, such as a person or an item, by grouping a set of related fields. Each entity becomes a table in the database. Products, accounts, and transactions are examples of potential entities in a data model. The Common Data Model contains predefined entities, which manage different sets of information in the application.

The Common application includes the Data Portal, in which you view the Data Model with sample data or real data if you are in a production application. The left pane presents a list of the available entities. You can select an entity, such as Accounts, Contacts, or Statements, to view the data.

Use the Data Portal to browse the Data Model and see how the data relationships work. The sample data is for a telecommunications company that offers mobile phone and cable internet services. For example, on the Accounts landing page, you can view the data for all accounts. The Common Data Model is based on the Accounts entity, which is associated with a business, a household, or an individual consumer.

For each account record, the Accounts page shows Name, Account ID, Account Type and Relationship Type – the fields that are displayed are a subset of the fields that comprise the Account data. When you click an account name, the Details tab shows all the fields associated with the account. For example, the Laura Smith account, shown in the following figure shows data such as the Account ID, Name, and account type -- information that is part of the Customer accounts entity.

The account also shows an Email list, Phone list, and Address list; this data is linked to the Accounts entity from the Contact entity.

Use the tabs to view related data, for example, the following figure shows Related contacts.

In this case, the related contacts are members of Laura Smith's family. In the Data Model, a contact and its related fields are part of the Contact entity. The other entities can refer to a contact as a separate entity. For example, the Account, Service account, and Location entities reference a contact.

You can view Related service accounts, as shown in the following figure:

The Laura Smith account shows that she subscribes to the Business Choice service. In the sample data, a service account represents types of telecom services. For example, Business Choice includes premium mobile and internet services. You can click Business Choice to view the fields for the service account. In the Data Model, the Service account entity contains the fields used to define the service and references both a contact and an account.

You add records to an entity by using the Create menu. For example, you can add an account. You can view the new account on the Accounts landing page.