The connector is a meta-data-driven connector. This means that the meta-data in the business object drives the behavior of the connector. Meta-data is data about the application that is stored in a business object and that assists the connector to interact with an application. A meta-data-driven connector handles each business object that it supports based on meta-data encoded in the business object definition rather than on instructions hard-coded in the connector.
The connector is meta-data driven using the Infranet PIN_FIELDNAME at the attribute level and the opcode value at the verb level. Because the connector is meta-data driven, it can handle new or modified business objects without requiring modifications to the connector code. However, the connector makes assumptions about the following aspects of its business objects:
Therefore, when you create or modify a business object for Portal Infranet, your modifications must conform to the rules the connector is designed to follow, or the connector will not be able to process new or modified business objects correctly. The following sections provide information on implementing business objects for Portal.