In Constellation, establishing an appropriate data model is a critical initial step in application development. Pega Common Application offers prebuilt data classes and reusable patterns as a foundation for your application's data model.

Class Division

Typically, the classes are divided logically as below –

• Entity –
  • A data object with a defined structure, such as Customer, Account, or Asset.
  • Entities are implemented as concrete classes and may be accessed through an API or local saves/RDs  if necessary.
  • Entities can include general types like Customer or more specialized ones such as Claim for the Insurance Domain.

• Data –
  • These objects are abstract and often embedded within entities. For example, an Address may be included as a field in the Customer Entity.
  • Note: By default, these classes are abstract, but they can be made concrete if there is a need to store them separately in a table.

• Reference –
  • These classes are used for picklist data, such as country lists, currencies, or contact types and stored as concrete by default.

• Relation –
  • These classes define concrete relationships between entities, making it easy to retrieve and map related data. For example, you can quickly show a customer's associated accounts.

Data Pages

Apart from this each entity has

• 2 Data Pages each: one for page structure, one for list structure.
• Both use DX API to fetch the records, which can be easily replaced with an integration.

• Each Data Page also defines multiple sources based on when rules.

It’s important to note that the page structure Data Page – (for example D_Product) is savable and helps with CRUD operations.

This consistency is maintained across the entities and serves as a template for the development team.

Note: These "when" conditions can assist in gradually transitioning from sample data to application-specific integration for loading data into these classes.

Associated Views Each Entity also has some prebuilt views which can be used when adding your data reference fields in the case workflow.

The provided data classes, along with pre-configured Data Pages, views, and sample datasets, allow developers to directly start configuring application workflows and concentrate on core business logic. Although extending the data model will be necessary, these resources significantly expedite the application development process.

Also, any tweaks to the sample data could be easily done via the pre-built Data Portal and landing pages.

Data Dictionary and ERD Diagram – Key Asset

Pega Common Application documentation includes an ERD diagram and Data Dictionary for each base entity as well as industry-specific data entities.

These resources enable development teams to:

1. Understand the data model and relationships between entities and serve as reference technical document.
2. Reference detailed schema information when designing integrations, facilitating the creation of API schemas without requiring manual drafting of ERDs.

The ERD document serves as an initial reference, to which we can subsequently add the additional fields which we added as part of our development.

The following is an excerpt from the foundational ERD diagram.

You can find the detailed Data dictionaries and ERDs  in multiple formats in this documentation link - https://docs.pega.com/bundle/common-data-model/page/common-data-model/integration/use-cases.html

Summary

To summarize, the Pega Common Application functions as a starter kit for Constellation applications when appropriate to use, offering pre-configured data objects and corresponding rules to facilitate rapid workflow configuration.

Additional References

• https://docs.pega.com/bundle/common-data-model/page/common-data-model/integration/cdm-overview.html
• https://academy.pega.com/topic/common-data-model/v1
• https://docs.pega.com/bundle/common-data-model/page/common-data-model/implementation/add-entity-data-page.html
• https://docs.pega.com/bundle/common-data-model/page/common-data-model/integration/use-cases.html

Pega Common Application Series

Enjoyed this article? This is part of our Pega Common Application series.