Hello Albert, great that you reanimate the discussion.
Wed, 9 Oct 2013 19:15:29 +0200 Albert Cervera i Areny <[email protected]>: >I've just created a blueprint for it. Your comments will be very >welcomed. >[1] https://code.google.com/p/tryton/wiki/PartyRelationship IIUC the blueprint proposes structural relationships like memberships or roll-ups. IMHO the handling of structuring parties without sorting them them into persons and (legal/informal) organizations makes the later use of the information complicated (See [1] for the aged plannings). But more important for me is, relationships could be so much more than *just* a structural roll-up of people and organizations. Len Silverston, - the guy from whom we borrowed the conception of the actual party model,- proposes already a conception[2][3] for a relationship management which introduces *party roles* to relate parties in a relationship. His proposed design is not restricted to the management of *structural relationships* or just *customer relationships*. Len's model is able to handle the traditional customer relationships like (see table 1 for the data): "In a Customer-Relationship, Party ACME Company takes the role as a Customer of DEF firm an Internal Organization" but also to collect information about a competitor: "In a Customer-Relationship, Party Eric is a Customer of Party UVW an (external) Competitor" It can be used to describe hierarchical relationships like company roll-ups your blueprint also provides, "In a Organization-Rollup-Relationship, Party XYZ is a Subsidiary of Party ABC the Parent Organization" "In a Organization-Rollup-Relationship, Party DEF is a Subsidiary of Party ABC the Parent Organization" or handle information with different opinions "In Sales-Lead-Relationship, Party Thomas is a Hot-Lead of Party Victor an internal employee" "In Sales-Lead-Relationship, Party Thomas is a Cold-Lead of Party Jack an internal employee" "In a Sale-Chance-Relationship, Party Thomas is a 90%-Chance of Party Victor an internal employee" "In a Sale-Chance-Relationship, Party Thomas is a 10%-Chance of Party Jack an internal employee" The basic idea of Silverston's conception is to collect semantic information the company is interested in separated by relationship types. It is using the "roles" (and role types) the parties *take* or *play* in the relationship as the "relators". So for me, either the name 'Relationship' or 'Relation' is much too general for the structure-only approach of the blueprint, or the functionality misses all the needed parts to build real *semantic* relationships. Regards Udo Table 1: ============ ========== ========== =========== ============ PARTY RELATIONSHIP FROM FROM TO TO TYPE NAME PARTY ROLE PARTY ROLE ============ ========== ========== =========== ============ Customer ACME Customer DEF Internal Relationship Company firm organization ------------ ---------- ---------- ----------- ------------ Customer Eric Customer UVW Competitor Relationship, ------------ ---------- ---------- ----------- ------------ Organization XYZ Subsidiary ABC Parent Rollup firm company Organization ------------ ---------- ---------- ----------- ------------ Organization DEF Subsidiary ABC Parent Rollup company company Organization ------------ ---------- ---------- ----------- ------------ Sales-Lead Thomas Hot-Lead Victor internal employee ------------ ---------- ---------- ----------- ------------ Sales-Lead Thomas Cold-Lead Jack internal employee ------------ ---------- ---------- ----------- ------------ Organization Customer Division DEF Subsidiary Rollup Service firm Division ------------ ---------- ---------- ----------- ------------ Agent Sell- Sales DEF Internal Relationship Assist. agent firm organization Corp. ------------ ---------- ---------- ----------- ------------ Supplier Fantastic Supplier DEF Internal Relationship Supplies firm organization ------------ ---------- ---------- ----------- ------------ [1] https://codereview.appspot.com/2001042/ [2] Silverston, Len:"Data Model Resource Book Volume 1", 2001, Wiley, http://books.google.de/books?id=XkBPl4Ted40C [3] http://media.wiley.com/assets/281/22/v1diagram.jpg -- _____________________________ virtual things Preisler & Spallek GbR München - Aachen Windeckstr. 77 81375 München Tel: +49 (89) 710 481 55 Fax: +49 (89) 710 481 56 [email protected] http://www.virtual-things.biz
