Statuses

Every object type, property, link type, action, or interface in the Ontology has a status that indicates developmental state. An ontological resource's status can be either active, experimental, deprecated, or example. Status metadata helps Ontology-editing users to know what resources are being actively relied on by user applications. These statuses are viewable in Object Explorer, Object Views, and Workshop to provide more information about which object types are intended for use in user applications.

The status can take on one of four values:

• Active: Indicates that the resource is actively in use in user-facing applications and major breaking changes will not be made in the Ontology Manager.
• Experimental: Indicates that the resource is still under development. Changes may be made that make the experimental item unavailable in user facing applications.
• Deprecated: Indicates that the resource will soon be deleted. The deprecated item should not be relied on in user facing applications.
  • A deprecated resource also has metadata that includes:
    • A description for why it is being deprecated;
    • A deadline for when it is expected to be deleted from the system; and
    • The resource that is meant to replace the one that is deprecated.
• Example: Indicates that the resource has been installed as an example. Example resources are notional and are only suitable for trainings or early-stage, exploratory use. Examples are not intended for use in production workflows.

Operations that are not allowed

Given that applications rely on ontological resources, there are several potentially destructive operations that are not allowed when a resource has the status active:

• It cannot be deleted. A resource’s status must be experimental or deprecated before it can be deleted.
• The primary key of an active object type cannot be changed. Changing a primary key is only possible for object types marked as experimental.
• The API name of an active resource cannot be changed. Changing an API name is only possible for those marked as experimental.

A resource with status deprecated cannot be made experimental, active, or example again by using the status picker. Instead, you will need to restore the Ontology resource to a version with the desired status using the Edits History dialog.

Edit a status

By default, any new ontological resource will be given the experimental status. To change the status:

1. Select the dropdown next to the current status.
2. Select the new status.

When changing a resource to the deprecated status, you will be prompted to:

• Fill out a description for why it is being deprecated,
• Input a deadline for when you expect it to be deleted from the system, and
• Optionally, select a resource that is meant to replace the one you are deprecating.

These statuses are viewable in Object Explorer, Object Views, and Workshop to provide more information about which object types are intended for use in user applications.

The Ontology Manager ensures status consistency between an object type and its related properties or link types. For example, if an object type is changed from active to experimental, all of its properties will be marked experimental as well.

The table below indicates available statuses for a link type between object types of different statuses. In general:

• If at least one object type in a link type is changed to experimental, the link type will automatically be changed to experimental.
• If at least one object type in a link type is changed to example, the link type will automatically be changed to example.
• If at least one object type in a link type is changed to deprecated, the link type will automatically be changed to deprecated.

The same requirements are true of foreign keys of a link type. The application will change the status of a link type when changing a property:

• If a foreign key property is changed to experimental, its link type will be changed to experimental.
• If a foreign key property is changed to example, its link type will be changed to example.
• If a foreign key property is changed to deprecated, its link type will be changed to deprecated.

The application changes statuses in order to prevent invalid states. If a foreign key property is experimental and still being developed, its link type shouldn't be marked active and be relied on in production. In contrast, when marking a property active, the application won't change a link type referencing the property as its foreign key to active, as it is valid for a foreign key property to be in production, while the link type and its backing datasource are still in development.

Bulk edit statuses

Properties

When changing an object type from experimental to active, there is the option to also apply the active status to all properties on the object type:

When you change an object type to example, all of its properties will automatically become example also.

Statuses across properties of an object type can also be edited in bulk from the Properties page of the object type. Read more about bulk editing properties.

Object types

Statuses across object types can also be edited in bulk from the home page object view page by selecting the checkboxes of the object types to edit and selecting the Edit status button at the top right of the table.

Troubleshooting

Conflicts between property status and link type status

If you receive the error OntologyMetadata:ConflictBetweenLinkTypeStatusAndPropertyTypeStatus, there is a conflict between the status on a link type and the status on a property. For example, if a foreign key is deprecated, link types that reference that foreign key should also be deprecated.

Conflicts between object type status and link type status

If you receive the error OntologyMetadata:ConflictBetweenLinkTypeStatusAndObjectTypeStatus, there is a conflict between the status on a link type and the status of one of its associated object types. This can happen when there is an invalid object type-link type case according to the table above. For example, an experimental object type cannot have an active link type.