Improving Clarity's Ticketing App with Root Objects

Complex object data models often include multiple related objects that need to share configurations, permissions, and lifecycle behaviors. For example, in Clarity's ticketing app, they plan to use three separate objects for tickets, attachments, and comments. This structure enables users to add multiple attachments and comments to a single ticket. While managing these separate objects manually would create overhead, Clarity can streamline this process by configuring root relationships.

In these exercises, you'll implement this data model for Clarity's ticketing app.

Exercise: Enabling the Feature Flag

Before you can use this feature, you must enable the Root Object Definitions (LPD-34594) feature flag for your instance.

1. Open the Global Menu (), go to the Control Panel tab, and click Instance Settings.

2. Click Feature Flags.

3. In the Release tab, search for LPD-34594 and enable it.

   

With this feature flag enabled, you can start using the root object feature.

Exercise: Creating the Ticket Attachment Object

By creating a separate object definition for attachments, Clarity can capture metadata about each file (e.g., title, description) and relate as many attachments to a ticket as needed. Here you'll create and publish the Ticket Attachment object as the Clarity Admin user.

1. Open the Global Menu (), go to the Control Panel tab, and click Objects.

2. Go to the Ticketing folder.

3. Click View in Model Builder.

4. Click Create New Object, enter these details, and click Save:

   Field	Value
   Label	Ticket Attachment
   Plural Label	Ticket Attachments
   Object Name	TicketAttachment

5. Click Actions () for the new object and select Edit ERC.

6. Enter TICKET_ATTACHMENT and click Save.

7. Click Add Field or Relationship and select Add Field.

8. Enter these values and click Save.

   Field	Value
   Label	Title
   Field Name	title
   Type	Text
   Enable Entry Translation	No
   Mandatory	Yes
   Accept Unique Values Only	No

9. Repeat the above step to add these fields:

   Field	Value
   Label	Description
   Field Name	description
   Type	Text
   Enable Entry Translation	No
   Mandatory	No
   Accept Unique Values Only	No

    

   Field	Value
   Label	File
   Field Name	file
   Type	Attachment
   Request Files	Upload Directly from the User’s Computer
   Show Files in Documents and Media	No
   Mandatory	Yes

10. Click Publish, check Ticket Attachment, and click Publish Objects to confirm.

11. Confirm the object is published successfully and click Close.

After creating the object definition, you can relate it to the Ticket object and enable inheritance.

Exercise: Relating the Ticketing Objects

When you define one-to-many relationships, you can enable inheritance, designating the parent object as the root for the child object. Here you’ll create a one-to-many relationship between the Ticket and Ticket Attachment objects and enable inheritance as the Clarity Admin user.

1. In the Object Model Builder, drag a line from the Ticket object to the Ticket Attachment object to create a relationship.

2. Enter these details:

   Field	Value
   Label	Ticket to Attachments
   Name	ticketToAttachments
   Type	One to Many
   One Record Of	Ticket
   Many Records Of	Ticket Attachments
   Enable Inheritance	Yes

    

   

3. Click Save.

You've designated Ticket as the root object for Ticket Attachment. For a complete list of what this entails, see Using Object Inheritance.

Exercise: Creating the Ticket Comment Object

A single object definition can have multiple parents, even though each individual entry belongs to only one parent at a time. Because of this, Clarity can create a single Ticket Comment object and relate it to both the Ticket and Ticket Attachment objects as a child. Here you’ll set up this object and its relationships as the Clarity Admin user.

1. Open the Global Menu (), go to the Control Panel tab, and click Objects.

2. Go to the Ticketing folder.

3. Click View in Model Builder.

4. Click Create New Object, enter these values, and click Save:
    

   Field	Value
   Label	Ticket Comment
   Plural Label	Ticket Comments
   Object Name	TicketComment

5. Click Actions () for the new object and select Edit ERC.

6. Enter TICKET_COMMENT and click Save.

7. Click Add Field or Relationship and select Add Field.

8. Enter these values and click Save.
    

   Field	Value
   Label	CommentText
   Field Name	commentText
   Type	Text
   Enable Entry Translation	No
   Mandatory	Yes
   Accept Unique Values Only	No

9. Click Publish, check Ticket Comment, and click Publish Objects to confirm.

10. In the Object Model Builder, drag a line from the Ticket object to the Ticket Comment object to create a relationship.

11. Enter these values and click Save:
     

    Field	Value
    Label	Ticket to Comments
    Name	ticketToComments
    Type	One to Many
    One Record Of	Ticket
    Many Records Of	Ticket Comments
    Enable Inheritance	Yes

12. Drag a line from the Ticket Attachment object to the Ticket Comment object to create a second relationship.

13. Enter these values and click Save:
     

    Field	Value
    Label	Ticket Attachment to Comments
    Name	ticketAttachmentToComments
    Type	One to Many
    One Record Of	Ticket Attachment
    Many Records Of	Ticket Comments
    Enable Inheritance	Yes

14. Verify both relationships appear with Ticket Comment shown as a child of both Ticket and Ticket Attachment.
    
     

Great! You've configured Ticket Comment as a child with two root objects. Each individual comment entry will inherit from either Ticket or Ticket Attachment based on its related entry.

Conclusion

A well-designed inheritance model centralizes access control and reduces structural duplication across related entities. Using object inheritance, you can build scalable data models that streamline object management across every entity within your application.

Next, you’ll review what you’ve learned before moving on to the next module.