Document association

[gerardpeters]

Type of request

• [X] I'd like to add something to the OTM 5 spec
• [ ] I'd like to change something in the OTM 5 spec

Is your feature request related to a problem? I'm not entirely sure of this is a change, a bug or that it's unclear how to use the specs. I'm implementing the documents endpoints but I'm not sure how to add a document to an existing consignment. For what I see now there are some options:

• Add the consignment as a reference in the owner;
• Add the document and then with a AssociationCreatedEvent associate the document with the consignment. In this case I'm missing the Document as EntityType I think. The other problem I have here, is that the system doesn't allow me to add a document without a reference to an existing Consignment/Trip;
• Add the consignment UUID to the external attributes.

What is your take on this?

[bmeesters]

Add the document and then with a AssociationCreatedEvent associate the document with the consignment.

This is indeed the envisioned workflow for adding connections between entities after both have been created.

In this case I'm missing the Document as EntityType I think.

You are right, this has been an oversight. Since this is a bug I will fix this soon, I expect to be able to change it next week.

The other problem I have here, is that the system doesn't allow me to add a document without a reference to an existing Consignment/Trip;

I don't understand what you mean by this. I assume you want to add Documents to an existing Consignment right? So then you can have a reference to an existing Consignment right when you make the AssociationCreatedEvent?

Alternatively we could also look into adding more associations to Documents if something like that is common.

[gerardpeters]

The other problem I have here, is that the system doesn't allow me to add a document without a reference to an existing Consignment/Trip

When inserting a document into our system, I directly need the relation with another entity (consignment/trip). Because the processing of documents and events are happening asynchronous I do not have the guarantee that the document is already created in the system before the associationevent is received. And building somekind of queing or retry is to much of a hassle.

So, of you can add more associations that would be helpfull but in the meantime I'll use the ExternalAttributes to solve the problem.

[bmeesters]

I fixed the problem with document not being present as entity type. I think the remaining part of this change request is to add more associations to document right? Or do you not wish for that anymore? If so, I'll update the title of this change request to reflect the purpose.

[gerardpeters]

For my specific case it is not needed anymore, I'm using the external attributes for now. Don't know if other will benefit from extending the model but if so I'll change it to the appropriate association if this gets a place in the model.

[bmeesters]

Since you do not need it anymore and since there has been no further demand for this I will close this change request