Static and nonstatic operations

Lifecycle operations are either static or nonstatic. Static operations are applied to an entity or entity type. Nonstatic operations are applied to a specific instance of an entity.

Static operation

A static operation is an operation defined for an entity or an entity type that is not started on an instance of the entity. All input parameters of static operations are explicitly defined.

In static operations, the target of the operation is passed as input parameters or is resolved as part of the operation workflow. To ensure that the operation workflow completes successfully, we must pass the appropriate information about the target to the operation.

For example, when the add account operation is started, the account profile must be passed first to the add account operation. This profile information helps distinguish between the entity types (Account and Person) and the operations for entities and entity types. The target of the operation does not have to be an entity that ISIM manages, because the target of the operation is not used to resolve operation definitions.

If we add an existing operation to a workflow, map the relevant data items to all of the input parameters of the new operation. Mapping consists of matching relevant data items to input parameters between two or more operations. For example, we might change the workflow for a modify Person operation. The change transfers a user when changes are made to their bu attribute. We create a relevant data item to hold the new container of the user. We then map this data item to the input of an extension workflow node of the transfer Person operation. The following list shows the static operations:

• add (Account, Person)
• modify (Account)
• selfRegister (Person)

Nonstatic operation

A nonstatic operation is an operation defined for an entity or entity type that must be started on a specific instance of an entity currently managed by ISIM to ensure that the query and the operation workflow succeed.

The target of a nonstatic operation is passed into the operation as entity context information. The entity (Account or Person) that the workflow applies to is passed implicitly to the workflow. The entity is always mapped to a relevant data named Entity rather than an input parameter. The target of the operation, the Entity object, must exist in ISIM. An entity (Account, Person, Business Partner Person) is added to IBM Security Identity Manager with the appropriate add operation..

All nonstatic operations have a relevant data item with an ID of Entity, and this relevant data item represents the target of the operation. Similar to all other relevant data, this relevant data item can be used to provide input parameters to activities. The relevant data item can be accessed with JavaScript scripting to support additional customization of the operation workflow. The following list shows the nonstatic operations:

• delete (Account, Person)
• modify (Person)
• suspend (Account, Person)
• restore (Account, Person)
• transfer (Person)
• changePassword (Account)

Parent topic: Operation workflows