Terms and Concepts

This section describes the following three Demand Management terms.

For additional terms and concepts, refer to Demand Management User Guide.

Field Token

The Demand Management Web services identifies request fields with field tokens. A field token is a string with the following components and attributes:

  • Alphanumeric characters

  • Underscores (_)

  • Always upper case

  • Unique among all fields of the request type and request header type

When field tokens are used in a Web service operation, a prefix is required to indicate the source or type of the field. Valid prefixes include the following:

Prefix

Description

Example

REQ

Indicates the field is from a request header type.

REQ.DESCRIPTION

REQD

Indicates the field is from a request type.

REQD.TABLE_TOKEN

UD

Indicates the field is a user data field.

UD.CUST_FIELD

T

Indicates the field is a column of a table component field.

T. TABLE_TOKEN. COLUMN_TOKEN

Note: In some cases, you will see the prefixes "VP" or "P." For example, REQD.VP.PLATFORM. These are legacy prefixes that were designed to differentiate the display value (with the prefix VP) and the internal code value (with the prefix P). The current Web service implementation will always use the display value instead. As a result, legacy prefixes are ignored.

Remote Reference

A remote reference refers to an item that exists on a remote system, which can be a PPM Server or another type of server.

Remote reference items appear in the Reference section of a request. A remote reference is only available for the Web service interface and cannot be created through the PPM standard interface. The purpose of the remote reference is to link a request or an item on an external system to a request in the current PPM system.

The following example illustrates a remote reference. The hyperlink attached to the name column is pointing to the remote system URL.

URL Reference

A URL reference refers to another type of item in the References section of a request. You can also create a URL reference by using the PPM standard interface.

The following example illustrates a URL reference. The hyperlink attached to the name column is pointing to the referred URL.

When you use the getRequests operation to obtain the content of a request, references of any type are converted to URL references. For more information, see the operation getRequests.

Note: For more information about general Demand Management terms and concepts, see the Demand Management User Guide.