An ontology is the template for all the actors in your contracts. Define what information should be collected when the ontology is used in a case, and what roles the ontology can have. The configuration applies to all instances of the ontology.
​
Options
Option
Description
Key
Give the ontology a key, which is used in RuLa, to refer to this ontology.
The key must be written in PascalCase: capitalize each word. If there is more than one word, start each with a capital letter. Omit spaces. Examples: ShipAtSea, HouseOfParliament, Person.
Name
Give the ontology a name in English, for example 'Person', 'Entity', or 'Contract'.
Icon
Choose an icon for the ontology which will appear in the navigation bar on the left side of the Case Manager screen.
Super Ontology
Specify which ontology this ontology should inherit information from. This "parent" ontology is called the "Super Ontology". With this concept you can create hierarchies of ontologies, inheriting information as you go down the chain.
Example: Both "Natural Person" and "Legal Person" inherit from "Base Person". Base person defines a "name", which now both Natural and Legal Person also have.
Show in Navigation
Yes: the ontology will be visible as an icon in the navigation bar on the left side of a user's screen. Clicking the icon gives the user an overview of all the instances of that ontology.
No: the ontology is not displayed in the navigation bar.
Managed instances
Yes: instances of this ontology are automatically managed by the system. A user will not be able to create an instance of the ontology, or delete one.
Example: in a client onboarding case, it could make sense to have 'Contract' as a managed instance, so that users can’t remove the contract instance, because it doesn’t make sense to have zero contracts.
No: the user can add and delete instances of the ontology. Example: user can add as many Signatories as desired.
Role
Set which roles the ontology can have, for example 'AccountHolder' or 'PowerOfAttorney'.
Information
An overview of the information fields that describe the ontology. To add information, click 'Create Information' and follow the steps described here.
References
No options here, just an overview of all locations in the application where the ontology is referenced. For example, in a document or a process rule.
Display Name
The display name is calculated by the system, by combining values for selected information in the specified order.
Example: the display name for Person can be first_name + last_name.
A step-by-step guide on how to create an ontology can be found here.
The order in which Ontologies appear in a case, is determined by the order they have in the configuration. Find details on how to change this order here.
Interactions
An ontology interacts with:
​Instance: each time an ontology is selected at the start of a new process, an instance of that ontology is created, that will feature in this specific case.
​Role: by defining what roles an ontology can take up.
​Tabs: Tabs can show all ontologies or only selected ones. In the latter case, ontology should be added to the tab.