Panel Designer lets you create new data sources on the fly, access any user-defined tables, and make full use of the Activity table. It can also display your existing business objects, if they meet these requirements and configuration settings:
Referencing existing business objects
Panel Designer can display existing business objects that have a ContactKey or ID property. When ContactKey or ID is the primary key, Panel Designer treats it as a single-instance table; otherwise, it assumes it to be multi-instance.
Panel Designer cannot display your business objects until you add them to the ObjectMetaData table. While attached to the iMIS database in SQL Server Management Studio, run this SQL statement:
INSERT INTO [dbo].[ObjectMetaData] (ObjectName, RelatedToEntity, IsUserDefined, IsMultiInstance)
VALUES ('MyObject', 'Party', 0, 0)
□ Replace MyObject with the name of the business object, table, or view that is related to Party.
□ Change the last value to 1 if it is multi-instance.
Settings for Business Object Designer (BOD)
1. In Business Object Designer, edit your object and open the BOD Properties - Display tab.
2. To make a property available to your panels, enable its Available to UI? option.
Tip: To see your BOD changes immediately, restart IIS.
3. To enable multiple selection for a property, select Check box(es) under Display Control so that you can enable the Allow multiple selection? option.
4. To enable HTML editing, select HTML Editor under Display Control. Be sure to use the property in a single-column panel to provide the control adequate width.
Troubleshooting
If you get an error when creating a new data instance at runtime (either single- or multi-instance), check that your business object does not have a 'Read-only' constraint set on the ContactKey or ID property's Definition tab.