Custom tables overview

Custom sub-entities provide the SDK consumer the ability to add many tables to an Act! database. Like Notes and Histories which are sub-entities in Act!, you can create your own custom sub-entities that hang off Contacts, Groups, or Companies.

The entry point into the custom sub-entities feature is the CustomEntityManager which can be accessed as a property off the ActFramework object using the property CustomEntities. This manager provides the ability to create new custom sub-entities, update custom sub-entities and retrieve information about what custom sub-entities exist in the database.

The CustomEntityManager object also provides the ability to get typed CustomSubEntityManager objects back for a particular custom sub-entity. The custom sub-entities feature was designed to allow the SDK consumer to control what type of object is returned from the database. By deriving from CustomSubEntity you can have your own type returned from the CustomSubEntityManager for custom sub-entity records.

CustomEntityFieldDescriptors and CustomEntityLists can be retrieved from the CustomSubEntityManager. The CustomSubEntityManager is retrieved for a particular custom sub-entity so the fields and lists returned will always be for that custom sub-entity. For example, if you had an Accounts custom sub-entity, the CustomSubEntityManager would only retrieve fields for Accounts and would return lists of Accounts data.

How do I...?

Create a custom sub-entity

Retrieve a custom sub-entity

Edit a custom sub-entity

Delete a custom sub-entity

Add a custom sub-entity row

Delete a custom sub-entity row

Retrieve a custom sub-entity row

Edit a custom sub-entity row

Bind data with a custom sub-entity