Business objects – initialise and clean up

A business object includes two compulsory actions called initialise and cleanup. They cannot be deleted or renamed, and no other action can share their name(s).

It is unlikely that you will need to make use of the initialise and cleanup pages, since most things can be

Initialise

The initialise page is called automatically when the business object is created. It may be useful for performing maintenance operations before the business object is used.

The page must be valid (in the sense that any other page must be valid) in order that it can be run. In particular, every possible flow path from the start stage must meet an end stage. If the init page fails to run, then the business object will not be loaded and the process using the object will fail.

Clean up

The cleanup page is called automatically when the business object's parent process ends. A process ends when it is run to completion, after it encounters an error and fails, or after it is stopped by a user from Control Room.

It is intended primarily for "close-down" operations of resources that share the same lifetime as the business object. It is a means of guaranteeing that certain operations will be performed when the parent process stops, regardless of whether or not the parent process encounters an error.

The page must be valid (in the sense that any other page must be valid) in order that it can be run. In particular, every possible flow path from the start stage must meet an end stage.