Data Views, Data Services and Data Providers

Screens read data through a chain of named artifacts instead of raw tables or hand-written endpoints:

Block  ->  Data Service  ->  Data Provider  (a REST endpoint or connector)
                         ->  Entity         (an entity created in the Entity Designer)
                         ->  Data View      (a multi-table SQL join)  ->  database tables

The Explorer nodes under Workspace > Data are Data Views, Data Services and Data Providers. Entities are documented in Entities and Relationships. For how a page binds to a service see Page data flow.

Artifact	What it is	Use it for
Data Provider	A named pointer to a REST base path (or another transport).	The data source of a grid, and record reads and writes.
Data View	A read-only, declared SQL join over physical tables.	Multi-table reads, lookups, grouped figures.
Data Service	A named, parameterised operation backed by a provider, an entity or a view.	KPI numbers, search-as-you-type, dashboards.

All three are versioned artifacts with a draft and publish lifecycle. A consumer always refers to a name, never to a path.

Data Providers

Where to find it

Workspace > Data > Data Providers. Opening or creating one opens the Provider Designer, a single properties form.

Fields

Field	Description
Type	rest, mock, graphql, offline, ai, connector. Only rest and mock are editable and resolvable today. Selecting another kind is stored, but resolving it at run time fails until an implementation exists.
Connection	self, the platform's own API. It is the only connection resolved today.
Base path	For example /api/v1/plugins/hcm-employee/employees. The standard operations are derived from this one path.
Supported operations	search, get, create, update, patch, delete (and the other standard operations). Untick those the endpoint does not support.

Behaviour

A grid takes its provider from the page's data source. A page that needs one record uses a providerCall action. If a grid shows no rows, check that the page's data source name, the provider name and the base path line up; see My grid shows 0 rows.

API and CLI

/api/v1/authoring/providers. erp artifact ... --type providers. Schema: Reference: provider definition.

Data Views

Where to find it

Workspace > Data > Data Views. The Data View Designer is a flat form with no canvas.

Key concepts

A data view is a real SQL join, executed in one query. Every table and column is a plain physical identifier, such as employee.department_id, not an Entity Designer field name. Tables created by the Entity Designer are physical tables too, so a view can join them as well as tables a plugin owns. The pickers suggest tables and columns but accept an unlisted name. A data view is not called directly: it is reached only through a Data Service whose source is a Data View.

Sections

Section	Fields
Source	Table (for example employee), Alias, Exclude soft-deleted.
Joins	Per join: Table, Alias, type LEFT or INNER, one or more ON pairs (Left ref and Right ref, each alias.column), Excl. deleted.
Fields	The output columns: a column alias.column and an Output name.
Calculated fields	An Output name and an expression built from: field, literal, concat, coalesce, add, sub, mul, div.
Filter	A predicate built from and and or groups and comparisons of alias.column with a literal value.
Group by	Group by fields (alias.column).
Aggregations	Column (alias.column), Function SUM, AVG, COUNT, MIN, MAX, Output name.
Sort	alias.column and Descending.
Paging	Default page size and Max page size. The executor never returns more than the maximum.
Permission key	Recorded for future use. It is not enforced yet.

Date truncation is available for group by on a date column: a group-by reference can be declared to be truncated to a unit, and the same truncation is applied to the select and the grouping.

Behaviour

• A filter value is typed from the column. A text column compared with a value that looks numeric is compared as text.
• The schema pickers use GET /api/v1/authoring/data-views/schema/tables and .../tables/{table}/columns.
• Because a view is plain SQL over physical tables, record-level security rules do not apply to it unless the consuming service adds them. Check access when you expose a view.

API and CLI

/api/v1/authoring/data-views. erp artifact ... --type data-views. Schema: Reference: data view definition.

Data Services

Where to find it

Workspace > Data > Data Services. The Data Service Designer is a flat form.

Fields

Field	Description
Operation	get, count, search or composite.
Source	Data Provider (choose a published provider), Entity (only entities created in the Entity Designer are queryable here, not a plugin's own tables), or Data View (a published view).
Filters	Rows of Field, Operator (eq, neq, gt, gte, lt, lte, contains) and Value. The value is a literal, or ${param.<name>} to bind a declared parameter. For a data view the field is alias.column.
Parameters	Name and Type (string, number, boolean). Callers supply them at run time.
Steps (composite only)	Each step: As (the key in the combined response), Data Service (the service it runs), and named input values. A value is a literal, ${param.x}, or ${step.<as>.<field>} from an earlier step only.

Operations

Operation	Result
get	One record.
count	A count of matching records.
search	A page of matching records.
composite	Several other Data Services run in sequence and combined into one response. Each step is a separate request inside the platform, so for a single multi-table read prefer a Data View.

Run a service

POST /api/v1/data-services/{name}/execute with the parameters. The call uses the caller's tenant and permissions.

API and CLI

/api/v1/authoring/data-services. erp artifact ... --type data-services. Schema: Reference: data service definition.

Related

Entities and Relationships, Page data flow, Add a data provider, data view, or data service, Wire a page's data.