A business object is a set of related data, such as the data that makes up a sales order or a customer record. In the source application, the data that makes up a business object usually resides in a set of related tables, which come from the database(s) defined in the source application. This set of tables may be maintained in a single menu program. In QAD Enterprise Applications and most other source applications, menu programs are the closest representation of a business object.

The term business object is used to represent both the definition of a business object, and an instance of that definition.

Business objects are specific to application type. They are uniquely identified by a combination of application type and business object name. This is because they depend on database metaschema.

Business objects can be mapped to a Progress ProDataSet internally, and are defined using the QXO UI.

Because not all subscribers need an entire business object, you can tailor which components of a business object to include for a subscriber by defining a profile. Profiles are described later in this chapter.