Create an interface

Follow the steps below to create a new interface in Ontology Manager.

  1. First, verify you are working within your Ontology of choice by checking the Ontologies dropdown menu located at the top of the left side panel.

  2. Select Interfaces under the Resources section of the same left panel. From the Interfaces page, select New interface from the top right corner of the screen.

Alternately, you can select the New dropdown menu from the top right corner of the Ontology Manager navigation bar and select Interface.

  1. Input the display name and API name for your interface. You can also optionally provide a description of the interface and select an appropriate icon.
Interface metadata creation
  1. Select the shared properties for the interface.
Interface shared property selection

If a shared property required for the interface does not exist, you must create it.

  1. Choose the optionality of each shared property in the interface.
Interface shared property optionality selection.

For required shared properties, any object type that implements the interface must have the shared property or provide a mapping from a local property to the interface shared property. For optional shared properties, mapping may be skipped during implementation. Optional shared properties can be useful when building marketplace packages to iterate on your interface without introducing difficult-to-resolve upgrade blockers.

  1. Select Save in the upper right corner to make the change to your Ontology.

If you want this interface to link to another interface or object type, you can optionally add any interface link types to the interface.

Add a link type constraint
  1. Select Link type constraints in the left side panel.
  2. Then, select Create new link type constraint in the top right corner.
Create a link type constraint

If an interface link type is required for your modeling use case, any object type that implements the interface must add a new or existing link type that satisfies the interface link type constraints.