SAIF.Business.Menu architecture

SAIF.Business.Menu is a mid-tier SAIF BOF business layer that models the application's navigation menu and computes which menu items are authorized for display through a database-table-driven security-group model. It performs no HTTP, UI, or session handling; callers supply IDataPortalInfo, and the library returns persisted business objects or authorized-menu projections.

Responsibilities

• Define and persist application codes, menu categories, menu pages, and menu items.
• Persist the item-to-group and user-to-group rows that drive authorization.
• Build the authorized menu as the union of group-authorized items, public items, and active favorites.
• Cascade menu-item validation and save behavior to the child security-group collection.

Component boundaries

• Reference data: clsApplicationCode and clsMenuCategoryCode.
• Menu structure: clsMenuPage and clsMenuItem.
• Authorization data: clsMenuSecurity and clsMenuSecurityUser.
• Authorized-menu projection: clsMenuAuthorizedItemCollection.
• Favorites: clsMenuFavorite.
• Utility support: mdlUtilities.AddToList.

Interaction model

• Callers request GetMenuAuthorizedItems or GetAllMenuAuthorizedItems.
• The data-portal lifecycle selects the appropriate Oracle SQL.
• The returned rowset is materialized into clsMenuAuthorizedItem objects.
• Callers use Favorites, ApplicationItems, AppItemsByCategory, and SecuredAppItems without issuing new authorization SQL.
• Administrative callers use the entity and collection classes directly to maintain lookup, page, item, favorite, and membership rows.

Architecture diagram

The following diagram shows the high-level component interactions within the library.

flowchart TD
    Caller[Calling layer] --> Auth[clsMenuAuthorizedItemCollection]
    Auth --> DB[(Oracle menu tables)]
    Auth --> Views[In-memory filtered views]
    Admin[Administrative caller] --> Item[clsMenuItem]
    Item --> Sec[clsMenuSecurityCollection]
    Sec --> DB
    Admin --> Ref[Lookup and page classes]
    Ref --> DB

Sequence diagram

The following diagram shows the primary request/response sequence for building a user's authorized menu.

sequenceDiagram
    participant Caller
    participant Menu as clsMenuAuthorizedItemCollection
    participant Portal as IDataPortalInfo
    participant Oracle as Oracle
    Caller->>Menu: GetMenuAuthorizedItems(dataPortal, menuUser)
    Menu->>Portal: BeforeRetrieve
    Portal->>Oracle: Execute authorized-menu SQL
    Oracle-->>Portal: Result rows
    Portal-->>Menu: AfterRetrieve loads rows
    Menu-->>Caller: Authorized menu collection

Design constraints

• Authorization is enforced by Oracle SQL over MENU_SECURITY and MENU_SECURITY_USER, not by AD-resource lookups.
• Items with no MENU_SECURITY row are public by default through BR-MENU-002.
• Group matching is case-insensitive through BR-MENU-003.
• Favorites participate in menu composition through BR-MENU-004.
• Menu-item validation and dirty tracking cascade to child security groups through BR-MENU-005.
• The library targets Oracle-only SQL syntax (NEXTVAL, SYSDATE, NVL, :ParamName).

Related documentation

• Index
• Overview
• Dependencies
• Operations and processes
• Business rules
• Security and authorization
• Database tables
• SQL catalog
• API reference

Sources

• SAIF.Business.Menu\clsApplicationCode.vb
• SAIF.Business.Menu\clsMenuAuthorizedItemCollection.vb
• SAIF.Business.Menu\clsMenuFavorite.vb
• SAIF.Business.Menu\clsMenuItem.vb
• SAIF.Business.Menu\clsMenuPage.vb
• SAIF.Business.Menu\clsMenuSecurity.vb
• SAIF.Business.Menu\clsMenuSecurityUser.vb
• SAIF.Business.Menu\mdlUtilities.vb
• SAIF.Business.Menu\\SAIF.Business.Menu.vbproj