Why Was the Party Model Needed?

When I began working with the Party Model in 2012, Len Silverston was the first authority I turned to.

Silverston did not necessarily invent every underlying concept. Similar modeling ideas existed before his work. His important contribution was bringing those ideas together, developing them into a practical enterprise pattern, and explaining the pattern so data modelers could apply it consistently.

What Problem Was He Trying to Solve?

Organizations commonly create separate records for:

• Customer
• Employee
• Supplier
• Contractor
• Partner
• Volunteer

That seems reasonable because those are the terms the business uses. However, the same person or organization can appear in several of these categories.

A person might be both an employee and a customer. A consultant might operate through a company that is both a supplier and a business partner.

If every role is modeled separately, the enterprise may create multiple records for the same real-world person or organization.

That leads to duplicate names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, and identifiers.

It also makes it difficult to determine whether several records represent different parties or the same party performing different roles.

The Party Model Begins with a Different Question

Instead of asking, “Is this a customer, employee, or supplier?” it first asks:

“Who is this person or organization?”

Once identity is established, the model can record the roles that the party performs.

That separation between identity and role is the central idea behind the Party Model.

Next in This Series

Identity and Role Are Different Questions