I have an XMA that is failing to create dependent entities in the right order. It's trying to create sub-regions before the region it's associated with, which fails on the target system. I'm sure I saw a way of defining depedencies somewhere in FIM, but can't find it now. Anyone know if I imagined it?

Okay, I found it, in the synchronization rules. Though when I assert a dependencies on another sync rule, I get the following error message: "This Synchronization Rule cannot contain initial flows: To create an initial flow, please enable object creation for this Synchronization Rule and remove any dependency on another Synchronization Rule". So you can't have initial flow attributes AND a dependency? Why not?

Isn't this just chicken-and-egg? It doesn't make sense to create a dependency on something that doesn't exist yet. It isn't often we get good error messages but I think this one is pretty not that bad.CraigMartin Edgile, Inc. http://identitytrench.com

I've had enough of this for one day, I thought I understood this but clearly I don't. I've had enough of FIM for one week. This is doing my head in. All I want is to create some entities in an external system in the correct order. Thank you for your reply Craig, but I don't understand it.

Sorry about that, I recognized you were asking some detailed XMA questions so assumed you were further along in your FIM ramp. I suggest we take this back to the requirement and discuss the options: I have an XMA that is failing to create dependent entities in the right order. It's trying to create sub-regions before the region it's associated with, which fails on the target system. Some clarifying questions: What is the target system? (database/LDAP/web service) Are you already using Declarative Provisioning? (is it worth it to use Sync Rule Dependenies) CraigMartin Edgile, Inc. http://identitytrench.com

Hi Craig, you can probably tell I was very grumpy in my last post, apologies. It was one long week... Still is. Target system is a CRM, we're feeding entities to it by a call-based xma, firing DSML into a web-service. Yes, we're using Declarative Provisioning. Here's a little background on my recent experience: Trying depedencies on the sync-rules is something I've just done, but I'm not getting much success with them as some entities create okay, but some just aren't even passed to the XMA for provisioning. To make matters weirder, when I look at the "Advanced View" of the sync rule for the entity not being propogated, then "Extended Attributes", the "External System Resource Type" is of the type of the depedency, not the object itself, i.e. country shows up as sub-region, same for "FIM Resource Type", which is showing as "SubRegion" instead of "Country". Either that form isn't labeled right or something odd is going on. Either way, think taking the depedencies off and putting the initial flow rule options back on is better, i.e. how it was before. Oh god, I just found a bug in FIM: So I've put a depedency on the sync rule, but if I take it off, the form resets everything and needs me to re-enter everything except the attribute flow. This is not good. Think I need to see when my latest database backup was.

I rolled-back, so I'm not using sync rule dependencies, but am left with objects being passed to the XMA in non-hierarchy order.