Question

So I have an object graph, let’s just say it’s an order. You have the order class, line item class, tracking number class, payment class. You get the idea.

Now the business requirement is any user can change the order, but order changes must be approved by the manager. Until the manger approves nothing changes. Managers can change anything, at any time, without approval.

What are the best practices for dealing with situations like this? Saving the many (possible) different states of the order object and eventually approving or rejecting the changes.

i’m using C# and Nhibernate.

Thanks, Kyle.

Answer 1

I would create a transaction table. It would have a record for each pending change. It would reference the order table.

So an order would get created but have a pending change; a record would be inserted into the orders table, with a status column of pending, and a record would be insterted into the OrderTransaction table.

For every change another record would get inserted into the OrderTransaction table.

I would also set up a RequestedChanges table with all the possible requested changes.