Organizations

Organizations represent the legal or informal entities that other records are associated with. A Farm is type of Organization. Modules can provide additional Organization types.

Type

Each Organization must have a type. All Organization types have a common set of attributes and relationships. Specific Organization types may also add additional attributes and relationships (collectively referred to as "fields"). Organization types are defined by modules, and are only available if their module is enabled. The modules included with farmOS define the following Organization types:

• Farm

ID

Each Organization will be assigned two unique IDs in the database: a universally unique identifier (UUID), and an internal numeric ID.

The UUID will be unique across farmOS databases. The internal ID will only be unique to a single farmOS database. Therefore, the farmOS API uses UUIDs to ensure that IDs pulled from multiple farmOS databases do not conflict. Internally, farmOS modules use the internal IDs to perform CRUD operations.

Attributes

Organizations have a number of attributes that serve to describe their meta information. All Organizations have the same standard set of attributes. Modules can add additional attributes.

Standard attributes

Attributes that are common to all Organization types include:

• Name
• Notes
• Data
• Archived

Name

Organizations must have a name that describes them. The name is used in lists of Organizations to easily identify them at quick glance.

Notes

Notes can be added to an Organization to describe it in more detail. This is a freeform text field that allows a limited set of HTML tags, including links, lists, blockquotes, emphasis, etc.

Data

Organizations have a hidden "data" field on them that is only accessible via the API. This provides a freeform plain text field that can be used to store additional data in any format (eg: JSON, YAML, XML). One use case for this field is to store remote system IDs that correspond to the Organization. So if the Organization is created or managed by software outside of farmOS, it can be identified easily. It can also be used to store additional structured metadata that does not fit into the standard Asset attributes.

Archived

Organizations can be marked as "archived" to indicate that they are no longer relevant. Archived Organizations will be hidden from most lists in farmOS unless they are explicitly requested.

Relationships

Organizations can be related to other records in farmOS. These relationships are stored as reference fields on Organization records.

All Organizations have the same standard set of relationships. Modules can add additional relationships.

Relationships that are common to all Organization types include:

• Images
• Files

Images

Images can be attached to Organizations. This provides a place to store photos of the Organization.

Files

Files can be attached to Organizations. This provides a place to put documents such as Shapefiles, PDFs, CSVs, or other files associated with the Organization.