Hi @MikeCH 

I’m just adding my observation here.

Seems there is a difference between the 2 columns in App 10 IEE client, i.e with the naming of the key values - Object key mentions the naming used in the application, for example Object Site instead of CONTRACT. But there is no difference observed in App 10 Aurena and IFS Cloud.

App 10 IEE:

App 10 Aurena:

Best Regards,

Thilini

@MikeCH I just had a quick look inside the DOC_REFERENCE_OBJECT_API and what I could see is that the ObjectKey (key_value column in DB) is set during the Unpack step. Then in the Check_Insert step, there’s the below code which basically checks is Key_Ref was not set but Key_Value was set, then it gives Key_Ref the same value as Key_Value. That’s the reason why you see equal values in Aurena client for these 2 columns.

Also the comment is noteworthy - it seems in IFS Cloud something changed and this was done to ensure backwards compatibility with older versions. Maybe someone from R&D could shed some more light on this.

 IF NOT indrec_.key_ref AND indrec_.key_value THEN
         -- Make sure that we're backwards compatible
         newrec_.key_ref := Object_Connection_SYS.Convert_To_Key_Reference( newrec_.lu_name, newrec_.key_value );
      END IF;

As @Thilini Kumarasinghe said, there was a difference in IEE. And, in fact, Object Key is supposed to show a “user friendly” version of the primary key string, or key ref. And I think it is a good field to have. The problem with it is that the performance sucks if you search on it... So we added the key ref as well, to be used for searching.

For some reason which I don't remember now, Object Key was not implemented in Aurena or IFS Cloud yet. It might have been a quick thing, to add Object Key and showing the key ref, and we forgot to pick it up and change it later to be as in IEE.

Summary: the two columns should be different and it should be like in IEE.