For ZOM to know about an object, the object must first be registered. The registration process requires no effort on your part since registration is automatic and occurs when you use a ZOM service. Each ZOM service quickly searches for any unregistered objects and registers them in the knowledge base.

When an object is registered, it is assigned an object key that uniquely identifies it. The object key is used internally by ZOM to track the object during its lifetime, even if the object changes name or location. ZOM also uses the object key to track objects that are maintained at several separate development sites.

After registration, ZOM knows the object exists. However, at this point, ZOM knows very little about the object beyond its name, type, and object key. For ZOM to understand more about the object, you must “touch” the object.