Java-based resource providers can override getOriginalDataShape() to provide additional, and more dynamic information about the resource data shape than what is provided by the attribute mapping.

For example, a resource provider for Salesforce resources can reflect the entire known schema for a target Salesforce type, including all current customizations to that type, whereas the attribute mapping table for the resource provider only needs to reflect mappings where the original and normalize attribute name differs.

The result of getOriginalDataShape() is used to augment the attribute mapping table data in cases similar to parsing JSON into ThingWorx Query objects and determining if a resource provider provides the key attributes required by a relationship provider.