Component List

CR-Update

The MQCRU is a powerful cross-reference mapping tool that is used to make indirect links between objects in the repository. Many times a user may want to link two objects together that aren’t directly related, which forces the user to create intermediate objects and link them to achieve the goal. Let’s take a specific example:

The repository path shown in above starts at the object type named DA/ATTRIBUTE and terminate at the object type named PWRDES/ENTITY-ATTRIBUTE. In this situation, the user wants to link a single DA/ATTRIBUTE to several PWRDES/ENTITY-ATTRIBUTEs, while at the same time defining a rule, which will be stored in one of the attributes of the DA/ATTRIBUTE-MAP-RULE object type. Before any linking can be done, the administrator must define the repository path shown above using the MQA. Assuming the repository path has been defined and has been named “DA MAPPING”, let’s proceed.

The first window that appears is the introduction window and it serves as an optional display at the beginning of the mapping. Click on “Skip this screen in the future.” if you don’t want to see this window in the future.

Click on the Next button to see the From Object window. If the CR-Update is being executed from another application, then the From Object type and From Object will automatically be populated with the values passed from the other application and that is the case here. If this is not the case, then you would have to select the From Object Type and From Object yourself.

Notice that the From Object Type, From Object and To Object Type have all been selected and that the Next button is enabled to move to the next window. Also notice that we’ve selected “Data Architecture Attribute” as the From Object Type and that relates to the DA/ATTRIBUTE in the model above. And finally, we’ve selected “Entity Attribute” as the To Object type and that relates to the PWRDES/ENTITY-ATTRIBUTE in the model above. Click Next to proceed to the Rule Selection window.

The Rule Selection window allows the user to select a rule that will be part of the relationship from the FROM object to the TO object. In this case, there aren’t any rules created yet, so we must create one by clicking on <New Rule>. If the administrator had defined this path without a rule, then this window wouldn’t be displayed. Click on Next to proceed to the To Object(s) window.

Notice that the To Object Type is “Entity Attribute”, which is the same value we selected on the From Object window, and that the Available To Objects list box has been populated with the entire list of Entity Attributes as a result of clicking on the Retrieve Objects button. The list could be shortened if we specified something other than “*” for the Object Selection and then clicked on the Retrieve Objects button. At this point it’s worth while to review that our goal is to relate a single Data Architecture Attribute to several Entity Attributes through a rule and that we’ve:

1. Selected a From Object Type named “Data Architecture Attribute”.
2. Selected a From Object named “DA Attribute Test 5”.
3. Selected a To Object Type named “Entity Attribute”.
4. Selected <New Rule> to create a new rule.

And now we can select one or more Entity Attributes to link to by highlighting one or more entries in the Available To Object(s) list box and clicking on the Add button.

Hold down the control key and click on several entries and then click on the Add button and notice that the selected entries move from the left list box to the right list box.

Now the Create Link To Object(s) List is populated and notice that the Next button has been enabled, which means that we can proceed to the next window. Click on Next to proceed to the Summary Information window.

The Summary Information window contains all the information that will be updated into the repository:
 

Note that the name of the Rule isn’t important because it will be generated by MetaQuest, but the text is important because it defines the rule. Click on finish to update the information to the repository and a message is displayed asking if you want to continue and do another, or quit.

Click on Yes to start over and do another mapping and notice that the value entered on the first window are still there and may be changed, or another rule may be added to the same From object.

Notice that the Introduction window isn’t displayed since we indicated not to display it anymore when we first started. At this point, we can verify what we’ve done by selecting the same information on this window as we did originally and click on Next to see the Rule Selection window.

This time, the Rule Selection window is populated with the rule that we just created in our previous run and notice that the name is a system generated name, but the text description is what we entered on the Summary Information window. At this point, we create another new rule by selecting <New Rule> or we can add or delete links to the existing rule by clicking on the rule name and clicking on Next. Click on the rule that we created and click on Next.

Now it can be seen that the rule just created accurately reflects the links that we made and at this point more links can be added or existing links can be removed by selecting them and clicking on the Remove button.

This is just one example of how to use the MQCRU tool to simplify mapping objects in the repository.