Data Content Planner is a visual tool for data content planning and population based on the selected blueprint. Data Content Planner helps people responsible for the data to maintain records and links according to the blueprint. Planned data content instances are called data content sets.
A Data content set consists of
Canvas area can be moved by dragging the mouse while holding down the space bar. |
A Content Set Item is either an existing record or a desired record that comes attached with a blueprint container.
The record list menu shows any current, existing records that match with the blueprint's classes and blueprint container conditions:
If there is a class "Linux server" added to the blueprint with a condition which defines that the record's Location field value must be either "Finland" or "Sweden", the record list shows only those records in the table "Linux Server" that match with the blueprint container's conditions |
The user has two options to expand the record list view:
After the needed record has been found, the user can drag & drop the record to the correct blueprint container.
DCM allows the user to add matching records only. The data content planner indicates the allowed blueprints by color-coding. For the Root container, only one record is allowed. |
The added records are shown inside the blueprint container as black circles. Any added desired records (planned, currently non-existing records) are shown as blue circles.
The red link icon inside the circle indicates that the content set item (a record) is missing at least one mandatory relationship.
Relationships between records are created by drawing a line between the records in two different containers.
When removing items from a content set we are not really deleting any data from the system. Therefore "deleting records" is more about removing them from a content set rather than actually deleting records from the database.
Removing records from the content set can be done in two different ways:
Removing links is a bit different than removing records since removing links can actually change or even delete existing data from the actual database. There are a couple of different scenarios when it comes to removing links:
When data is actually being removed, the links will show in red before committing changes.
The actual removal of links is done in the same way as removing records. You can either select and click "delete" from the keyboard or right-click a link and select "Remove link" from the context menu.
Since DCM R3.0 users have been able to load related records into Data Content Set for a selected record that is already part of the Content set.
When loading related records for a Root record, the whole structure is loaded at once. But when loading for a non-root record, only the first level of links is loaded. In both cases, loading the data will follow the Audit direction, meaning that only records along the audit direction will be loaded.
In the example Data Content Set (and blueprint) below:
Automatically loaded records are shown as gray circles. And clicking the "Hide Related Items" will remove the gray records from the content set.
Users can create, modify and remove the field plan of a record by right-clicking the record and selecting the Open/Modify/Remove field plan functionality.
The Field Plan window is using the "Default view" of the form by default. If you want to define your own view used inside the Field plan, just create a new form view with the name "field_plan". |
Content sets have certain attributes that can be updated via the "Content set details" -form. This view can be opened from the "Edit details" button on the top right corner of the Data Content Planner.
The content set details to include attributes like:
Canvas on the Data Content Planner has some useful settings related to how the records are shown on the canvas and how the planner works when loading new data.
The settings can be opened from a "gear" icon on the top right corner of the canvas area.
Settings can be used to:
When new Blueprint version is created and published, DCM automatically turns the status of the previous versions to "Deprecated", which indicates for users that there is a newer version available.
A Data content set can be migrated from a deprecated blueprint version to the published version:
When a data content set is opened, a DCM notification indicates for a user that there is a new version available (1). Users can migrate a data content set by clicking the migration button in the toolbar (2).
In the Content Set Migrator tab, the user can migrate the content set by choosing a target version and clicking migrate. After the migration, DCM shows the succeeded and failed migrations in the migration end report.