User manual BUSINESS OBJECTS DATA INTEGRATOR 11.5.2.0 FOR WINDOWS AND UNIX RELEASE SUMMARY

[. . . ] 6 New to Data Integrator version 11. 5. 2. 0 . 6 New to Data Integrator version 11. 5. 1. 5 . 6 New to Data Integrator version 11. 5. 1. 0 . 7 New to Data Integrator version 11. 5. 0. 0 . [. . . ] They can also drill in to reports to identify specific validation rules and view sample data. 8 Data Integrator Release Summary Trusted information For more information, see Chapter 5, "Data Quality Dashboard Reports, " in the Data Integrator Metadata Reports User's Guide. Data profiler redesign Data Integrator now provides a Data Profiler that obtains information that you can use to determine: · · · The quality of your source data before you extract it so that you can perform data cleansing or other transformations. The structure of your source data to better design your Data Integrator jobs and data flows, as well as your target data warehouse. The content of your source and target data so that you can verify that your data extraction job returns the results you expect. The Data Profiler uses Data Integrator engine processes to execute profiler tasks that can scale in an enterprise environment. The Data Profiler tasks generate and collect the following information that multiple users can view: · Column analysis--The Data Profiler provides two types of column profiles: Basic profiling--This information includes minimum value, maximum value, average value, minimum string length, and maximum string length. · Detailed profiling--Detailed column analysis includes distinct count, distinct percent, median, median string length, pattern count, and pattern percent. · Determine which Web Intelligence and related Crystal Reports are affected. · Determine which Desktop Intelligence documents are affected. For information about setting up the metadata integrator for Desktop Intelligence documents, see the Data Integrator Getting Started Guide. For information about metadata for Desktop Intelligence documents, see the Data Integrator Metadata Reports User's Guide. Validation transform enhancements In conjunction with the new Data Quality dashboard metadata reports, the validation transform now includes the following features. · Validation transform options--These options enable data-quality statistics and/or sample-data collection for Data Quality dashboards. 10 Data Integrator Release Summary Productivity · Validation rule properties--When defining a validation rule, you can now create a name for the rule (instead of using the automatically assigned column name) and optionally add a description. More descriptive names are useful when creating your business rules for Data Quality dashboards. In addition, you can disable data-quality statistics collection at the job level with new options on the job execution properties pages in the Designer and the Administrator. For more information about Data Quality dashboards, see Chapter 5, "Data Quality Dashboard Reports, " in the Data Integrator Metadata Reports User's Guide. Variable-length character processing enhancements Data Integrator provides the following updates to conform to the ANSI SQL92 varchar behavior: Treats an empty string as a zero length varchar value (instead of NULL). When you use the operators Equal (=) and Not Equal (<>) to compare to a NULL constant, the comparison always evaluates to FALSE. Uses new IS NULL and IS NOT NULL operators in Data Integrator scripting language to test for NULL values. Treats trailing blanks as regular characters, instead of trimming them, when reading from all sources. Ignores trailing blanks in comparisons in transforms (Query and Table_Comparison) and functions (decode, ifthenelse, lookup, lookup_ext, and lookup_seq). · · · · For more details, refer to "varchar" on page 244 of the Data Integrator Reference Guide. If you are upgrading from a previous version of Data Integrator, the default is to use the existing varchar behavior for backward compatibility. However, Business Objects recommends that you use the ANSI varchar behavior because the previous varchar behavior will not be supported in a future Data Integrator version. For details, see "Migration considerations" on page14 of the Data Integrator Release Notes. Productivity The following products and features can enhance your productivity when working with Data Integrator. Data Integrator Release Summary 11 Productivity COBOL copybook file format enhancements Data Integrator supports the widely used COBOL copybooks as flat file sources. The COBOL copybook file reader now supports two new features: · · Field ID-- If you have multiple record types in one file (for multiple 01level record definitions), the Field ID option allows you to create rules for indentifying which records represent which schemas. Record Length Field--This option lets you identify the field that contains the length of the schema's record. For details, see "Creating COBOL copybook file formats" on page 140 of the Data Integrator Designer Guide and "COBOL copybook file format" on page 43 of the Data Integrator Reference Guide. Function enhancement (rand_ext) Data Integrator now contains a more powerful function for generating random number results. For details, see "rand_ext" on page 520 of the Data Integrator Reference Guide. Metadata reports redesign Metadata reporting capabilities have been completely redesigned and expanded in Data Integrator. The modules new to Data Integrator version 11. 5. 0. 0 are: · · · · Impact and Lineage Operational Dashboards Auto Documentation Data Quality dashboards The module new to Data Integrator version 11. 5. 1. 0 is: For more information about metadata reports, see the Data Integrator Metadata Reports User's Guide. Impact and Lineage The redesigned Impact and Lineage module of metadata reporting provides an intuitive, easy-to-use hierarchical interface for viewing your Data Integrator datastores, Business Objects CMS servers, and associated components. 12 Data Integrator Release Summary Productivity Select an object in the left pane to display summary, impact, or lineage information for the object in the right pane. For CMS servers, you can configure and run the Metadata Integrator to view metadata reports for Business Views, Crystal Reports, Universes, Desktop Intelligence documents, and Web Intelligence documents. Operational Dashboards The new Operational Dashboards module of metadata reporting provides graphical and tabular details and summaries about job execution across your projects. [. . . ] Now, Data Integrator writes those statistics in constant time (under one minute) regardless of the AL_STATISTICS table size or complexity of your job. Therefore, job execution performance is significantly faster. Also, Data Integrator now provides a way to control the size of your AL_STATISTICS table by disabling transform statistics collection and collecting only work flow and data flow statistics. To use this option, in the Designer go to the Tools menu and select Options > Job Server > General. [. . . ]