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Navigating master data records linked by foreign keys

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Talend MDM Web UI provides a navigator page which allows you to explore all data records linked with any of the selected data record by foreign keys.

The following scenario introduces how to navigate the relationships between master data records based on a data model Music you have created in Talend Studio.

In this scenario, it is assumed that you have created the data model Music and added several entities into it: Album, Artist, Song, Writer, and User, and defined the relationships between entities as follows:

  • The User entity has a foreign key Artist that points to the Artist entity, and a foreign key Songs that points to the Song entity.
  • The Artist entity has a foreign key Albums that points to the Album entity.
  • The Song entity has a foreign key Writer that points to the Writer entity.
  • The Album entity has a foreign key Tracks that points to the Song entity.

Talend Studio provides a graphical view of the data model with a Design tab. For more information, seeBrowsing the graphical view of a data model.

You have also defined a role Music_Manager so that only users granted with this role are authorized to access the data records that pertain to all entities in the Music data model.

After you have designed the Music data model, Music data container, Music_Manager role and views related to the Music data model and deployed them to the MDM server, authorized users can populate the Music data container with data records.

Now you are ready to explore the data records linked together by foreign keys. Note that the data records displayed on the navigator page depend on the role and access rights assigned to you and the parameters set in Talend Studio when creating a view for the entity.

About this task

This scenario starts with one master data record that pertains to the User entity and then navigates all the other data records that are linked with the selected master data record in the navigator page as follows:

Procedure

  1. Open a master data record that pertains to the User entity.

    Example

  2. Click More... > Navigator to open a navigator page.
    At first, only the selected data record is displayed as a node on the page together with the primary key information defined in Talend Studio. If the primary key information is not defined, the primary key value is displayed.
    You can also hover over the node to display the entity to which the selected data record pertains.

    Example

  3. Click the node to display all navigation options that you can select to perform operations on the selected data record.
    Four navigation options are available:
    • In: display entities (if any) which have foreign key links to the entity that the selected data record pertains to (inbound foreign keys).
    • Out: display entities (if any) to which the entity that the selected data record pertains to has foreign keys links (outbound foreign keys).
    • Detail: open the selected data record and view its details.
    • Settings: set globally the number of linked records to be loaded for each selected data record.
  4. If needed, you can double-click the node to make it collapsed in light blue. In this case, both the In and Out navigation options are disabled and grayed out.
    You can double-click a collapsed node to expand it.
  5. In this scenario, since the User entity has two foreign keys that point to the Artist and Song entities respectively, click the Out option to display the entities that the User entity points to.
    You can hover over the entity icon to display the corresponding foreign key on the link.
  6. Click the Song icon to display all data records pertaining to the Song entity and linked with the selected user data record.
    In this example, three master data records (songs) pertaining to the Song entity and linked with the selected user data record John DOE are displayed.
  7. Click one record that pertains to the Song entity to display the navigation options.
    In this example, the song data record Let There Be Rock is selected. Since the Song entity has a foreign key Writer that points to the Writer entity, and meanwhile the User entity has a foreign key Songs that points to the Song entity, and the Album entity has a foreign key Tracks that points to the Song entity, you can click the In and Out options to explore the data records linked with the selected song data record.
  8. Click the Out option to display the entity that the Song entity has foreign keys points to, Writer in this example.
    Click the Writer icon to display the data records pertaining to the Writer entity and linked with the selected song record Let There Be Rock by outbound foreign keys.
  9. Click the In option to display the entities that have foreign keys pointing to the Song entity, User and Album entities are displayed in this example.
    Click the User icon and then click the In option.

    Click the Album icon and then click the In option.

    All data records that are linked with the selected song record Let There Be Rock by inbound foreign keys are displayed.

  10. In this example, since the Album entity is linked with the Artist entity by an inbound foreign key Albums and is linked with the Song entity by an outbound foreign key Tracks, click the Album icon first and then click the In and Out options to navigate its linked data records.

    Example

  11. Do the same starting from the Artist icon for the firstly selected user record John DOE and display all data records pertaining to the Artist entity and linked with the selected user record.
    On the navigator page, you can zoom in or zoom out on the fly to have a better view of the displayed nodes.
  12. If needed, click any node to display the navigation options first, then click Settings to globally change the number of linked records to be loaded for each node on the navigator page, and click OK to save your changes.

    Example

What to do next

From the navigator page, you can also open a Relations page to navigate the data records linked with the selected data record, as long as there is a foreign key defined to point to the entity that the selected data record pertains to.

  1. For example, in the navigator page, click the writer record Angus-Young to display the navigation options, and then click Detail to open the data record on the right side of the navigator page.
  2. Click More... > Relations to open the Relations page.
  3. In the Relations area, you can define criteria to search data records linked with the selected data record.
    • Entity: provide a list of entities that are linked with the entity that the selected data record pertains to by foreign keys.
    • Key: allow you to specify the primary key information of the data record to be searched.
    • From: allow you to choose the start date in a time range within which the data records are created.
    • To: allow you to chose the end date in a time range within which the data records are created.
    • Keywords: allow you to enter a keyword to search data records.
  4. If needed, click Export to export the search results into an .xls file.
  5. In this example, select Song from the Entity list and then click Search to list the search results.
  6. Double-click one item in the search results to open a new page which allows you to browse the data record.

    Additionally, you can perform other operations with the options available on the view toolbar.

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