Chapter 8. Mapping integration data to fields for the next connection

Procedure

1. In the flow visualization, look for any icons.
2. Click the icon to see the Data Type Mismatch notification.
3. In the message, click Add a data mapping step, which displays the data mapper.

Procedure

1. In the Sources panel, click the data field that you want to map from.

   You might need to expand a step to see the data fields that it provides.

   When there are many source fields, you can search for the field of interest by clicking the and entering the name of the data field in the search field.

2. In the Target panel, click the data field that you want to map to.

   The data mapper displays a line that connects the two fields that you just selected.

3. Optionally, preview the data mapping result. This is useful when you add a transformation to the mapping or when the mapping requires a type conversion.

   1. In the upper right of the data mapper, click and select Show Mapping Preview to display a text input field on the source field and a read-only result field on the target field.
   2. In the source field’s data input field, enter text.
   3. Click somewhere outside this text box to display the mapping result in the read-only field on the target field.
   4. Optionally, to see the result of a transformation, add a transformation in the Mapping Details panel.
   5. Hide the preview fields by clicking again and selecting Show Mapping Preview.

4. Optionally, to confirm that the mapping is defined, in the upper right, click to display the defined mappings.

   You can also preview data mapping results in this view. If preview fields are not visible, click and select Show Mapping Preview. Enter data as described in the previous step. In the table of defined mappings, preview fields appear for only the selected mapping. To see preview fields for another mapping, select it.

   Click again to display the data field panels.

5. In the upper right, click Done to add the data mapper step to the integration.

1. In the Configure Mapper page, in the upper right, click the plus sign to display the Mapping Details panel.
2. In the Sources section, enter the name of the source field.
3. In the Action section, accept the default Map action.
4. In the Target section, enter the name of the field that you want to map to and click Enter.

Procedure

1. In the Target panel, click the field into which you want to map more than one source field.

2. In the Sources panel, if there is a field that contains the fields that you want to map to the target field, then click that container field to map all contained fields to the target field.

   To individually select each source field, click the first field that you want to combine into the target field. For each of the other fields that you want to combine into the target field, hover over that field, and press CTRL-Mouse1 (CMD-Mouse1 on MacOS).

   When you are done you should see a line from each of the source fields to the target field.

3. In the Mapping Details panel, in the Separator field, accept or select the character that the data mapper inserts in the target field between the content from different source fields. The default is a space.

4. In the Mapping Details panel, under Sources, ensure that the source fields are in the same order as the corresponding content in the compound target field.

   If necessary, drag and drop source fields to achieve the same order. The data mapper automatically updates the index numbers to reflect the new order.

5. If you mapped a source field to each part of the compound target field, then skip to the next step.

   If the target field expects data that is not available to be mapped, then in the Mapping Details panel, edit the index of each source field so that it is the same as the index of the corresponding data in the compound target field. The data mapper automatically adds padding fields as needed to indicate missing data.

   If you accidentally create too many padding fields, click the trash-can icon on each extra padding field to delete it.

6. Optionally, preview the data mapping result:

   1. In the upper right of the data mapper, click and select Show Mapping Preview to display a text input field on each source field for the currently selected mapping and a read-only result field on the target field of the currently selected mapping.

   2. In the source data input fields, enter text. Click outside the text box to display the mapping result in the read-only field on the target field.

      If you reorder the source fields or add a transformation to the mapping then the result field on the target field reflects this. If the data mapper detects any errors, it displays informative messages at the top of the Mapping Details panel.

   3. Hide the preview fields by clicking again and selecting Show Mapping Preview.

      If you redisplay the preview fields, any data that you entered in them is still there and it remains there until you exit the data mapper.

7. To confirm that the mapping is correctly defined, in the upper right, click to display the mappings defined in this step. A mapping that combines the values of more than one source field into one target field looks like this: .

   You can also preview mapping results in this view. Click , select Show Mapping Preview, and enter text as described in the previous step. Preview fields appear for only the selected mapping. Click another mapping in the table to view preview fields for it.

Procedure

1. In the Sources panel, click the field whose content you want to separate.
2. In the Target panel, click the first field that you want to separate the source field data into.

3. In the Target panel, for each additional target field that you want to contain some of the data from the source field, hover over the field and press CTRL-Mouse1 (CMD-Mouse1 on MacOS) to select it.

   When you are done selecting target fields, you should see lines from the source field to each of the target fields.

4. In the Mapping Details panel, in the Separator field, accept or select the character in the source field that indicates where to separate the source field values. The default is a space.

5. In the Mapping Details panel, under Targets, ensure that the target fields are in the same order as the corresponding content in the compound source field.

   If necessary, drag and drop target fields to achieve the same order. The data mapper automatically updates the index numbers to reflect the new order.

6. If you mapped each part of the compound source field to a target field, then skip to the next step.

   If the source field contains data that you do not need, then in the Mapping Details panel, edit the index of each target field so that it is the same as the index of the corresponding data in the compound source field. The data mapper automatically adds padding fields as needed to indicate unwanted data.

7. Optionally, preview the data mapping result:

   1. In the upper right of the data mapper, click and select Show Mapping Preview to display a text input field on the source field and read-only result fields on each target field.

   2. In the source field’s data input field, enter text. Be sure to enter the separator character between the parts of the field. Click outside the text box to display the mapping result in the read-only fields on the target fields.

      If you reorder the target fields or add a transformation to a target field then the result fields on the target fields reflect this. If the data mapper detects any errors, it displays informative messages at the top of the Mapping Details panel.

   3. Hide the preview fields by clicking again and selecting Show Mapping Preview.

      If you redisplay the preview fields, any data that you entered in them is still there and it remains there until you exit the data mapper.

8. To confirm that the mapping is correctly defined, click to display the mappings defined in this step. A mapping that separates the value of a source field into multiple target fields looks like this: .

   You can also preview mapping results in this view. Click , select Show Mapping Preview, and enter text as described in the previous step. Preview fields appear for only the selected mapping. Click another mapping in the table to view preview fields for it.

Procedure

1. Map the fields. This can be a one-to-one mapping, a combination mapping, or a separation mapping.
2. In the Mapping Details panel, under Sources or under Targets, in the box for the field that you want to transform, click the arrow that points to the trash can. This displays a field where you can select the transformation that you want the data mapper to perform.
3. Click in this field to display the list of transformations.
4. Click the transformation that you want to perform.
5. If the transformation requires any input parameters, specify them in the appropriate input fields.
6. To add another transformation, click the arrow that points to the trash can again.

Procedure

1. If data types are not already visible, display them by clicking and then Show Types.

   While this is not a requirement for specifying a condition, it is helpful to see the data types.

2. Create the mapping that you want to apply a condition to, or ensure that the currently selected mapping is the mapping that you want to apply a condition to. For example, consider this mapping:

   

3. In the upper right, click to display the conditional expression input field.

   In the expression field, the data mapper automatically displays the names of the source fields in the current mapping. For example:

   

   In the expression input field, the order of the source fields is the order in which you selected them when you created the mapping. This is important because the default mapping behavior is that the data mapper concatenates the field values in this order to insert the result in the target field. In this example, to create this mapping, lastName was selected first and then firstName was selected.

4. Edit the expression input field to specify the conditional expression that you want the data mapper to apply to the mapping. Details about supported conditional expressions follow this procedure.

   As you specify the expression, you can:

   • Enter @ and start to enter the name of a field. The data mapper displays a list of the fields that match what you entered. Select the field that you want to specify in the expression.

   • Drag a field from the mapping canvas into the expression input field.

     When you add a field name to the expression, the data mapper adds that field to the mapping. For example, consider this conditional expression:

     

     During execution, if the data mapper determines that the lastName field is empty, it maps only the firstName field to the target customerName field. If the lastName field contains a value, that is, it is not empty, the data mapper concatenates the values in the source orderId and phone fields, and inserts the result in the customerName field. (This example shows how the logic works, but it is probably not a useful example because when there is a value in the lastName field, you most likely want the data mapper to simply perform the mapping and not map some other value into the target.)

     For this example, after you complete entering the expression, the data mapping is:

     

   In the conditional expression, if you remove a field name that is in the mapping that the expression applies to, the data mapper removes that field from the mapping. In other words, every field name in the mapping must be in the conditional expression.

5. If mapping preview fields are not already visible, display them by clicking and then Show Mapping Preview.
6. Enter sample data in the source preview input field(s) to ensure that the target field or target fields get(s) the correct value.

7. Optionally, apply transformations to one or more source or target fields that are in the mapping:

   1. In the Mapping Details panel, find the field that you want to apply a transformation to.
   2. Just below it, click Add Transformation.
   3. Click the transformation that you want the data mapper to perform.
   4. If needed, specify input parameters.

   For example, in the same mapping presented in this procedure, in the Mapping Details panel, you could apply the Uppercase transformation to the firstName field. You can test this by entering data in the firstName field’s preview input field.

8. Edit the conditional expression as needed to obtain the desired result.

Procedure

1. In the upper right, click .
2. To dismiss the list of mappings and redisplay the source and target fields, click again.