How to Use the Data Management Console

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Explains the process behind deciding how to store & access data in the Data Management Console (DMC). This use case explains the process of storing information for a dynamic list in the DMC.

Goal

In this use case there are a 3 dynamic lists on a service item that need to display different options for different departments.

Steps

Know what the data is and how it will be used
Decide how you will want to manage/edit the data
Decide how to store, categorize, and retrieve the data
Create the Data Set
Create or import your data

Know What The Data Is And How It Will Be Used

Unfortunately, you can't begin to set up or manage data if you don't know what the data is. In this case we have the following information:

Catalog
Service Item
Question Name
Department
Answer Label
Answer Value

This data will, in this example, be used to display different answers in these questions for each department. In 2 of the questions, there are some values that are displayed for all departments.

Valid values for the data are as follows:

Catalog: My Catalog
Service Item: Hardware and Software Update
Question Name: Item Set, Software Name, Delivery Set
Department: HR, Administration, IT, Project Management, Printing, All
Answer Label: varies
Answer Value: varies

Decide How You Will Want To Manage/Edit The Data

The valid values for Answer Label and Answer Value might be any data, but for the other information, they should only select from the specific values listed.

This data should be managed by the people who "own" the Hardware and Software service item, Calbro Services->IT Support->Backoffice Support. To use this group, the group number is needed; this is group number 1000000003.

This data, in this use case, would be managed by question. There isn't any reason the data managers, for the sake of this particular example, would want to export or import all of this data together. It is more likely that they will want to import/add/remove/update values per question.

Decide How to Store, Categorize, and Retrieve This Data

This data will be stored, for this example, in KS_SRV_Helper. The existing bridges for KS_SRV_Helper offer up to three values for categorization. This will be enough in this case. The first index can be the Catalog; the second index can be the Service Item; and the third index can be the Question Name. There will be 3 data sets set up:

Index 1	Index 2	Index 3	Data Set Name
My Catalog	Hardware and Software Update	Item Set	HW and SW Item Set
My Catalog	Hardware and Software Update	Delivery Set	HW and SW Delivery Set
My Catalog	Hardware and Software Update	Software Name	HW and SW Software Name

This way, if there is another Hardware and Software Update item in another catalog on the system, it could have distinct menus without the data getting confused. Also, so other service items can have menus of the same names without the data getting confused. It's important to be sure that the criteria used to both store and retrieve the data (both for the console and where the data is used) is unique.

Then you can determine how you want it to be categorized for viewing on the console. In this case we'll use:

Dynamic Menus
My Catalog
Hardware and Software Update

Then the three data set names will come up under that.

The data will be stored:

Catalog: Index Field 1
Service Item: Index Field 2
Question Name: Index Field 3
Department: Character Field 1
Answer Label: Character Field 2
Answer Value: Character Field 3

Note: The fields available on the form KS_SRV_Helper can be seen in the Data Management Console - Helper Data Bridge Model. These can be investigated in the Bridge Manager or by beginning the configuration of the new Dataset and selecting that Bridge. Once the Bridge is selected, the Additional Data Columns will show all the available fields.

Note: Index Fields on KS_SRV_Helper are index and should be used for the information that will be used to find these items where-ever they are used.

Create The Data Set

Click the "Add New Data Set" on your DMC (http://<webserver><:port>/kinetic/DisplayPage?name=datamanagement).

Note that each section on this screen has a ? in the header that will expand help text for that section.

Add the Data Set Name, Managing Group, and Categorization as determined in the previous set up steps.

Then, since this is using KS_SRV_Helper, choose "Data Management Console - Helper Data" as the Bridge Model and the Service Item for editing data is "KS_SRV_Helper". In this case, we are using exact matches for Index 1, 2, and 3, so the Bridge Qualification would be "Index 1 | Index 2 | Index 3 (exact match/null)".

Next add the bridge parameters, one at a time, to the table of Bridge Parameters. This is how the DMC will find the data for this data set.

Until they are all entered.

The next steps are to configure the field that should be used as a unique ID and as the status value. The Unique ID and Status details default to acceptable values for this case.

So all that's left is defining each data point:

For the first three data points, we won't need to display them in the table because they are supporting data that helps define the data set. We want to lock them for editing (on row add or update) and set the correct value in as the default.

For the next data point, there are only certain valid answers, so we want to create a selection list. This list should be :: delimited and should contain the valid entries, which is, in this case, the departments and a value for "all".

The next two fields are going to be free text entry for people creating rows, so we need to be sure they fit within the limits of the field. The default is 250 for the fields being used; a length only needs to be specified if it needs to be shorter than the default. The two unlimited character fields on KS_SRV_Helper are Character Field 13 and Character Field 14. Also, these fields show an example of using help text to assist someone creating entries.

Then all of the data is in place for this data set:

Click "Add Row" to submit this data set. Then repeat the process for the other two data sets.

Now all the new data sets will be available in the DMC.

Create or import your data

To Create Data

Now select one of the data sets and choose Add Row to begin adding rows of data.

This will bring up an add for the row that will show the fields with the configured labels, selection, and help text. Fill this out and click Add Row.

Then the DMC will display the data set with the new row included.

Repeat until desired data has been entered.

To Import Data

To import data construct a csv file with the desired data in the necessary format. To see all the details of the format for a dataset and all warnings and instructions of how to import, click on File Upload for that dataset. The necessary column order and number of columns is particular to the data set.

Note these warnings:

No error checking or duplicate row checking is performed during the upload.
No field validation is performed during the upload. Perform all data validation before performing an upload.
If a header row is indicated, the first row of data will be ignored.
The names used to identify columns in the header row do not matter. The data in those columns needs to match the expected data for this data structure.
The column order of the data in the CSV is critically important.

Once the data is prepared, use this File Upload feature to import the data and either replace the existing data in the data set (all of it) or append to the data set. The process will email the provided address when the data has completed processing.

What's Next

In this section, three simple data sets were created to provide data to internal dynamic menus. It can also be desirable to create multiple views into a data set. This will be covered in the next use case.