DataConnect Studio – Making Integration Even Easier

Actian DataConnect was designed to make integrating your data sources easy so you can realize the vision of “connecting anything, anywhere, anytime.” The latest updates to the DataConnect Studio make integration even easier with an enhanced set of features to enable you to set up new connections and map data quickly.

Mapping Wizard

The new Mapping Wizard in DataConnect Studio walks you through the end-to-end process of creating maps with a simple set of questions and prompts. For new users, the guided approach of the mapping wizard makes it easier to understand the setup process, providing guidance and education as you go. The Mapping Wizard cuts down on the training time for new users and enables you to deliver value to the organization more quickly.

For more experienced users, the Mapping Wizard is a productivity tool – enabling you to create mappings in fewer clicks and with greater consistency. You may know how to create mappings manually, but unless this is a big part of your job, there is likely some re-learning each time you go to set something up. The Mapping Wizard makes the mechanics easier so you can focus on the data. You can still exit out of the wizard and set up mappings manually, but once you try out the new simple approach to mapping, you probably won’t.

Map Recommend

The Map Recommend function extends DataConnect’s automated mapping capabilities by adding fuzzy matching algorithms to recommend fields to map. There is also support for a user-defined dictionary. What makes DataConnect a powerful enterprise integration platform is its ability to support data connections and mapping across your organization. The challenge in most organizations is finding the meaningful information you need in the vast expanse of data available.

Many of the table and attribute names used by your source systems may also have obscure naming conventions that made sense to the people who designed them but are confusing to people who need to consume them. By establishing a dictionary of synonyms for your organization’s agreed-upon schema and master data, you can guide users to create integrations that align to your metamodel and make it easier to identify the right elements and attributes to include in queries. The new automation capabilities in the Map Recommend function are the first step in a set of machine-learning features planned for DataConnect Studio in the future.

Multi-Source Joins

Increasingly, users need to join data from multiple sources to enrich or merge information. We have re-engineered how joins are implemented in DataConnect studio – giving more of the “SQL-like” feel that users have been asking for (just easier). You can create inner, outer, left and right joins using two or more different source data connectors without the need to know SQL syntax.

This might seem a bit technical, but imagine this scenario: You have customer data in SalesForce, order data in your ERP system, and support ticket data from ServiceNow that you want to marry together for your website or mobile app. With DataConnect Studio’s multi-source join functions, you can map these three data sources together and write the aggregated data set out to a JSON file that your web developers can format for presentation. As more companies adopt third-party platforms and SaaS solutions, the need for data that spans these systems will continue to grow.

Saving Process Components as Reusable Templates

System integration is not just about connecting static data for reporting. Some of the most powerful integration patterns are built around transactional processes.  DataConnect Studio now enables you to save processes components and associated step properties as re-usable templates so you can use them many times across your ecosystem. This is important because driving consistency in your processes is essential for both product quality and resource productivity. You cannot achieve peak efficiency if you are figuring things out from scratch each time you need to do something. With the new features of DataConnect Studio, you can develop a customized data dictionary that aligns with a metamodel, map data in consistent ways (even across multiple sources), and save your process components in a library for re-use.  DataConnect Studio really does make it possible to connect anything, anytime anywhere.

Download the latest DataConnect Studio integrated design environment (IDE) and Runtime Engine from Actian ESD today.

About Actian Corporation

Actian is helping businesses build a bridge to a data-defined future. We’re doing this by delivering scalable cloud technologies while protecting customers’ investments in existing platforms. Our patented technology has enabled us to maintain a 10-20X performance edge against competitors large and small in the mission-critical data management market. The most data-intensive enterprises in financial services, retail, telecommunications, media, healthcare and manufacturing trust Actian to solve their toughest data challenges.