Subsections


Associate Data Automatically

The main characteristics of the Associate Data Automatically tool are:

To run the Associate Data Automatically tool,

Warning: It is safest only to select data elements that have no existing association to the metadata table being worked with, or carefully selecting any data elements with an existing association which you wish to update. All data selected that has an association with the metadata table being worked with will be updated by the automatic association tool. This means that any new or updated information in a metadata row can be added, but it also means that if no rows in the metadata match such a data element anymore, then the data association will be removed. This could happen if, for example, you changed the name of a data element with a metadata association, and did not change the corresponding key entry in the metadata table.


Matching schemes

A data element name must match an entry in the key column of a metadata table for an association to be set up between that data element at the corresponding row of the metadata table. Two schemes are available in the Association Data Automatically for matching up names with key entries:


Partial matching rules

For each data element being considered, the partial matching scheme involves breaking a data element name into components and searching for the best match from the key entries in the metadata table. In general terms, the best match means the longest key that matches entire components of the name.

The following describes the matching process in detail: