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As part of the Progress Pacific platform, Easyl simplifies access to critical business
data stored in multiple locations--in the cloud or on premise.
An Easyl template defines how data from disparate data sources will be merged into a report.
Users with Premium access to Easyl can create templates, data sets, and reports. Template
creation requires an understanding of the underlying data structure of the data sources.
To create a template, you define the business objects of interest and identify the relationships
between the underlying data structures and the business objects you defined.
Since choosing a template is part of the flow to create a report I start by clicking Create
A Report. Then I choose the Create a Template link at the bottom of the template list.
My report will contain data from Salesforce and a Progress OpenEdge application. I select
the desired data source for each and Continue. For the first business object, I define a
Customer object and click Create. Now I need to specify which table in my data
source will contribute Customer records. I click Add Mapping and Easyl retrieves the
schema details for the selected data sources. I Expand Progress OpenEdge to reveal the available
tables in that data source. I choose the Customer table. To save time, I check Add Default Mappings
for all Attributes and click Apply. Easyl automatically creates and maps fields
for all the attributes found in the OpenEdge Customer table. I can edit field names, change
data types, or delete unnecessary fields. When changing data types, be aware that some
conversions are not supported; refer to the documentation for specific details.
Easyl can merge data from more than one data source into a single object forming a union
of the two structures. Since both of my data sources contain customer information, I click
Add Mapping again and add the Salesforce's Contact table to the same Customer business
object I already created. You see that two columns now appear in this
object. When more than one mapping is defined for
a single business object, Easyl will merge the data from all sources into the same business
object. Since I want to merge OpenEdge and Salesforce data, I select the corresponding
attributes from the Salesforce column. If I wish to eliminate duplicate records,
I could select De-Dupe, which will automatically filter out any records where the same value
is found in both sources. The first identified mapping will take precedence and then is prioritized
in order from left to right when dealing with multiple entities. So if I choose to remove
duplicate email values, for example, the customer information found in OpenEdge will appear
in my report for records that have the same email address in both OpenEdge and Salesforce.
The Searchable option causes Easyl to index the specified field, making it faster to find
and filter values when creating reports. While indexing can improve performance, it is a
trade-off because it takes time and storage space, so it is important to use searchable
fields carefully. When I created the mapping between OpenEdge
and Salesforce, the Name field didn't have a corresponding field in the Salesforce Contact
column. This is because Salesforce stores this in a separate table. I must create a
relationship to bring this information into the template.
A data source relationship allows me to enrich the newly defined object with fields from
data source tables that are not directly mapped to template business objects.
I click Data Source Relationships and select Add Relationship. An empty relationship definition
is added. All relationships in Easyl are bi-directional.
Click Endpoint #1 and select the object to serve as one end of the relationship. Here
I choose Salesforce, expand the Account object and select the RowID field and click Apply.
I repeat this for Endpoint #2, this time I select the Contact object and choose AccountID,
which contains the corresponding value. I click in Relationship Name and enter a label
for this relationship. I choose account-contact.
Now that I have established a relationship between the Salesforce Account and Contact
table, I can map the Name field from the Account table in my business object.
I click Objects and in the Contact column for Name, I expand the account-contact relationship
and choose SYS_Name as that house the company name.
I click Name and rename it Company, so it will be easier to indentify when creating
reports. I would also like to report on billing information.
I create a Billing object by clicking Plus, entering the name and click Create.
I Add Mapping to the Invoice table within OpenEdge, and select the Add Default Mapping
for all Attributes option before clicking Apply.
To associate invoices with customers, I need to identify the relationship between the two
business objects, using the CustNum field. Since this relationship is between two defined
business objects, I'll use a data set relationship to merge the data housed in the different
business objects. This is similar to a data source relationship, but data set relationships
are limited to business objects I define as part of the template.
I click Data Set Relationships and select Add Relationship. For Endpoint #1, I expand
the Billing object and choose CustNum. For Endpoint #2, I expand Customer object and
choose CustNum. I name this relationship invoice-customer. I now have all my objects and relationships
defined, so I click Continue. I name the template and enter a description then click Save Template.
This template can be used to create new data sets and repots based on data sources whose
schema matches the ones I used to create the template.
Now that I have my template, I create a data set based on this template and the previously
selected data sources. I enter a data set name and description, and click Load Data
& Create Report. Easyl builds the data set based on the template
definition and displays a preview once the data set is loaded. By default, the first
field in the first object is displayed. I can now configure the report to suit my business
needs. Here is an example of one of the created reports.
This completes our look at how to create templates in Easyl.