Information interfaces

Information interfaces are defined within the Information Standard to register a data contract with a simple set of controls used to manage capture, interpret and consolidation of information within the EDW. These interfaces are also referred to as Registers. Registers manage the state of a set of object records, including metadata and attribute values.

Primary and secondary registers capture and interpret attributes. A primary register may also assign classification and human readable names. Attributes are only mapped if the source (captured) field is specified in the interface and a nomenclature mapping is specified on an attribute.

An attributes register expects each record to specify an ID with a single attribute, and must specify how to identify attribute name, value and optionally units. Attributes may be excluded by an Exclude rule and attributes are mapped if the attribute name for a record matches an attribute ID or a nomenclature mapping.

An associations register is used to add or remove associations within an interface.

If an association is deleted from one interface but included in another, the consolidated information will still include the association. An associations register allows an association to be registered in one update and removed in a later update.

Within ISM, the Information Interface to control these processes as shown in the following image.

An Information Interface describes Columns, which are a list of record fields of interest from an interface. These may be a calculated field similar to an Excel formula, specifying an expression to derive a result. Calculated fields provide a flexible means to establish desired results from one or more fields in a record and are evaluated within the Interpret process (and therefore will be re-evaluated should the calculation be redefined).

Register or interface settings

An interface may set the following processing parameters to control how data is captured and interpreted. Capture-specific rules only affect newly captured data, whereas interpret-specific rules are applied whenever data is re-interpreted (typically on every update).

For more information, refer to Register options.

Register prioritization

Register prioritization works as follows:

• Register#1 updates Object P101 on Weds with A=1, B=2, C=3.

• Register#2 updates Object P101 on Thurs with C=4, D=5.

• Register#1 updates Object P101 on Fri with A=2 (other attributes remain but unchanged).

• Merged object P101 has A=2, B=2, C=3, D=5. (C = 3 because register#1 was last updated.)

If Register#1 is assigned Priority 2 and Register#1 is assigned Priority 1, the same scenario can produce object P101 with A = 2, B = 2, C = 4, D = 5.

The following chart shows that multiple registers set up with prioritisation and different corresponding identifiers mapping:

Reporting databases

The reporting database is a fixed schema (may be added to over time) that does not vary with different information standards. Instead, several tables are updated with information from a published Information Standard from ISM.