New data transfer

A data transfer action (DTA) is essentially a mapping from a source data source to a target data source, see Data transfer overview for more. Creating a new DTA includes several steps: identifying or creating the source and target data sources, setting up a filter if only some of the information in the source is needed in the target, and setting mappings between the source and target structures, possibly involving the calculator to define complex relationships. Here we break down the process of creating a data transfer into a series of steps, with links to more detailed discussion of each of these components.

Create or import the source and target data sources for the transfer. A data transfer is a mapping between a source and a target data source. If these are not already defined in your project, your first step will be to create them, see topics Data source overview, Data source properties and New data source for details on how to do this.
Create a new data transfer action: When the source and target data sources are defined, you are ready to define the transfer between them. This includes selecting the source and target data sources, defining the mapping between them and optionally using additional tools such as the Select/update to manage the synchronization of new data with an existing database.

Your first step is to create the new DTA, so select the Data transfer action node in the Explorer tree and choose New Data Transfer Action from the right-click menu or else use the New icon from the toolbar, see New action for more. You will see the Data transfer action properties window empty of details. Unlike the window showing existing properties, the source, target and filter details are not active, and each of these aspects of a data transfer action and the mappings will need to be defined in order to define the data transfer action. Details on each of these steps is given below.

In summary the steps to create this new DTA from data sources, are as follows:

Enter general properties: On the Properties tab, enter name and description to identify this DTA and choose whether to use default grouping, see Data transfer properties for further details.
Select source: Press the browse button the right of the Properties field to select a data source to be the source of this data transfer action. You see a window listing the data sources in this project in alphabetical order. Highlight the one you want and press the Select button at the bottom of the window, or press Search to use the system Search capabilities. When you have made your selection this data source is entered into the DTA properties panel. The Properties button becomes active and you can press this to view the data source properties, see Data source types for links to all the data source properties topics. This allows you to make changes if required, both to the properties and to the data source definition, which you access by choosing the Definition tab. The Host for the source data source can now be set if you want, use the down arrow to the right of the Host heading to select a host, or else you can leave this field blank to specify the host later.
Select target: In just the same way as for the source, see above, you now browse to a target data source for this data transfer. Select from the window that displays all available data sources, and when you have made your selection you can press Properties to view or alter the target data source properties and definition. Use the down-arrow to specify a host or leave this until later if you prefer. See topic Example JDBC mapping for a detailed example of a data transfer action, including screen illustrations.
Apply filters if required: On the Data transfer properties window you choose whether to use External filters or This filter, in which case you define a filter as part of the data transfer action properties in the calculation box at the bottom of the properties window, using the Calculator if required see Data transfer properties and Select filters for more.
Mapping the data: The simplest mapping between source and target data is a field mapping that directly relates entities in the source to entities in the target structure. However much more complex transformations are possible, including performing calculations on the data, selectively updating just some database fields, introducing other data not in the source data source and so on. These relations are set using the Mapping tab card available from the top of the DTA properties window, see Mapping for more.