Tools → Schema Designer

About the Schema Designer

The Schema Designer allows you to manage objects and joins for a physical schema. You also use the Schema Designer to initiate a load job of an entire physical schema or a given object in the physical schema and to schedule a load job of the physical schema.

Schema Designer permissions and access rights

A user that belongs to a group with the Schema Manager or the SuperRole role can access the Schema Designer for a given physical schema that the user owns or has at least View access rights to.

If the Enable Super User Mode option is enabled in the Cluster Management Console (CMC) → Tenant Configurations → Security, the Super User that is a Tenant Administrator and any user with the SuperRole can access the Schema Designer for all physical schemas and manage them regardless of the access rights.

A user with only the Schema Manager role must own or have Edit access rights to the physical schema to use the Schema Designer to manage its objects, joins, and load jobs. Some functions require additional roles, such as the Explore Data function which requires a role that can manage the Catalog (Content Manager).

Access the Schema Designer

To access the Schema Designer, in the Navigation bar, select Schema, and then on the Schemas tab, select a given physical schema.

You can also access the Schema Designer for a given schema from the Load Job Details Viewer. In the Header bar, in the breadcrumb trail, or in the load job details, select the physical schema name.

Schema Designer access rights matrix

The following table shows the required access rights to a given physical schema for each action that you can perform using the Schema Designer.

Schema Designer modes

The Schema Designer supports two different modes:

• Saved Version mode
• Draft mode

For information about each mode, refer to Tools → Schema Designer → Modes and Versions.

Schema Designer anatomy

The Schema Designer consists of the following:

• Action bar
• Summary section
• Message banner
• Tables tab
• Joins tab

Action bar

The following table shows the options available in the Action bar.

Saving changes that require data load

When you save changes and promote a version from a draft to a saved version, these changes may require loading the data of related objects, whether full load or load from staging. For information about the updates or changes that require loading data, refer to Tools → Schema Designer → Load Jobs→ Changes that require data load.

When you select Save Changes, and you made updates that require full load or load from staging, a warning dialog appears showing the following options:

• Cancel: to save the changes to the draft version.
• Save: to save the changes to a saved version.
  • An orange triangle with an exclamation mark appears before the object name if the object data still exists in the engine memory.
  • A red triangle with an exclamation mark appears before the object name if the object data is cleared or evicted from the engine memory.
  • When you hover over the triangle icon, a tooltip indicates the required load type.
  • The message banner shows a message with the objects that you must load.
  • The icons and message will remain till you or another user performs the required load or a scheduled load job runs the required load for the related object(s).

Summary section

The Summary section shows the following information for the physical schema:

Message banner

The Message banner displays messages as appropriate and appears only in the following cases:

• When you open a physical schema that another user has opened in the draft mode, the message confirms that you cannot update the physical schema because another user is editing it.
• When you open a physical schema of which you already have a draft version, the message confirms that you can either do changes that overwrite the existing draft or can open the draft and edit it. Select the message to open the draft version.
• When you preview an obsolete draft, the message confirms that you cannot edit this draft or promote it to a saved version. The banner also contains the Discard Draft option to delete the obsolete draft, whether it is your draft or another user’s draft.
• When you make some updates that require full load or load from staging and you select to save these changes, the message shows the objects that you must load their data.
  • The message will be displayed till you or another user performs the required load or a scheduled load job runs the required load for the related objects.

Tables tab

If there are already objects created for the physical schema, the Tables tab displays all the objects in the physical schema. Physical schema objects can be physical schema tables, aliases, Incorta Analyzer tables, Incorta SQL tables, or Materialized Views. Use the options in the + New or the + option in the Tables tab to add new objects to the physical schema.

For information about the available details and the actions that you can perform using the Tables tab, refer to Tools → Schema Designer → Tables.

Joins tab

The Joins tab shows all join relationships related to the physical schema objects, whether they are self-join, schema join, or cross-schema join relationships. Use the Join option in the + New or the + (Add New Join) option in the Joins tab to add new join relationships between objects in the same physical schema or other physical schemas.

For information about how to manage joins, refer to Tools → Schema Designer → Joins.

Schema Designer actions for a physical schema

Using the Schema Designer, you can perform the following actions for a physical schema:

• Add or edit the physical schema description
• Optimize the performance for physical schema objects
• Share the physical schema
• Explore physical schema data
• Review the status of the schema update jobs

Add or edit the physical schema description

• In the Schema Designer, select Settings (gear icon).
• Select Edit Description.
• In the Edit Description dialog, enter or update the physical schema description. You can enter up to 500 alphanumeric characters, including spaces and special characters.
• Select Save.

Optimize the performance for physical schema objects

• In the Schema Designer, select Settings (gear icon).
• Select Performance Optimization.
• In the Optimize Table Performance dialog, in the objects list, for each object you want to optimize the performance, select the check box, and for each object you do not want to optimize the performance, clear the check box.
• Select Save.

Share the physical schema

• In the Schema Designer, in the Action bar, select Settings (gear icon).
• Select Share.
• In the Share dialog, you can do the following:
  • remove an existing user or group
  • modify the existing access rights for a user or group
  • add a new user or group with the required access rights

Explore physical schema data

• In the Schema Designer, in the Action bar, select Explore Data.
• Use the Analyzer to create insights referencing columns of the physical schema objects.

Review the status of the schema update jobs

• In the Schema Designer, in the Summary section, select the Model Update Status link.
• In the Model Update Viewer, review the schema update job status.