Explain the purpose of Data elements

[sudhakar_viswa]

Hi,

I have gone through the help.But i could not find the information about data elements.please explain about data elements.what is the use of data elements.And how to create and how to use the data elements

Thanks,

sudhakar

[myotoo]

Hi Sudhakar,

Go to DS help index tab, search for "data elements". It explains quite details how to create/use data elements.


M

[sudhakar_viswa]

Hi,

Now i came to know how to create data elements.But, i do not know the use of the data elements.Explain me

Thanks,
sudhakar

[roy]

Hi,
Data Elements are optional.
Their pupose is to enable common language regarding simple or complex data element between developers.
Using then, building transformations between data elements to data elements and/or other types is solely up to the developer of the transformation.
i.e. what would you define as a phone_number type?
is it something like:
PhoneNum varchar(30)
Or is it:
Phone.CountryPrefix Decimal(3,0)
Phone.AreaCode Decimal(4,0)
Phone....

Once you have such types defined it is:
1. Very clear what you mean when you say Phone (as data type)
2. Easy to validate the info you have on a customer according to the types of the elements
3. Very clear and easy to convert between different formats, after you build the transformation transforms or routines.

The above is as they say " in a nut shell "

Again using Data Elelments id optional and is not enforced by DS in any way!

IHTH,

[ray.wurlod]

Data elements are cool. I think of them as "luggage tags" for data so that, for example, I can identify one ten digit number as a telephone number and another ten digit number as a part number and yet another ten digit number as a money amount with an implied decimal placeholder. Businesses (or auditors) are often very interested in being able to track "Money", "Revenue" and so on, which is readily accomplished by performing Usage Analysis on systematically, consistently and thoroughly applied data elements.
Data elements have neither meaning nor effect outside of DataStage.