Data source minimal property settings

Assign properties from your data source to each minimal property and choose the settings that are appropriate for your data.

Depending on the options that you selected in previous tabs, you might be able to edit only some of the properties, and some values might be either predefined, or preselected.

For user interface entry data sources, all the properties are preassigned.

Table 1. Description of the fields on the Minimal Properties tab
Field Description
Name The property to supply the name of the data item for display in the user interface. If you do not select a property, the system generates a name. The format of the generated name is data_source_label.objectID, where objectID is an internal identifier that is assigned to the data item in the target table.

For Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) data sources, the property is mapped to the headline CAP element.
Area name The property to supply the area name, if you want a data item to be displayed on a location map. A named area is a user-defined shape that outlines a portion of a location map. Any data item with an area name that matches the name of an area on one or more location maps, is displayed on all the location maps with that named area. When you select a property in this field, your data items are not displayed on the geospatial map.

For CAP for location maps only, the property is mapped to the areaId value, which is in the CAP geocode element that is within the area element.
Area mapping Area mapping determines whether incoming data items are contained within the boundary of any data item from one of the boundary area type data sources. Assign one or more data sources from data sources that are available as boundary area types.
Make time and date filtering optional for this data source If you select this option, in the Operations view, you can choose whether to apply the time and date filter settings that are specified on the When pane in the Filter window.
Start date and time, End date and time The properties that supply the values that indicate the start and end times for a data item. The start date and time value can be used to filter data items through the filter. If you do not specify values, the values default to the time that data was most recently imported into the data source. However, if you specify a string format for the field type, you must specify a start date and time, and an end date and time.

You can select time stamp or string format. The system default is to expect time and date in the standard relational database time stamp format. If you set the field type to String, you must supply the string format on the Timezone & Other tab. For more information about setting these formats, see the Time format and Date format field descriptions. For some data source types, the Timestamp option is preselected for the value of Field type.

For CAP data sources, the value of Start date and time is mapped to the onset CAP element, and the value of End date and time is mapped to the expires CAP element.
Last update date and time The property that contains the time that a data item is updated. An update to the data that is already stored in the system is triggered when the value of this property in your data source is more recent than the value that is stored by the system.

When the data item is ingested, by default the data receiver sets the value of the property to the current system date and time. To change the default behavior so that the property value is set to the last update date and time that is listed in the source data, see Configuring last update times for data sources.

For CAP data sources, a synthetic value from the data receiver is assigned.
Location format The format in which your data source supplies the data for a map marker:
  • Select None if your data source does not require location information. Data items that are received from a data source that has no location information are displayed only on the list in the Operations view.
  • Select Latitude and longitude to supply coordinates for a single point marker. Valid source data formats include NVARCHAR, VARCHAR, CHAR, TEXT, NTEXT, NCHAR, DOUBLE, REAL, FLOAT, DECIMAL, and NUMERIC.
  • Select Shape to supply data for any of the geometry format options that are listed on the Timezone & Other tab. Valid source data formats include shape files, NVARCHAR, VARCHAR, CHAR, TEXT, NTEXT, NCHAR, CLOB, "DB2GSE"."ST_POINT", "DB2GSE"."ST_LINESTRING", "DB2GSE"."ST_POLYGON", "DB2GSE"."ST_MULTIPOINT", "DB2GSE"."ST_MULTILINESTRING", "DB2GSE"."ST_MULTIPOLYGON", "DB2GSE"."ST_GEOMCOLLECTION", and "DB2GSE"."ST_GEOMETRY".

For shape file and CAP data sources, the Shape option is preselected for the value of Location format.

If you selected the Data for boundary option on the Basics tab, the value of Location format is preassigned to Shape.
Shape If you select the shape option in the Location format field, specify the property that stores the shape data in the Shape field. If the shape data is stored in a separate database table, this value will be matched to the value of a property in the shape database table, where the property name is specified in the Lookup name field. For information about importing shape data from a separate database table, see the related link.

For CAP data sources, the value of Shape is set to location, and location is mapped to the area CAP element. However, a location is not required. If an area value is not supplied in the CAP message, the location value is set to null, and the CAP message is not displayed on the map. If the CAP message matches any routing expressions that you define on the Routing tab, it is still routed to the appropriate destinations.
Lookup location, Lookup name If the shape data is stored in a separate database table, specify the details for locating the shape data in the database table. Note that the database table that contains the shape data must be either in the IOCDB database, or another authenticated database.
  • In the Lookup location field, enter the name of the database table that contains the shape data.
  • In the Lookup name field, enter the name of the property in the Lookup location database table whose value will be matched to the property value that is specified in the Shape field.
Geometry format The format for the marker on the map. Based on your choice in the Location format, select the appropriate geometry. Select All for data sources that contain data items of multiple geometry types, for example, polygons, points and lines.
Note: If you select All, point data items are displayed only as single points on the map and not as clusters, even if the data source contains many point data items, or only point data items.
Depending on what you select in this field, assign either an icon or a color style on the Appearance tab:
  • Select a point marker and assign an icon.
  • Select a shape marker and assign a color style.

For CAP data sources, select All. The geometry format is determined by the content of the CAP message. CAP messages can contain either points, or polygons.

If you selected Yes for the Data for boundary option on the Basics tab, the value of Geometry format is preassigned to Polygon.
Assessment date The date that a data item is due for assessment. Some solution applications incorporate a data assessment. Refer to the documentation that is specific to your solution for more detail.
Time zone offset The property identifies the field in the data source whose value represents the difference in minutes between the source time values and their UTC representation. To get the UTC equivalent time, the time zone offset value is subtracted from the source time value. If a time zone offset property is not defined, then the source time values are assumed to be in UTC format and are stored unchanged. The time zone offset value must be divisible by 30; for example, 30, 60, or 90. The adjustment is applied only to time values in the Start date and time and End date and time properties. See the time zone offset example near the end of the topic.

For CAP data sources, you cannot edit the Time zone offset property. The CAP standard requires all date and time values to be in a format that explicitly includes offset information. Therefore, an additional time zone offset field is not required.
Time format, Date format The format in which time and date string values are supplied by your data source. The format must be compliant with the standard contained in the link at the end of the topic. If you set the date and time field type to String on the Time & Date tab, enter the format here. If a data item is received where either the start date and time, or the end date and time, do not conform to the format that you specify here, the system date and time is applied to the data item.
Note: If you do not specify a time and date format for a data source that acquires its data from a CSV file, the default format that is applied is yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.

Time zone offset example

In a sample scenario, you might have source data that contains events that occur in different geographic locations throughout the year. The time of the event is recorded in local time but always occurs at midday UTC. The following table shows examples of source time values with corresponding time zone offset values and stored times. If the source data is in a region that supports daylight saving, the offset value varies depending on the time of year.
Table 2. Sample source times with corresponding time zone offset and stored time values
Location Source time Time zone offset in minutes Stored time (UTC)
Ireland (Winter) 2010-12-10 12:00:00 0 2010-12-10 12:00:00
Ireland (Summer) 2010-06-10 13:00:00 60 2010-06-10 12:00:00
New York (Winter) 2010-12-10 07:00:00 -300 2010-12-10 12:00:00
New York (Summer) 2010-06-10 08:00:00 -240 2010-06-10 12:00:00
Beijing (No DST) 2010-06-10 20:00:00 480 2010-06-10 12:00:00