Creating taxonomies

With the Taxonomy editor of the InfoSphere™ Warehouse Design Studio, you can create taxonomies.
The number of taxonomy levels determines the longest path in the taxonomy tree and the term level. This means that the following terms represent a taxonomy with three levels:
beverages - juice - orange juice
Each level can include a name column and an integer ID column. The ID column is not shown in the Taxonomy editor, however, you can export it after the taxonomy is updated.

If the ID column for a level is empty, unique IDs are generated for the terms. If the name column for a level is empty, the ID column is used as name.

The highest level in the tree is level 1. The lowest level is the terms column. Asymetric trees are generated when entries in columns are empty.

You can create taxonomies in the following ways:
  • Creating an empty taxonomy and adding terms and hierarchy levels by using the Taxonomy editor
  • Importing dictionary entries from a dictionary
  • Importing a taxonomy from database tables

You can export taxonomies into database tables and use them, for example, in OLAP star models or for association modeling.

To create a taxonomy from a dictionary, follow these steps:
  1. In the InfoSphere Warehouse Design Studio, click File > New > Taxonomy.
  2. On the Create a new taxonomy page of the Create Taxonomy wizard, select the data warehousing project to be used, type a name for the taxonomy in the Taxonomy Name entry field, and click Next.
  3. On the Select Import Source page of the Create Taxonomy wizard, select the radio button to create a taxonomy from an input source and click Next.

    By default, Dictionary is selected in the list of import sources.

  4. On the Select Dictionary page of the Create Taxonomy wizard, select the dictionary to be used and click Finish.

    The terms are added to the list of unassigned terms of the taxonomy. You can use the Taxonomy editor to create a level hierarchy for these terms.

To create a taxonomy from a database table, follow these steps:
  1. In the InfoSphere Warehouse Design Studio, click File > New > Taxonomy.
  2. On the Create a new taxonomy page of the Create Taxonomy wizard, select the data warehousing project to be used, type a name for the taxonomy in the Taxonomy Name entry field, and click Next.
  3. On the Select Import Source page of the Create Taxonomy wizard, select the radio button to create a taxonomy from an input source, select Database from the list of import sources, and click Next.
  4. On the Select Connection page of the Create Taxonomy wizard, select to use an existing connection, select the database to be used from the list of existing connections, and click Next.

    You can also create a new connection if a connection for your database does not yet exist.

  5. On the Select a Table page of the Create Taxonomy wizard, select the table to be used to create a taxonomy from and click Next.
  6. On the Specify Taxonomy Levels page of the Create Taxonomy wizard:
    1. Use the arrows to specify the number of taxonomy levels to be used in the Number of Levels field.
    2. To specify the taxonomy level for a column in the table, click the Taxonomy Level field of a column and select a level from the drop-down list, for example, Term_Name.

      You can only assign LEVEL IDs to columns of type integer.

    3. Repeat the previous step for each column in the table and click Finish.


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