Configuring a data source association

An administrator can associate one data source with another data source. For example, you might want to associate a data source that is used to monitor events with a data source that is used to initiate work orders.

Before you begin

To access the data source association tool, in the navigation menu, click Administration > Configuration Tools > Data Source Association.

About this task

Use the data source association tool to create a data source association. You can update and delete existing associations.

The relationship type option determines whether a manual or dynamic association is created:

Manual association: Create a data source association so that users can manually create relationships between data items that are in a first data source and data items that are in a second associated data source. Users must manually associate data items in the Operations view.
Dynamic association: Configure a mapping between two properties that are in a first data source and a second data source. Consider a pair of data items, where one data item belongs to the first data source and one data item belongs to the second data source. If the value of the mapped properties matches in both data items, a dynamic association is created between the two data items.

Relationship type options apply only if you select a manual mapping type. The relationship type options define whether each data item from the first data source can be associated with either one, or many, data items from the second data source:

One to one: Only one data item in the second data source can be mapped to a data item in the first data source.
One to many: Many data items in the second data source can be mapped to a data item in the first data source.

IBM® Intelligent Operations Center for Citizen Collaboration app users can view visible properties from the first data source in associated data items from the second data source. Alternatively, you can use the REST API service to view properties that are included from the first data source.

Procedure

To create a data source association, click Create, and then either enter or select values in each of the fields.
To update a data source association, click the name of the data source association in the list, and then update the settings. You can update all of the settings, except the first data source field, the second data source field, the first data source property field, and the second data source property field
To delete a data source association, click the name of the data source association in the list, and then click Delete.

Example

The following example assumes that the data sources are configured to use manual association.

For the first data source, configure a highway maintenance data source that creates master problem reports for resolving highway maintenance issues. For the second data source, configure an observation data source that monitors problem reports that are related to highway maintenance issues. You associate the first, highway maintenance data source to the second, observation data source. In the first data source, you identify some of the properties that indicate the status of highway maintenance master problem reports, and include them in the second observation data source.

When the second observation data source receives two problem reports for the same street, a city administrator creates a master problem report through the first data source to resolve the highway maintenance issue. The city administrator then associates the two problem reports from the second observation data source to the master problem report in the first highway maintenance data source. Users who submitted problem reports can monitor the status of the resolution process through the properties that are included in their problem reports from the master problem report.