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Object Catalog

The object catalog contains all the elements that Manta Flow has found and analyzed in your environment. To connect to Manta Flow Viewer, enter the following URL into a supported web browser and replace <server_name> and <port> with the values provided by your application administrator:

http://<server_name>:<port>/manta-dataflow-server/viewer

You’ll be taken to the login screen. Log in to see the application’s home page.

Click the Help icon in the upper-right part of the screen for information about the application and its license. You’ll see a list of available modules for your version of the application and details about your license (for example, the expiration date, license type, and information about the capacity of scripts and revisions).

This article describes:

The different components of the object catalog, and what they are used for.
What you can learn there.
How to browse and search the object catalog.
How to change the version of elements you see in the object catalog (for example, you can see elements from earlier revisions of the repository).
How to select elements for a dataflow analysis and then run the analysis.

Get to Know the Object Catalog

The following picture shows the object catalog home page and its various components.

Components of the object catalog home page: Left Panel, Central Panel, Right Panel

The header includes a search bar, the current user, a button with information about your application and license, and a logout button.

The rest of the page is divided into three main areas:

1. Left Panel

Left panel content

The left panel contains a list of elements in your repository and a revision selector (so you can choose which revision of the repository to view).

Revision selector that allows you to choose which version of your repository you would like to view
Button that lets you compare objects and lineage between any two revisions to highlight differences. As of R42.5, the button for revision comparison was moved from top-left corner of the screen to the bottom-right corner of the screen.
Layer/perspectives selector
List of the elements in your repository

2. Central Panel

The content of the central panel depends on whether you have searched for an element.

If you haven’t searched for an element, you’ll see the children elements of any element you’ve selected in the left panel.
If you have searched for an element, the central panel will contain your search results.

Content of the central panel when you searched for an element

Filters for displayed objects. There are the technology and type filters and as of R41, the attribute filters which can be added by the More filters button. The attribute filters can be added and also removed from the screen and from filtering.
List/table of objects

Note: For the attribute filters, when you add one attribute filter to the screen, even if you don’t select anything it will appear only the results that contains this attribute.

In this central table area, if you double click on an element line, you will be redirected to the page containing the children’s table of the clicked element (if the clicked element has any child), no matter if you searched for an element or if you cliked on an element from left panel.

3. Right Panel

Right panel content

The right panel contains further details on any element you’ve clicked on, the list of elements you’ve selected for visualization, and the visualization parameters box where you can choose how to visualize your data.

Information about the selected object
Elements you’ve chosen to visualize in the dataflow analysis
Settings you’ve applied for visualizing your dataflow analysis
Visualize button to open the dataflow analysis diagram for the selected elements

Browse the Object Catalog

The left panel in the object catalog lists every element that Manta Flow has found and analyzed in your environment. Generally, there are storage objects such as tables; transformation objects such as views, procedures, packages, and ETL jobs; and BI/reporting objects. The root elements of the catalog join together all the objects from one resource. For example, there is a resource for all files containing data (elements from the first group) called Filesystem, and there is a resource containing all workflows and sessions from Informatica PowerCenter (elements from the second group) called IFPC. Each element belongs to a particular layer (e.g., tables and files belong to the physical layer, assets belong to the business layer). In the case of two or more layers, the layer tabs are displayed above the element hierarchy. It is possible to select a layer by clicking on the appropriate tab. Only the elements belonging to the selected layer are visible.

Browsing hierarchy of objects

To browse the hierarchy of objects, click the arrow to the left of an element to expand it. Each expanded level contains (respectively) folders, workflows, sessions, transformations, and finally, ports.

To the left of an element is an icon that represents which type of element it is.
To the right of an element is a number that represents the number of immediate child elements beneath it.
As of R42.2, deduced objects are shown in italics. Learn more about deduction and how IBM Manta Data Lineage handles unresolved references to database connections.

Element shown in italics, with additional information: This element has been deducted from an unresolved reference.

Click an element to see more information in the Element Details box; for example, its technology, type, and full path. (See the following image.)

Example of the details of an element

Starting from version R42.4, a more informative column description is displayed instead of Column names (which are in most cases autogenerated as numerical ordinal value) for Files under Filesystem assets. The column descriptions are also stored as attribute of the column and usually come from the tool that reads/writes the file (most often data integration tool). This substitution for a more user-friendly name is applied to both the Object catalog and Lineage listing, as illustrated in the following screenshot. In cases when Manta Alias is specified for the column, it takes precedence and is displayed accordingly. However, it's important to note that these substituted names derived from the description attributes cannot be utilized as keywords for search purposes.

Note: It is not applied to any exports. In the exports, the description columns are exported the same way as regular attributes.

Description columns used instead of numeric names for Column assets in Filesystem

Search the Object Catalog

If you’re not sure exactly where to find the element you’re looking for, you can search for it.

For example: If you want to find a table with the word “address” in it, search for the word “address”. Any elements in the repository that have this word in their name will be listed. Elements with names that exactly match the search term are shown as first.

Next to each element, you’ll also see its full path, its type, and any active tags so you can easily identify the correct element.
Click a row to see the Element Details box. If you want to use an element in a dataflow analysis, hover over the element with your mouse and click the + button to add it to Selected Elements. Learn more about configuring and running a dataflow analysis.
You can filter your search results by Technology or Type using the dropdowns above the search results area. Select a technology or type to only see search results that match your selection.
As of R41, you can also filter by Attribute. Select one attribute (e.g. Definition Source) using the More filters button and then a new filter will be created (just like Technology and Type filter), the only difference is that the attribute filters can be removed by clicking on the X button next to it.
In addition to searching with keywords, you can now initiate a search across the entire repository without specifying a search term. Click the “Zoom” icon in the header bar, or press “Enter” when the keyword input field is empty. Upon activation, you will see “Search results in the entire repository” as a headline. This feature allows you to view all elements in the repository and then narrow down the results using filters for Technology, Type, or Attributes as needed.

Search results examples Search results with additional filters

Generated attribute filter (Definition Source).
Button for removing the current filter.
Search for attribute filter options. When you select a new one, a new attribute filter is generated. If you deselect one option, the corresponding attribute filter will be removed.

Choose the Revision Version of Displayed Elements

To learn more about what revisions are, check Understanding Revisions. The Revision Selector above the list of elements on the left side allows you to see earlier versions of objects. By default, you’ll see the latest version of objects committed to the repository. To see a different version, click the dropdown and choose an earlier revision.

Screenshot showing revision version

Searching for Revisions

The Revision Selector lists all versions committed to the repository. If a major version has minor revisions, it’ll have a dropdown arrow next to it that you can click to see its minor revisions. Click an earlier revision to see previous versions of your objects listed in the object catalog.
Use the search bar in the Revision Selector to search for specific revisions. They can be searched by either revision number or date.

Visualize Your Data Lineage

Step 1: Select the Elements You Want to Analyze

If you want to carry out a dataflow analysis for one or more of the elements in the object catalog, you’ll need to move them to the Selected Elements list in the right panel. There are two ways you can add an element to the selected elements list.

From the Object Catalog list:

Browse the object catalog for the element you want to add.
Click the element and drag it to the Selected Elements section in the right panel or hover your mouse over the element and click the + button on the right.

From the list of Search Results:

Search for the element you want to add to Selected Elements.
Find the element in the list.
Hover your mouse over it and click the + button on the right.

To remove an element from the list, click the Trash icon to the right of the element. To remove all elements in the list, click the Trash icon at the top.

If you select an element that contains other elements, a dataflow analysis will be performed on all its descendants. For example, if you select a table, the dataflow analysis will include all the table’s columns.

When you have elements in the Selected Elements box and select a different layer, a dialog will be displayed to confirm the layer switch and remove elements from Selected Elements.

Step 2: Choose How to Visualize Your Data Flows

Once you’ve selected element(s) for a dataflow visualization, you can visualize them. You have two options.

Select a predefined visualization parameter set from the dropdown. The names of the parameters are short but descriptive to highlight what level of detail you can expect. Under Visualization Parameters, you can see a predefined list of configurations. Ask your Manta Data Lineage administrator to adjust them or create new if needed.
Fine-tune the visualization parameters to customize your view. Click on the button next to the Visualization Parameters dropdown to override the predefined settings for your visualization so that the output meets your needs and expectations. Note that these won’t be persisted and you need to ask your Manta Data Lineage administrator to override them persistently. The following table contains a list, including descriptions, of the individual parameters you can adjust.

Click the Visualize button to visualize your results using the selected visualization parameters.

Field name	Description
Detail	The detail parameter helps you show the affected elements at the most suitable level of detail. For example, if you want to see which databases are affected by data from a selected column, select Low Detail (because databases are low detail). If you want to see which columns are affected by the same data, select High Detail (because columns are high-detail elements). This prevents visual overload. Low detail — Shows the top-level elements such as databases, directories, and repositories. This level is suitable when only the big picture is necessary. Medium detail — In addition to low-detail elements, you’ll see mid-level elements such as tables, files, transformations, and statements. High detail — In addition to the low-detail and mid-level elements, you’ll see high-detail elements such as tables, files, transformation columns, and ports. This level is suitable when the most precise analysis is necessary. Note: This parameter only influences the initial arrangement of the visualization. Afterward, you can set the level of detail for each object individually.
Direction	Use the direction parameter to choose whether you see objects that are influenced by the selected elements or objects that influence the selected elements. For example, if it is necessary to enlarge the amount of data stored in a column, you might want to know which other columns in the environment must be enlarged to avoid losing data. On the other hand, you might want to know which source systems a business report is computed from. In some cases, both pieces of information will be necessary at once. For each of these cases, a direction option is set. Forward — only shows objects that are influenced by the selected element(s) Backward — only shows objects that influence the selected element(s) Both — shows all objects that are influenced by, or influence, the selected object(s) Note: It isn’t possible to change this parameter once the visualization is displayed.
Flows	The Visualize Indirect Flows parameter dictates whether you will also see objects that indirectly influence or are influenced by the selected elements. Generally, there are two types of data flows. A Direct Data Flow describes the connection between two objects. A data flow is direct if data from a source object is transformed into data in a target object. An Indirect Data Flow describes the connection between two objects. An indirect data flow is indirect if data from a source object somehow influences the data which will be stored in the target (without directly transforming it). You can manage this parameter by checking a box. If the box is unchecked, you’ll only see objects that are transitively connected to the selected elements by direct data flows. If the box is checked, you’ll see objects that are transitively connected to the selected elements by direct data flows and objects that are connected to all these objects by indirect data flows (not transitively). Note: It isn’t possible to change this parameter once the visualization is displayed.
Filters	The filter parameter specifies which technologies the objects shown in the visualization could be from. In large environments, data is stored in several types of databases / file systems and is transformed by several types of tools such as ETL or SQL. Depending on the type of analysis you want to run, you may only want to see where data is stored (without seeing details about how it’s transformed). You may only want to see the database storage. You may also want to see every detail. For each of these cases there is a filter option. (These options can be configured by your application administrator and thus could differ in your environment.) Everything — You’ll see objects from all analyzed technologies. DBs, files, and reports — You’ll only see database objects, files, and reports, not transformations. Database objects — You’ll only see database objects, not files or transformations. Important objects — You’ll only see database objects without inner tables, functions, or procedures. This is the best one to start with to prevent visual overload. You’ll only see filters which are valid for the layer you’ve selected. When you select a different layer, the filter option list will be updated automatically. Note: This parameter only influences the initial arrangement of the visualization. Afterward, you can set the level of detail for each object individually.
Steps displayed	Choose the number of dataflow steps which will be initially displayed in the visualization. This prevents a huge number of objects from being shown at once. In large environments, the number of objects that influence or are influenced by selected elements can be enormous. For readability, it’s better to limit the number of elements shown in one graph, especially because, in many cases, it is only necessary to analyze the nearest dataflow neighbors in detail. Do not worry about not being able to see anything when looking at the big picture (low detail is selected or only database objects should be shown) because the distance is counted between the objects that you will see. For example, let’s imagine that you have a table in a database that is exported to a file, and then this file is transformed in an ETL tool via many transformations into another file, which is finally loaded onto another table in another database. If you select the source table, set the filter to see only database objects, and set the steps displayed parameter to one, you will see the source and target tables connected. Note: This parameter only influences the initial arrangement of the visualization. Afterward, you can discover further data flows.