Report-based imports
Reports are another way to load data from external sources into IBM® Product Master. They are similar to imports and are typically run on a scheduled basis. They are primarily designed to produce data reports but are commonly used as generic "jobs" to do a number of scheduled tasks. They are sometimes used to import data.
Design considerations
The following list
shows the considerations for creating a report-based import:
- No catalog locking
- A report can update an item without locking the destination catalog. This can be useful in situations where you have transactional updates coming in and do not want to interrupt the day-to-day operation of the catalog.
- Item locking
- Reports lock the entire set of items that are imported for the entire duration of the report. Therefore, no further user activity is possible on the items that are imported by the report. For example, if a workflow needs to update an item at the same time the report is run, the workflow and the report may conflict.
- Loose design
- Reports are basically a scheduled script and do not have much of the overhead that is associated with imports. There are no specs, spec maps, or data sources that need to be created.
- Loading data
- Can load data into multiple catalogs or hierarchies.
- No catalog versioning
- Reports do not create versions by default. This is beneficial in cases where you want to run many imports throughout the day but do not want the overhead of creating versions. For example, a transactional model where a message queue is polled every 15 minutes for item updates. A report can be used to poll the queue and process items without having to create a new catalog version each time.
- Frequent small updates
- Best suited for frequent small updates that need to happen throughout the day.
- Multiple edits
- There are some negative effects to consider such as multiple edits to the same item at once.
- Concurrent import jobs
- For optimal performance, avoid running concurrent import jobs.